More Than What is on(your)line.

This piece was written for appear in the Reel Women Fly Fishing Newsletter. Find out more about them here.

I was rolling into town by the skin of my teeth. My check engine light lit up just as I crossed into the city limits. I only had ten minutes before my shift at the shop started. I debated stopping by my house first to freshen up, but I would surely be late to work if I did that. I checked myself in the rearview mirror– I was sunburnt and my hair was windblown into knotty waves. “This will have to do,” I thought to myself. 

I pulled into the shop parking lot and snuck into the back past all the drift boats. I parked my truck and looked one more time in the mirror, grabbed my toiletry bag, and freshened up my deodorant. I dug around in the back of the Jeep– somewhere I knew I had a cleaner shirt than what I was wearing. I threw my pillow, fly box, blankets, and my sleeping pad around until a well-loved Wrangler pearl snap showed itself. I walked into the shop, my mind still reeling from the morning I just had. 

 “Hey Chloe, how was the weekend? You get anything?” my coworker asked. I blinked a couple times, trying to process what had happened just hours earlier. “Uh…yeah...I got one this morning…” I said, still not believing it myself. “Oh what! This morning?! It’s only 9:00 AM! Where’s the photo?” he asked, innocently enough. I looked at the clock, it was only 9:00 AM. “There is no photo,” I said. “We got up early, really early. I leadered it, got it to the side of the boat and it spit the hook. Then we went to shore, I got in my truck and drove home.” I could still see the muskie’s dark body writhing at the end of my line, my friend grabbing for a net, the muskie’s tail slapping water up into the boat. Then, nothing. It was gone. 

“Oh well, that doesn’t count then. No photo, no fish,” my coworker joked. I knew he wasn’t serious but it still stung. I knew the culture we are in largely supports that anecdote– no photo, no fish. If you didn’t take a photo, were you even fishing? I looked down at my hands, still a little dirty and had a couple of raw spots from stripping in muskie flies for a few hours a day. I thought to myself;  Did I catch that fish? Does it count? I was thrown into a whole new headspace, caught between wanting to be proud of what I did but now being reluctant to tell anyone since I didn’t bring the fish to hand and had no proof.

I often find that I compare myself to others, especially anglers, on Instagram– which I know is hardly an accurate representation of anyone’s life. I wrestle with feeling like a bad angler or worrying no one would take me seriously because I am not constantly posting fish photos. I don’t have seemingly endless amounts of grip and grins to post. Even though I am a photographer I don’t prioritize photographing every fish I catch. I have found that if that’s my mindset then I miss out on what’s happening around me. I don’t want to be so focused on clout that I miss out on the wildlife, the people I’m with, the landscape, and the experience.

Photo by Alyssa Lloyd

A couple of years ago I came back from a northern Ontario trip empty-handed, but hey, that’s muskie for you. They don’t call it a fish of 10,000 casts for nothing. It was still one of the best trips I have ever been on. The group of women I was with was incredible. It felt like I had found my people. We ran boats around Lac Seul in the rain and cast huge flies into the tannic water. We bonded over four hard days of fishing for one of the toughest fish to fool in a notoriously hard lake...we hear Lac Seul has monster muskie if you can find them. We caught walleye and had them for lunch, sitting in rain gear around a small fire and listening to the guides discuss where we were going next. We ate poutine and chatted with old lodge owners and fishing guides. We ate chocolates from the local chocolatier in a floatplane flying above the labyrinth of islands and water. We sat on the docks late at night and shared our lives with each other while walleye swam in the dock lights. We cried when it was time to say goodbye. I came home with an obsession for muskie and the comfort and joy of knowing I had made lifelong friends. No big fish pictures, just incredible memories and a full heart.

I went to Texas this past fall for my first-time saltwater fishing. I was nervous and not sure what to expect. I was meeting some friends down there who are part of the So Fly Crew– a podcast and video crew out of Toronto. I had become close friends with them after a few of them came out to Montana. We were going to Rockport to work on a short film and podcast at one of the lodges. As soon as my plane landed I was greeted by the familiar faces of those I knew and the friendly faces of those I didn’t yet. Standing on the bow of the skiff the next morning I was so nervous. I let my friend go first and he landed a beautiful redfish, the first of many. When it was my turn I cast to my target, a group of tailing fish not more than 40 feet in front of us. I am not going to lie, my nerves got the best of me and my first couple casts sucked. I shortened my leader, took a deep breath, and the next thing I knew I was fighting my first redfish. After that, it was game on and almost every cast produced a fish. I felt like I could really hold my own and that maybe I wasn’t so bad at this whole fly fishing thing. I felt like I had come into myself as an angler on that trip. There was no sense of competition, no sense of bitterness or gloating. Just a bunch of friends having the time of their lives on the Texas coast. It felt good. We had tons of fish photos and footage, but we would all say the best part was the time we spent together. We were with great friends, soaking in the sunshine, listening to George Strait, and just so happened to have some of the best fishing of our lives.

And of course, there’s this infamous muskie trip. What a whirlwind. My buddy called me and said conditions were good, I should come meet him for the weekend. I decided to go right away. I checked my bank account, not much. I did some quick math. I had exactly the right amount of money to get me there and back. I grabbed a few car camping essentials, called my mom to tell her where I was going, and hit the road. I made it there just as it was getting dark. The next morning we launched the boat and trolled our way around the lake. We moved probably a dozen fish that day, but they weren’t eating. We drank some beers and ate some burgers at an old cowboy bar and I fell asleep in the back of the Jeep to the sound of thunder in the distance. I decided to stay one more day, I had seen too many fish to give up yet. The only problem was that I worked that next morning at 9:00.

Up at 4:00 AM, we launched the boat in the dark and watched as the sun slowly started to show itself. I cast into darkness, hoping our early morning efforts wouldn’t be for nothing. Suddenly my line went tight. You know the rest of the story. When the fish came off my friend looked at me and said “It counts! That’s your fish!” I looked at him and looked at the water. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. Not yet. Too much was running through my mind. We looked at the time and realized I had to leave ASAP. We pulled the boat to the dock and I ran up to my truck. I threw my rod in the back, still rigged up, and pointed the Jeep home. That’s when I cried. Not because I lost the fish but because I did it. I had accomplished a goal I had been obsessing about for over a year. Through my wet eyes, I took a wrong turn and ended up on some ranch. I wiped my eyes, pulled myself together, backtracked a little, but eventually made it home.  

After a blur of a day at work, I finally went home and laid on my hammock. I tried to process the last 24 hours, heck even just the last 12. I realized that fishing is more than catching and showing off your catch. You don’t need other people to validate you. It’s about so much more than that. It is about the moments during and between your casts that matter. The people you meet and relationships you build, the places you experience, the personal growth, the pursuit of fish, and if you’re lucky, making a connection with a fish.