Tonight, after a 5 mile run around Bear Creek, I picked up this book and then, believing that it contained only "dated" information practical to successful fishing techniques in my neighborhood, spontaneously turned to page 317 and read chapter 20 titled "How to Enjoy the Outdoors" which I will transcribe here. Ames' description of his thoughts and observations struck a chord with me to a degree that I'd like to share with you. They came after spending a rare and precious day fishing for Coho Salmon with my Mom on the Sandy River near where I live. Though we were were fishless, we made many eager casts, saw many fish rolling and were entertained by a family of resident river otters playing mid-river - reflective of the words shared here by Ames.
From the book Fishing the Oregon Country, Chapter 20, "How to Enjoy the Outdoors", 1966, Caxton Printers:
The Title to this chapter may take too much for granted, for I may not be able to select the proper words to clarify what I have in mind. It is a fact that some fisherfolk get a great deal more of enjoyment, of peace and health, out of an outdoor trip than do others. The mountains, the lakes and streams, places of solitude, have a great deal to offer the human race in these days when modern civilization jangles the nerves. To achieve the greatest benefits out of a trip afield, I would say, to put what I mean into the simplest formula, and this is not a simple subject, one must for the time being forget civilization and put oneself into tune with nature. Only the Indian of pioneer times, and a few most fortunate white folks who were born with the knack, have the native ability to shut out everything else and let nature come into the restless soul. If this be trite, make the most of it.
Definitions such as the above do not penetrate the subject in any great measure, but merely serve, perhaps, to present a hint of what I am trying to explain. There is more to be gained here than mere escape from the heat of a particular day, the drudgery of the job. Nor are the fish we seek particularly important. There is more to escape on a trip afield than in the daily newspaper: the nerve-wracking news of civilization; the doings of Russia; the dangers inherent in the atom bomb; the sins and transgressions of the race to which we belong. When in the field we must try to put ourselves in tune with the squirrel in the trees and the deer in the covert, with the son of the river. To do this we must let nature in, not keep her out.
Keeping nature out is brought about by dragging along with you into the field the things you came here to escape, whether you realize that you came here to escape them or not. Perhaps realizing this is what causes some folks to be able to get the most out of an outing, while others do not. Some of the things that are taken into the outdoors are actual, and some are merely mental. I can tell within a matter of minutes after I meet a fellow human being streamside if he is able to enjoy nature to the fullest or if he is not able. I can tell by the way he acts. Again, trying to tack down the subject through definition, I would say that you simply do not act the same in church as you would at a shivaree. This definition I like, for it begins to get very close to the subject.
Defining further, some folks I meet about my camps have come here to listen to the river; to the whisper of the breeze in the pines; to admire the sunsets and sunrises; to thrill sleepily to the rise of a fish as it feeds at night; to listen when there are no sounds to the silence itself. Others, in contrast, do not listen. Some speak with low voices in certain places and under certain conditions, where low voices might seem to be fitting, while others shout. To me there seems to be a distinct cleavage between these two sets of persons, one coming into the outdoors to get away from home, and the other coming to be with the mountains and the forest. More power to both, but I do feel that some are missing something of great value of which they are not even aware.
To illustrate further: I have a friend with whom I frequently undertake trips into the back country to fish. One evening we were driving down the North -Santiam highway toward Marion Forks as dusk came down. The highway was a straight ribbon before us, ruled into distance by twin columns of magnificent fir trees, and beyond towered a snow-capped peak. The motor ran soundlessly. The whole world seemed hushed with awaiting the falling of darkness. The evening gripped me. I sat there entranced with it. My companion leaned over to turn on the radio full blast. He thought nothing of this, yet it shocked me as much as it would have if he had suddenly begun to curse in a church. Who do you think was enjoying the evening the most? If you feel that I was, I will begin to feel that perhaps I am finding some of the right words.
I have never had any trouble in letting nature in, and not because I was wiser than most, but because I was placed in a position in youth where I could not keep her out. In the early days in Montana when my father moved onto a homestead there, when the rails first came west from Mobridge, we were unable to fence our land at once. We didn't have a horse to spare from harness for me to ride. So I became, when nine years of age, the only cowboy in Montana without a horse. Every morning I went out on the open range with our cattle to see that they didn't stray, and stayed with them until I brought them in at night. Out there on the prairie I was really alone, in a way that one cannot be alone except on a prairie. There was nothing for me to do during the long days, weeks, and months, but look and listen. This was a sort of enforced communing with nature that I resented then, but have been thankful for ever since. I became accustomed to letting nature knock on the door of my subconscious.
Subconscious is the correct word, and the key to the subject, for it is only by taking the conscious mind out of gear and letting subconscious mind take over that you are able to be as one with nature. My premise is easily proven. Go out alone where there are no sounds of civilization to distract you. Sit silent and motionless as you force your conscious mind into a state of complete blankness. It will try to trick you, but be severe with it. As time goes on you will begin to sense everything going on about you , and in a way you have never sensed them before. You will become aware of things that you have not noticed before, the whisper of the forest, the thrush balanced delicately on the bush, the murmur of the river, the way the air blues with distance. You will be letting nature come into you, rather than moving about in nature in a blind sort of way, still more conscious of the things you left at home than you are of the environment about you. After a time you will mentally shake yourself awake, feelings as though you had enjoyed a restful sleep. But you will not have been asleep. You will have been more alert than you have ever been before. Had a deer flapped an ear in the covert or a mouse rustled a leaf, you would have been aware of it. Perhaps I'm wrong. But it is worth a try.
If this works out for you it is but the first lesson. Since the experience was pleasurable you will want to try it again. If you persist you may discover that nature will becoming in to you, not only when you sit quietly and force conscious thoughts and worries from your mind, but also during your active moments. She will be reaching out to you as you fish, and simply because you have learned to blank your conscious mind to all the worries and problems you came here to escape. You won't actually think about the sights, sounds, and scents about you when you are engrossed in fishing or some other outdoor activity (running....), but you will be keenly aware of them and they will form a pleasing background for your pleasure. You will find that when you return to the daily grind and talk to your friends about your outing that you will no longer speak only of the big fish you caught but also of the more important things, the sweet scent of the forest, the song of the river, the call of the loon at night, the way the air blued with distance over the ridges of the Cascades. This is the finest prescription for stomach ulcers and frazzled nerves in existence.
Now, if you wish to reach the ultimate in outdoor pleasure, try to build up over the years a careful selection of outdoor-minded friends who also have learned to enjoy nature as you do. A fishing friend who reacts to the outdoors as you do is a most valuable asset. A fish hog, the litterbug, the fence cutter, the highway sign shooter, the blazing campfire leaver, the blasting radio player in the sacred silence of majestic, God-given places, is not the person you seek to take into the outdoors with you. Nothing brings as much pleasure to the outdoor trip as do sociable friends who obey the rules of good sportsmanship, who can sit around the campfire with you as dusk comes down and hear and see the scent the same things that you do, and with a like keening of appreciation.
I trust that I have been in some measure able to make myself clear, and that whether I have or not the readers of this volume will be more able to enjoy fishing the Oregon country than they might have been had they not read it. - Francis H. Ames
