This weekend we’re headed to Maine, not for clams but to go smelt fishing on the Kennebec river. We’ll fish the late tide (9:48 pm to 4 am) from an ice shack (the river still has 30 inches of ice). Mark,iIf you’re available and interested let me know and we can talk details.

Another reason to go fly fishing, so I can follow a prophet.

I’ve used that story as an excuse (along with, “I’ll read it later,” or, “I’ll just TiVo it”) many times, myself, for the same activity.

That describes my dad and my maternal grandpa perfectly.

” In my family, there was no clear division between religion and fly fishing.”

“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things – trout as well as eternal salvation – came by grace”

“…there’s three things we’re never late for: church, work, and fishing.”

I have a book called Three Mormon Classics. It includes “Leaves From My Journal” by Wilford Woodruff and also sections on George Q Cannon and Jacob Hamblin.

I’ve read it many times but never picked up on the fish thing. I did have a memory of a lot of water stories though, so on opening the book randomly I find an account of Wilford Woodruff’s missionary work in the Fox Islands off the coast of Maine. He describes the field of his labors including the following:

Great quantities of fish, and in almost endless variety, inhabit the coves and harbors around the island. The whale, blackfish, shark, ground shark, pilot-fish, horse mackerel, sturgeon, salmon, halibut, cod, pollock, tom cod, hake, haddock, mackerel, shad bass, alewife, herring, pohagen, dolphin, whiting, frost-fish, flounder, smelt, skate, shrimp, skid, cusk, blueback, scollop, dogfish, muttonfish, lumpfish, squid, five-fingers, monkfish, horsefish, sunfish, swordfish, thresher, cat, scupog, tootog, eyefish, cunner, ling, also the eel, lobster, clam, muscle, periwinkle, porpoise, seal, etc., are found there.

Definitely someone who would take naturally to the field of oceanography or limnology.

A little later he tells the following story:

One day Elder Hale and I ascended to the top of a high granite rock upon the South Island for prayer and supplication. We sat down under the shade of a pine tree which grew out of a fissure in a rock, and Elder Hale read the 16th chapter of Jeremiah, where mention is made of the hunters and fishers that God would send in the last days to gather Israel.

(I’m sure we don’t need to spend much brainpower wondering whether he saw himself as a hunter or fisher.) He continues:

Of a truth, here we were upon an island of the sea, standing upon a rock where we could survey the gallant ships and also the islands…And what had brought us here? To search out the blood of Ephraim, the honest and meek of the earth, and gather them from those islands…unto Zion.

We prayed and rejoiced together. The Spirit of God rested upon us…and we rejoiced that we were upon the islands of the sea searching out the blood of Israel.

While being filled with these meditations and the Spirit of God, we fell upon our knees and gave thanks to the God of heaven, and felt to pray for all Israel.

After spending most of the day in praise and thanksgiving, we descended to the settlement and held a meeting with the people.

On the 6th of September we called upon Captain Benjamin Coombs, and visited his flakes, where he had one thousand quintals of codfish drying for the market….While we were passing Carvey’s Wharf our attention was called to a large school of mackerel playing by the side of the wharf. Several men were pitching them out with hooks. We also flung in a hook and caught all we wanted, then went on our way.

I could keep looking for more examples, but this comment is long enough already. Thanks for the fun discussion!

For those interested, a good book in this genre is “Fly Fishing Through The Midlife Crisis” by Howell Raines, former editor of the N Y Times.