Читать книгу Never Cry Halibut. and Other Alaska Hunting and Fishing Tales онлайн

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That morning, while drinking coffee, I read an article in the most recent issue of Today’s Angler Psychology Magazine that offered a pretty good explanation on why I had fish terrors. It described a recent study that showed 81 percent of fishermen exhibit symptoms of The Fish Or Me (TFOM) syndrome. Doctors say the neurosis results from the feeling that one’s father or boat captain has at one time or another considered murdering them for not setting the hook properly or losing a fish. Those suffering from TFOM often have fishing performance anxiety issues and catch less fish than the 19 percent of the individuals who are deemed healthy. Finally my inability to catch fish made sense. It wasn’t that I lacked skills or commitment, or hadn’t listened to my dad as he painstakingly tried to teach me. It was because of TFOM. Now that I had identified the root of my problem, I felt confident I could be cured.

I traced my fish terrors back to a particular fly-fishing incident with my dad in the mountains above Bozeman. Trembling, I realized I would have likely become a lawyer, doctor, or politician if my life hadn’t been hijacked that day. Instead, I became a degenerate woodsman and a lousy fisherman. The history leading up to the incident is a bit foggy but begins in the summer of 1989 or 1990. My family had driven from our home in Alaska to Montana so my folks could go back to college. We arrived at Bozeman when Robert Redford was filming A River Runs Through It. At a summer camp, I met a boy who claimed his dad was a stunt man in the film.