The Dao Of Fishing
Does a trout know it lives in water?
A lake her own watery universe,
where survival depends on speed
and an ability to find sustenance
The trout prays to her fish god;
“Lord god I hunger…feed me”
As if magic,
a fat worm drifts down from above
Instinctively the eager trout greedily
gulps down the wiggler
She then feels something sharp
in her gullet, then something
pulling her upward
She struggles;
Twisting and writhing
She’s pulled to waters surface
where she desperately jumps
It’s no use; the pull is too strong
Giving up she relaxes,
as a green web scoops down
and roughly encircles her
She gasps for breath in this dry
hostile alien environment
She hears a strange sound;
“Dad, ain’t she a beauty”
A beefy hand grasps the trout
Something cold is thrust down her throat
She feels the sharp hook dislodge and pull free
She makes a weak attempt to wiggle free,
just as another beefy hand holding something
wooden strikes downward…
She’s losing consciousness, but fights the
looming blackness long enough to think;
“God why hast thou forsaken me”
Then silence…
ROTMS
poem by Ray Lucero
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Related quotes
First things first for my friend Ben
The moon is shining on the lake
where trout are rising after flies
this tells me that it’s time to fish.
The gentle art of casting flies
correctly as my father taught,
has filled full many a supper dish
A trout that’s fried in bacon grease
Has a unique taste all its own,
If I were hungry I would wish.
For a fresh trout upon my plate
A feast I would appreciate.
But first you have to catch your fish.
28-May-07
poem by Ivor .e Hogg
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An Eagle's Life
An Eagle soars high above,
Skimming seas, lakes and cove,
Piercing, sharp, an Eagle's eye,
Swooping down, did spy,
Swimming trout en route,
Mother Nature's food.
She swooped down and without a doubt,
The majestic eagle has just caught a trout.
With one swipe, her claw did grab,
A fleshy trout, hardly a flap.
Yes, the Fish Music
A trout-colored wind blows
through my eyes, through my fingers,
and I remember how the trout
used to hide from the dinosaurs
when they came to drink at the river.
The trout hid in subways, castles,
and automobiles. They waited patiently for the dinosaurs to go away.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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Fish And Shadow
The salmon-trout drifts in the stream,
The soul of the salmon-trout floats over the stream
Like a little wafer of light.
The salmon moves in the sun-shot, bright shallow sea. . . .
As light as the shadow of the fish
that falls through the water,
She came into the large room by the stair,
Yawning a little she came with the sleep still upon her.
'I am just from bed. The sleep is still in my eyes.
'Come. I have had a long dream.'
And I: That wood?
'And two springs have passed us.'
'Not so far, no, not so far now,
There is a place but no one else knows it
A field in a valley . . .
Qu'ieu sui avinen,
Ieu lo sai,'
She must speak of the time
Of Arnaut de Mareuil, I thought, 'qu'ieu sui avinen.’
Light as the shadow of the fish
That falls through the pale green water.
poem by Ezra Pound
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Fish
The cop holds me up like a fish;
he feels the huge bones
surrounding my eyes,
and he runs a thumb under them,
lifting my eyelids
as if they were
envelopes filled with the night.
Now he turns
my head back and forth, gently,
until I'm so tame and still
I could be a tiny, plastic
skull left on the
dashboard of a junked car.
By now he's so sure of me
he chews gum,
and drops his flashlight to his side;
he could be cleaning a trout
while the pines rise into the darkness,
though tonight trout
are freezing into bits of stars
under the ice. When he lets me go
I feel numb. I feel like
a fish burned by his touch, and turn
and slip into the cold
night rippling with neons,
and the razor blades
of the poor,
and the torn mouths on posters.
Once, I thought even through this
I could go quietly as a star turning over and over
in the deep truce of its light.
Now, I must
go on repeating the last, filthy
words on the lips
of this shunken head
shining out of its death in the moon—
until trout surface
with their petrified, round eyes,
and the stars begin moving.
poem by Larry Levis
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The Catch
You take me to the restaurant where one
plays God over a fish tank. The fat trout
pace their green cage, waiting to be taken
out of an element. Who knows what they know?
There are thirteen in a tank meant
for goldfish. I don¹t care which one I eat.
But the waiter expects a performance,
con brio. This is a ritual
solemn as wine-tasting or the Last Judgement.
Eating is never so simple as hunger.
Between the appetite and its satisfaction
falls the net, groping blindly in dark water.
The fish startle and thrash. You make your catch,
flourishing a bit for the waiter
so as not to be thought a peasant. You force
air into the trout's gills as if he were Adam,
and send him squirming toward the kitchen
to be born. Then it's my turn. I surprise
myself with my dexterity, almost
enjoying the game. A liter of wine
later, the fish return, foppishly dressed
in mushrooms and pimentos, their eyes
dreamily hazed. Darling, I am drunk. I watch you pluck
the trout's ribs out of your perfect teeth.
poem by Erica Jong
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Part 4 of Trout Fishing in America
THE AUTOPSY OF
TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA
This is the autopsy of Trout Fishing in America as if Trout
Fishing in America had been Lord Byron and had died in
Missolonghi, Greece, and afterward never saw the shores
of Idaho again, never saw Carrie Creek, Worsewick Hot
Springs, Paradise Creek, Salt Creek and Duck Lake again.
The Autopsy of Trout Fishing in America:
"The body was in excellent state and appeared as one that
had died suddenly of asphyxiation. The bony cranial vault
was opened and the bones of the cranium were found very
hard without any traces of the sutures like the bones of a
person 80 years, so much so that one would have said that
the cranium was formed by one solitary bone. . . . The
meninges were attached to the internal walls of the cranium
so firmly that while sawing the bone around the interior to
detach the bone from the dura the strength of two robust men
was not sufficient. . . . The cerebrum with cerebellum
weighed about six medical pounds. The kidneys were very
large but healthy and the urinary bladder was relatively
small. "
On May 2, 1824, the body of Trout Fishing in America
left Missolonghi by ship destined to arrive in England on the
evening of June 29, 1824.
Trout Fishing in America's body was preserved in a cask
holding one hundred-eighty gallons of spirits: 0, a long way
from Idaho, a long way from Stanley Basin, Little Redfish
Lake, the Big Lost River and from Lake Josephus and the
Big Wood River.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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The Trout
Naughty little speckled trout,
Can't I coax you to come out?
Is it such great fun to play
In the water every day?
Do you pull the Naiads' hair
Hiding in the lilies there?
Do you hunt for fishes' eggs,
Or watch tadpoles grow their legs?
Do the little trouts have school
In some deep sun-glinted pool,
And in recess play at tag
Round that bed of purple flag?
I have tried so hard to catch you,
Hours and hours I've sat to watch you;
But you never will come out,
Naughty little speckled trout!
poem by Amy Lowell
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A street thug and a paid killer are professionals - beasts of prey, if you will, who have dissociated themselves from the rest of humanity and can now see human beings in the same way that trout fishermen see trout.
quote by Willard Gaylin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Gone Fishin
When good ole spring comes rollin’ round
And the trout are in the brook,
A longing comes over me with a bound
To cast my feathered hook.
Then I get all my tackle out
My rods and reels and roundabouts
To go fishing for those trout
That I’ve read so much about.
There’s monsters here the circulars say
But every cursed day
That I go fishing out that way
Those monsters all go in to stay.
I never saw the sun once
During all my stay
But I’ll go home and tell everyone
‘Bout the big ones that got away.
poem by George Hunter
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Pulled Up
Mommy, daddy, come and look at me now
Im a big man in a great big town
Years ago who would believe its true
Goes to show what a little faith can do
I was complaining, I was down in the dumps
I feel so strong now cause you pulled me up!
Pull me up up up up up up up up
I slipped, and I got pulled
Pulled up, I tripped, and then you pulled,
You pulled me up
I slipped, and I got pulled,
Pulled up, I slipped, and then you pulled,
You pulled me up pull me up pull me up...
Pulled me up up up up up up up up
I drift away to another land
Sleeping dreaming such a simple thing
I think of things that I might be
I see my name go down in history
I was complaining, I was down in the dumps
I feel so string now cause you pulled me up!
Pull me up up up up up up up up
I slipped, and I got pulled,
Pulled up, I tripped, and then you pulled,
You pulled me up
I tripped, and I got pulled
Pulled up, I slipped, and then you pulled
You pulled me up! pulled me up up, pulled me up...
Pulled me up up up up up up up up
I got up
cause you pulled me up
I stood up
cause you pulled me up
I got up
And that was because you pulled me up
I got up
In a little while you pulled me up
Pull me up up up up, up up up up!
Pull me up up up up up up up up!
I cast a shadow on the living-room wall
Dark and savage with a profile so sharp
Keep that wonderful food on the table
Theres really no hurry Ill eat in a while
I was complaining, I was down in the dumps
I feel so strong now cause you pulled me up!
Pull me up up up up up up up up!
I slipped, and I got pulled
Pulled up, I tripped, and then you pulled,
You pulled me up
I slipped, and I got pulled
Pulled up, I slipped,
And then you pulled, you pulled me up!
Pull me up...pull me up...watch out!
Pull me up up up up up up up up!
Pull me up up up up up up up up!
Pull me up up up up up up up up!
song performed by by Talking Heads
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It Was My Uncle Soul Sifting
it was my uncle soul
sifting in a leaned back
all the way chair down
by the old family lake
taking trout we spent
all day chasing through
reeds and lilies, dodging
loons and other birds
trying to outmaneuver
them in their own home
it was my uncle soul
sifting, lifting trout
entrails, rinsing off
blood and fish and dirt
in the cold lake water
telling me it used to
be a game of his, how
many fish he could trick
before the sun set.
it was my uncle soul
sifting, telling me his
favorite night was years
ago and how he had
only caught one lone
rainbow and was
sitting there, gutting
the heart out listening
to the radio the night
Roy Eldridge died.
it was my uncle soul
sifting, saying he forgot
how many fish he caught
just sat there listening
to old dead Roy play
while the fish cooked
over his burnt coal fire
it was the only way he
knew how to say
goodbye he said, and
tonight it’s me out
there soul sifting, lifting
bits of crumbled dirt and
dust, feeling a part of me
is out there still, the
big blue welling up
inside you, the hole
gone and filled up
with sky.
poem by Ben Paynter
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Pulicate Lake (Chennai)
A rollicking trip on a boat
we had through the Pulicate Lake.
The nests cast all along the creek
warn the boat-men take care.
Men, women and children
dip in and come up the water,
with pulsating trout in their palms
and dropp into the slinging bags and creels.
The weak and the old in loin-cloths
are holding the fishing-rods,
and peering at the wood pulp with eager
to lug up the unwary dab.
Some dogs are emerging out in knee-deep water,
with struggling dace between the teeth.
We looked at the scene with pity
though we had fried fish to crunch at lunch.
Oh dear! They're stone statues not birds
waiting to pick up the misled fish!
The scent of coastal stuff from my friends
drove away the shrimps from our way.
Ah! Some baskets and towels too swirl around
to catch the lusty wealth of the sea.
Never these fish roaming in the lake
could go back to the estuary.
poem by Rajendran Muthiah
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Dave Lilly
There's a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be full of trout,
But there's nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished out.
I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago,
And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen or so.
There was a man, Dave Lilly, who lived on the North Adams road,
And he spent all his time fishing, while his neighbors reaped and sowed.
He was the luckiest fisherman in the Berkshire hills, I think.
And when he didn't go fishing he'd sit in the tavern and drink.
Well, Dave is dead and buried and nobody cares very much;
They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such.
But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish;
He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but he certainly could fish.
The other night I was walking up the hill from Williamstown
And I came to the brook I mentioned,
and I stopped on the bridge and sat down.
I looked at the blackened water with its little flecks of white
And I heard it ripple and whisper in the still of the Summer night.
And after I'd been there a minute it seemed to me I could feel
The presence of someone near me, and I heard the hum of a reel.
And the water was churned and broken, and something was brought to land
By a twist and flirt of a shadowy rod in a deft and shadowy hand.
I scrambled down to the brookside and hunted all about;
There wasn't a sign of a fisherman; there wasn't a sign of a trout.
But I heard somebody chuckle behind the hollow oak
And I got a whiff of tobacco like Lilly used to smoke.
It's fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that brook;
And there's nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook.
But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set
I know that it's full of ghostly trout for Lilly's ghost to get.
I guess I'll go to the tavern and get a bottle of rye
And leave it down by the hollow oak, where Lilly's ghost went by.
I meant to go up on the hillside and try to find his grave
And put some flowers on it -- but this will be better for Dave.
poem by Joyce Kilmer
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Part 6 of Trout Fishing in America
THE HUNCHBACK TROUT
The creek was made narrow by little green trees that grew
too close together. The creek was like 12, 845 telephone
booths in a row with high Victorian ceilings and all the doors
taken off and all the backs of the booths knocked out.
Sometimes when I went fishing in there, I felt just like a
telephone repairman, even though I did not look like one. I
was only a kid covered with fishing tackle, but in some
strange way by going in there and catching a few trout, I
kept the telephones in service. I was an asset to society.
It was pleasant work, but at times it made me uneasy.
It could grow dark in there instantly when there were some
clouds in the sky and they worked their way onto the sun.
Then you almost needed candles to fish by, and foxfire in
your reflexes.
Once I was in there when it started raining. It was dark
and hot and steamy. I was of course on overtime. I had that
going in my favor. I caught seven trout in fifteen minutes.
The trout in those telephone booths were good fellows.
There were a lot of young cutthroat trout six to nine inches
long, perfect pan size for local calls. Sometimes there
were a few fellows, eleven inches or so--for the long dis-
tance calls.
I've always liked cutthroat trout. They put up a good fight,
running against the bottom and then broad jumping. Under
their throats they fly the orange banner of Jack the Ripper.
Also in the creek were a few stubborn rainbow trout, sel-
dom heard from, but there all the same, like certified pub-
lic accountants. I'd catch one every once in a while. They
were fat and chunky, almost as wide as they were long. I've
heard those trout called "squire" trout.
It used to take me about an hour to hitchhike to that creek.
There was a river nearby. The river wasn't much. The creek
was where I punched in. Leaving my card above the clock
I'd punch out again when it was time to go home.
I remember the afternoon I caught the hunchback trout.
A farmer gave me a ride in a truck. He picked me up at
a traffic signal beside a bean field and he never said a word
to me.
His stopping and picking me up and driving me down the
road was as automatic a thing to him as closing the barn
door, nothing need be said about it, but still I was in motion
traveling thirty-five miles an hour down the road, watching
houses and groves of trees go by, watching chickens and
mailboxes enter and pass through my vision.
Then I did not see any houses for a while. "This is where
I get out, " I said.
The farmer nodded his head. The truck stopped.
"Thanks a lot, " I said.
The farmer did not ruin his audition for the Metropolitan
Opera by making a sound. He just nodded his head again.
The truck started up. He was the original silent old farmer.
A little while later I was punching in at the creek. I put
my card above the clock and went into that long tunnel of
telephone booths.
I waded about seventy-three telephone booths in. I caught
two trout in a little hole that was like a wagon wheel. It was
one of my favorite holes, and always good for a trout or two.
I always like to think of that hole as a kind of pencil
sharpener. I put my reflexes in and they came back out with
a good point on them. Over a period of a couple of years, I
must have caught fifty trout in that hole, though it was only
as big as a wagon wheel.
I was fishing with salmon eggs and using a size 14 single
egg hook on a pound and a quarter test tippet. The two trout
lay in my creel covered entirely by green ferns ferns made
gentle and fragile by the damp walls of telephone booths.
The next good place was forty-five telephone booths in.
The place was at the end of a run of gravel, brown and slip-
pery with algae. The run of gravel dropped off and disap-
peared at a little shelf where there were some white rocks.
One of the rocks was kind of strange. It was a flat white
rock. Off by itself from the other rocks, it reminded me
of a white cat I had seen in my childhood.
The cat had fallen or been thrown off a high wooden side-
walk that went along the side of a hill in Tacoma, Washing-
ton. The cat was lying in a parking lot below.
The fall had not appreciably helped the thickness of the
cat, and then a few people had parked their cars on the cat.
Of course, that was a long time ago and the cars looked dif-
ferent from the way they look now.
You hardly see those cars any more. They are the old
cars. They have to get off the highway because they can't
keep up.
That flat white rock off by itself from the other rocks
reminded me of that dead cat come to lie there in the creek,
among 12, 845 telephone booths.
I threw out a salmon egg and let it drift down over that
rock and WHAM! a good hit! and I had the fish on and it ran
hard downstream, cutting at an angle and staying deep and
really coming on hard, solid and uncompromising, and then
the fish jumped and for a second I thought it was a frog. I'd
never seen a fish like that before.
God-damn ! What the hell!
The fish ran deep again and I could feel its life energy
screaming back up the line to my hand. The line felt like
sound. It was like an ambulance siren coming straight at
me, red light flashing, and then going away again and then
taking to the air and becoming an air-raid siren.
The fish jumped a few more times and it still looked like
a frog, but it didn't have any legs. Then the fish grew tired
and sloppy, and I swung and splashed it up the surface of
the creek and into my net.
The fish was a twelve-inch rainbow trout with a huge hump
on its back. A hunchback trout. The first I'd ever seen. The
hump was probably due to an injury that occurred when the
trout was young. Maybe a horse stepped on it or a tree fell
over in a storm or its mother spawned where they were
building a bridge.
There was a fine thing about that trout. I only wish I could
have made a death mask of him. Not of his body though, but
of his energy. I don't know if anyone would have understood
his body. I put it in my creel.
Later in the afternoon when the telephone booths began to
grow dark at the edges, I punched out of the creek and went
home. I had that hunchback trout for dinner. Wrapped in
cornmeal and fried in butter, its hump tasted sweet as the
kisses of Esmeralda.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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The Idler’s Calendar. Twelve Sonnets For The Months. April
TROUT--FISHING
This morning, through my window, half awake,
I felt the south wind blow; and presently,
With a tumultuous thrill and then a shake,
The nightingale broke forth in melody.
I rose in haste, and looked at the grey sky,
And read an omen. From its corner next
A book I drew, blest book, where fly on fly
Are all the letters of its well--thumbed text.
I chose my cast, a march--brown and a dun,
And ran down to the river, chasing hope.
At the first throw a mighty trout was on,
A very Samson, fit to burst a rope,
Yet tamed by one sad hank of yielding hair
And Fate, the fisherman of King and Pope.
Upon the grass he lies, and gasps the air,
Four silver pounds, sublimely fat and fair.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Sagebrush will whisper
when a trout sparkles rainbow,
jumps up to the sky.
haiku by Rick Stokes
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The Lake Josephus Days
We left Little Redfish for Lake Josephus, traveling along the good names — from Stanley to Capehorn to Seafoam to the Rapid River, up Float Creek, past the Greyhound Mine and then to Lake Josephus, and a few days after that up the trail to Hell-diver Lake with the baby on my shoulders and a good limit of trout waiting in Hell-diver.
Knowing the trout would wait there like airplane tickets for us to come, we stopped at Mushroom Springs and had a drink of cold shadowy water and some photographs taken of the baby and me sitting together on a log.
I hope someday we'll have enough money to get those pictures developed. Sometimes I get curious about them, wondering if they will turn out all right. They are in suspension now like seeds in a package. I'll be older when they are developed and easier to please. Look there's the baby! Look there's Mushroom Springs! Look there's me!
I caught the limit of trout within an hour of reaching Hell-diver, and my woman, in all the excitement of good fishing, let the baby fall asleep directly in the sun and when the baby woke up, she puked and I carried her back down the trail.
My woman trailed silently behind, carrying the rods and the fish. The baby puked a couple more times, thimblefuls of gentle lavender vomit, but still it got on my clothes, and her face was hot and flushed.
We stopped at Mushroom Springs. I gave her a small drink of water, not too much, and rinsed the vomit taste out of her mouth. Then I wiped the puke off my clothes and for some strange reason suddenly it was a perfect time, there at Mushroom Springs, to wonder whatever happened to the Zoot suit.
Along with World War II and the Andrews Sisters, the Zoot suit had been very popular in the early 40s. I guess they were all just passing fads.
A sick baby on the trail down from Hell-diver, July 1961, is probably a more important question. It cannot be left to go on forever, a sick baby to take her place in the galaxy, among the comets, bound to pass close to the earth every 173 years.
She stopped puking after Mushroom Springs, and I carried her back down along the path in and out of the shadows and across other nameless springs, and by the time we got down to Lake Josephus, she was all right.
She was soon running around with a big cutthroat trout in her hands, carrying it like a harp on her way to a concert — ten minutes late with no bus in sight and no taxi either.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread (1)
by Bob Dylan
Well, the comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus.
The poor little chauffeur, though, she was back in bed
On the very next day, with a nose full of pus.
Yea! Heavy and a bottle of bread
Yea! Heavy and a bottle of bread
Yea! Heavy and a bottle of bread
It's a one-track town, just brown, and a breeze, too,
Pack up the meat, sweet, we're headin' out
For Wichita in a pile of fruit.
Get the loot, don't be slow, we're gonna catch a trout
Get the loot, don't be slow, we're gonna catch a trout
Get the loot, don't be slow, we're gonna catch a trout
Now, pull that drummer out from behind that bottle.
Bring me my pipe, we're gonna shake it.
Slap that drummer with a pie that smells.
Take me down to California, baby
Take me down to California, baby
Take me down to California, baby
Yes, the comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus.
The poor little chauffeur, though, she was back in bed
On the very next day, with a nose full of pus.
Yea! Heavy and a bottle of bread
Yea! Heavy and a bottle of bread
Yea! Heavy and a bottle of bread
song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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