Providence: That's Another Big Idea to Name a Place

My second-biggest Mount Hope Pond bass, caught during a 2013 lunch break. The very biggest weighed maybe an ounce or two more, but I caught it when first light was just breaking and the photos didn't come out very well.

I got out my handwritten fishing log, confirming that 2014 was the last I visited Mount Hope, reviewing shortly all the outings, and beginning to think on the value I place on this pond and region, realizing that, actually, limited to so many lunch breaks of about half-an-hour--though I noticed one gave me an hour-and-a-half--my fishing here seemed almost superficial, compared to what it can be. I keep a "Notes" margin in the notebook I use for this fishing log going back to 1975, and noticed one day I "wasn't right," probably rattled by work, but in spite of tight time and business casual clothing, though I wore hiking boots, I really did realize a lot of value.

During one lunch break, I not only remembered myself at age 17; involving total commitment to fishing I exercised at that age, in some sense I became the person I had been, this a literal impossibility, but we all have an inkling of what it is to re-experience events amounting to who we have been, a matter of existing for a little while within the interior space of former self as more than memory of past time. That was a very healthy span of moments during which I regained lasting vitality. Fishing can seem a stupid pursuit. So you catch a fat fish like that in the photo above. Big deal. And besides, what have you really done, besides disturb the peace of that creature you've chosen to dominate? Wonders never cease, and every angler I know is fascinated in getting close, not only to nature in general, but specifically in getting close to fish, because they are worthy, magnificent creatures to behold. Only the worst of us, those who don't deserve the title angler, treat catches with disrespect. And yet there's a whole lot more to angling than methods and fish. As the contemplative practice angling is, there's no limit to the potential of realization, and this vitality I mention of my getting in touch with some five years ago is still with me, not only because I once was, in fact, 17, but because at 52 I tapped back into that age. This isn't to confuse ages 17, 52, and 57, but to cite the fact that health and energy have a lot to do with personal identity as an actual dynamic you can only engage through concrete practice, specific practice you value deeply through a long biographical history of experience.

Good reason to go fishing alone sometimes. And persistently, as I did at Mount Hope. Because with someone else or others along, you can't get as in touch with yourself.

After this recent Mount Hope venture and getting out that log, which resulted in a chain reaction of thinking, I thought of people financially well-off, people fishing from nice bass boats, fishing reservoirs and lakes full of bass over five pounds. Even here in Jersey, Steve Vullo scores bass that big consistently, and as for this matter of owning a boat and avoiding mosquitos or at least ticks, I own a nice squareback canoe and can fish most of the spots Vullo attends. That is, if the condo association doesn't crack down when I bring my canoe back home after its temporary asylum from their scrutiny.

So why Mount Hope? Come on, the place is for losers, right? Oh, there's some nice bass, no one might dispute photo evidence, but not as nice as bass Vullo catches. All I have to do is...make the effort. That's what I was writing about in the previous post, effort, and I can take my own words to Manasquan Reservoir, and then...I can catch bass like Steve does. (With a whole lot more trial and effort ahead of that effort, because Steve seems to catch them like no one else.)

Hopeless romantic, here we go again. Why don't I just create a Facebook site so people can post fish pictures and do away with all my words, since most fishermen around here never read.

I worship that place. Mount Hope. And it's not just the pond. That town and region. The Mount Hope Historical Park too. There's ultimately something downright weird about all this, or, there is when I shoot straight to the bottom of the issue, where nothing but a great unknown is met to create mythological overtone. At least one of the mine shafts at the Historical Park drops more than 2000 feet straight down to bedrock. If you read the post about our hike there and the full day, you might agree there's something weird at least about that outing: http://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2012/11/mount-hope-historical-park-hike.html At the least, the post is a very entertaining read that might make you wonder if Jim Morrison was along for the ride. Got to keep on riding, because the Roadhouse is never reached unless it is spiritual more than movie setting, and a most specifically pertinent line to that post I linked you to is spoken by Morrison on An American Prayer. That outing actually did happen. Of course it did; there are the photos, but what I mean by actuality suggests the spiritual dimension of that day as a whole lot more than imagined. My "random" choice of the Winston c.d., which the post briefly discusses--the post is an understated piece of writing for sure--before the events of that trip culminated with my shooting the photo of the screech owl, this so-called random or merely personally selective choice of a c.d. foreshadowing the screech owl shot could not possibly have occurred without meaning visiting us from above; at least, this is my firm opinion, confirmed likewise by many other events over the course of my life. And besides, at Mount Hope Historical Park, before we hit the road and I got the Winston out to play, I shot a photo of a bird house in which a screech owl could have comfortably fit. A foreshadow even further back than the music I selected.

Is Jim Morrison dead? Remember the Renaissance of the Doors? At least here on the East Coast, the Renaissance of the Doors began late in 1980. Radio announcers on WMMR Philadelphia and etc. promoted the event, which persisted as a sort of underground cultural phenomenon for at least three or four years, I think, accompanied by what might impress us today as a very strange question: Is Jim Morrison dead? Of course he's dead. Physically.

It's too weird to say more. But the post I linked you to does say a lot more without any of this direct address I indulge in this present post. The linked-to post is an account that leaves the reader to his own inference. And it's a very sad and dangerous affair that people today let the mind go to titillate their trivial pleasure by teasing information of random sorts.

I'm just not a straight bassman. I'm not a bassman at all. I leave that designation to social circles I don't include myself among, which is no bad reflection on iBass360, or on Steve; just the opposite, since I can better respect others when I distinguish my own differences.

I can hit a target, though. The theme of casting in my last post. And no one can develop certain casting skills while sitting or standing in any boat. They require that you get in among sticks from shore. But I'm just not all about targeting bass or targeting other fish. Fishing for me is peace. Not targets and war. I like to fill out experience with meaning, and to be quite frank, the edge of a fallen branch where I want my worm to penetrate the surface isn't a "target." Sure, I see it by aid of abstract discrimination to get the worm exactly where I want it to go, but to overuse "target" as an aggressive attitude is completely contrary to the Zen this practice of mine always seems to begin amounting to. In Zen archery you shoot blind. You don't aim for the target, and yet, if you become a Master, you're more accurate than any warrior.

Mount Hope. What a symbol. There's even a bridge on the Rhode Island coast near Providence called the Mount Hope Bridge. Odd. No mountains nearby. Is it a seacoast ridge or other? Mount Hope Bay near Narragansett Bay.

Providence. That's another big idea to name a place.