Fly Fishing Trip Leads To Exploring Thoreau

A couple weeks ago, my friend called me and invited me to join him at Walden Pond in Concord for a late season fly fishing adventure.

He assured me that although it was December, the big brown trout were cruising the shoreline eating very tiny insects during the unseasonably warm mornings we were having.  

I wasn't seeing many deer in the woods, so I thought it would be a good idea to take a morning and try and see if I could hook one of those big browns. 

On my drive out to Walden Pond, I started thinking about Henry David Thoreau and the short but fascinating life he led.

He was born in 1817 and died only 44 years later, about two months shy of his 45th birthday, in 1862.  At 16, he graduated from Harvard and took a job as a school teacher at his old grammar school, but that job lasted only two weeks, as he quit because he was disappointed in the way the students were being taught. He believed they should be learning more about life from their outdoor surroundings instead of being cooped up inside a musty old building all day.  

It wasn't until he took a trip with his beloved brother John on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers when he realized he was a confirmed poet of nature.  

Meanwhile, a close friend of his, Ralph Waldo Emerson, was very much involved in a significant literary and religious movement called New England Transcendentalism, which gave the young writer a platform to express himself.He published his own articles, kept a diary and continued his newfound love of writing.

Unfortunately, in 1842, his brother John died and Emerson tried to bring the heart broken Thoreau to New York City, but Thoreau could not stand the concrete environment of the city and missed the Massachusetts wilderness. Emerson offered him access to his property back home in Concord, and that is where Thoreau lived from 1845 until 1847, on a two-year experiment on simple living where he wrote his classic, "Walden."

When I arrived at the historic pond at daybreak, I saw my friend already playing a nice trout in the cool green water.  

I was immediately captivated by the quiet surroundings and peaceful feeling of this wonderful pond. I stepped in and made a few casts, but surprisingly I found myself more interested in exploring than fishing on this particular morning. 

On my way up to the hut where Henry lived for a couple years, I took a seat on a log and surveyed the vista in front of me. I pictured Henry David Thoreau living simply in this space and jotting down notes on his observations that would one day find their place on the top shelf of American literature.

In the distance, I could see my friend battle another fish.

He whooped and yelled as the sound carried up the hill on this quiet morning. As I watched the fish jump and splash, then finally fall into my friend's net, he waved to me as if to say come on down.

"I've got more exploring to do," I yelled back, remembering one of Thoreau's many famous quotes, "an early morning walk is a blessing for a whole day."