A Fish In Water Athirst: The Globe-Trotting Adventures of a Meditating Angler

A Fish in Water Athirst:

The Globe-Trotting Adventures of a Meditating

Angler and Diver

Table of Contents:

Not Quite Skunked

The Christening of the Santa Gemma

Pole Diving for the European Perch

Pole Diving in Waikiki

The Silent Witness of Many Reefs

A Deep-Down Star

More About Fishing Underwater

Ulua at the Surfer’s Jetty

To Fish or not to Fish

Vishnu’s Wish Fish

Absorption Into the Sea of Contemplation

Tenkara: the Light-Pole

Tencarpa

A Late Night Fight with an Unseen Guest

My First Drum on a Fly

First Tenkara Rainbows

Tenkara Brown Trout by Moonlight

Round II of Dark Waters and Healthy Browns

Playing Hooky for Brown Trout

River Walleye on Tenkara

Chubs

French Chevesne and my Earliest Tenkara-Pole

More on Pole Diving

An Invisible Shark

Another Bahamas Shark

A Quiet Bonefish Comedy

Wild Goats, Dove Tails, and the Open Jail

Today’s Panfish

Walking on Water

Walking on Water with a Bigger Auger

Bass on the Ice

Tenkara Bluegill

Childhood Experiments

(etc.)

Not Quite Skunked

On a couple of occasions, I have come across simple boat plans, sometimes online, sometimes in do-it-yourself encyclopedias, which looked quite buildable. The first plan I made use of allowed me to produce a sturdy kayak, though the encyclopedia that contained the original instructions had been out of print for several decades. The old how-to manual promised that I could build my kayak (which the authors had christened the “Canvasback”) for exactly twenty-one dollars and eighty-one cents.

The project took me several seasons to finish as a young teenager, and cost about ten times what the old book had suggested it would. But, when I finally finished, I was quite proud of my little boat—and eager to see if it would float. It did, and I caught a lot of fish from that light, twelve foot ‘yak. I even took it out once this season and it helped me get to where the bass were biting, though I noticed it needed a small, canvas patch.

The second boat I built was a fishing skiff which helped me explore larger lakes. After a few seasons, I gave that boat to a friend. I think he made it into a flower garden. Today, my third boat, The St. Mary, is parked in the barn at the family farm—and she is seaworthy.

The first time I took the St. Mary out, I put her on the Rock River near an early (and still marked) horse-drawn ferry crossing in Rockton, Illinois. I had just finished the project the day before; needless to say, I was excited, and eager to get my boat on the water! I was so bemused, in fact, that I hadn’t paid much attention to the height of the river, which was in flood stage. When I discovered that the ramp at the local park was closed, I found a way around th

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