The Outer Isles

Above: ‘The bank was where I would watch the line whizz back and forth; where I would watch it catch the light above and flick it down to me in the shadows of the valley.’ (Image courtesy of my mate Les who loved the story, put it into AI and sent me what came out).

When I go in for something, I go all the way. It was like that with fishing, fly fishing to be exact. It wasn’t going to be something I just did; it was going to be me – I was going to be a fly fisherman, a great fly fisherman. That’s how people would know me.

My father introduced me to it when I was a boy. I remember standing next to him on the bank of the river below our house. He would be waist-deep in the swift current, moving deeper, shallower, upriver, downriver – always moving, always looking, searching. I would edge closer, feet wet, knee-deep, until the subtle warning would come and the instruction to move back to the bank with it. I would sulk and go but the bank was where I could take it all in and my father knew it. The bank was where I would watch the line whizz back and forth; where I would watch it catch the light above and flick it down to me in the shadows of the valley. I would watch it come to rest among the ripples of the water. My father would do things with the line—mend it, he called it—moving it across or back, or he would gently tug the line, letting the fly look like an insect in trouble, he would keep the line taught and strip it in, or he would let it drift, always ready to strike when a fish took the fly.

And then one would. The line would race across the surface, spray would fly, the reel would spit and scream and hiss, my father would holler, and the light would bounce. And there it was: the fish. It would leap in the air, twisting and turning trying to get that thing out of its mouth, that thing it didn’t understand. It was an insect, like one of thousands it had eaten, but no insect had ever done this before. Nothing had pulled like this. Where did this insect get its strength? How could it have such control? At those moments I felt like the whole river could sense its panic. It was like all life in the valley, all eyes, all senses would stop and wait to see what would become of one of its own.

Soon the fish would tire and my father would reel it in. The momentary commotion forgotten as the river returned to normal and the eyes of the valley would turn away as quietness would descend once again. For we too were part of that place. Life and death were part of that place – the hunter and the hunted. The valley knew it and the river knew it; we knew it, and it was expected.

Watching my father fishing was mesmerising. There was something so graceful about it, so beautiful—the long thick fly line moving back and forth across the backdrop of the valley, glistening with sunlight; forwards, then backwards; forwards, then backwards; its tight loops opening and closing and rolling—it was dancing and I was watching. It was art, the way I understood art back then. There was technique, there was form; there was practice and patience. And there were times when everything came together and I felt like I was inside a masterpiece. If that moment could be captured, it would be known as a moment of perfection. Folks would talk about it for years; it would hang on gallery walls or be displayed in museums where people would queue for miles to catch a glimpse of it; it would be printed in books for others to study and teachers would present it to their students and say: “This! This is what you must strive for”.

Sometimes, when I was a little older, I would take the net and scoop up the fish my father caught, taking them back to my father like an obedient dog playing fetch. But it was the fly line rolling back and forth in the half-light of the valley that changed me; the only movement save for the running river and the wind through the trees. It seemed out of place, but not: something modern and immediate, disrupting a place where time meant nothing; yet it fit right in. It was natural. My father was meant to be there. I was meant to be there – and I wanted to be there more than anything.

Those were special days, those boyhood days on the river. And with every cast the hook was set deeper, and I knew that I too would become a fly fisherman – a great fly fisherman. People would know me by my skill; they would write books about me, they would make movies about me.

It’s strange what we learn from our fathers. It might be fishing or hunting. It might be motorcars or music, a head for figures or the way to swing a bat. It’s what dreams are built on, the dreams of the innocent, the dreams of the young. But sometimes things come along and snatch those dreams right out of your head. Unexpected things. Or they make you question whether it was ever a good dream. Sometimes the sins of the father make you forget your dreams altogether – or make you want to.

My father’s gone now. He’s not dead, just gone. I haven’t seen him in a long while. He lives in the Outer Isles.