I remember that fish

I remember that fish

Martin Joergensen

The idea for this series of articles was sparked by being sentimental. I was thinking back trying to remember some defining moments in my fly fishing career. I couldn't really think of any.
I kind of drifted into fly fishing about 35 years ago, and can't really dig out any specific person or incident that started it. I fished as a kid, stopped for a while and picked up spin fishing again when I attended university in Copenhagen. From spinning I simply "developed" into becoming a fly fisherman over some years, finally fishing fly almost exclusively. These days I actually pick up a spinning rod more often than I have done for years, but that's another story.

I realized that I remembered a lot of individual fish

The thing is that as I thought about the time I have been fishing, it was not people or events that flashed for my inner eye, but fish. And not fish in a general sense, but specific fish. I realized that I remembered a lot of individual fish, the circumstances under which they were caught, the place, the weather, the fly, the gear or whatnot. In some cases it was more than one single fish, but still a handful of fish caught in a short time on the same day in the same place under the same conditions.

So I decided to sit down and write up a story for each of these fish and dig out some pictures. This was surprisingly easy in spite of the fact that many of these catches were made decades ago. Maybe it doesn't tell much about my amazing ability to remember (which isn't that good actually), but it certainly attests to the amazing capabilities of the human brain. Many of these memories are extremely clear and vivid, and I had no trouble recreating the scenery.