the LEARNING LANGUAGE

A First Timer’s Memoir of Fishing Colorado’s Gunnison Gorge

Photography By:

Story By: REBECCA VEHIK

JENNIE EDWARDS

They say that once you begin dreaming in a new language, you can be certain you’re gaining a degree of fluency. Or, at least, it’s a sign you’re pursuing fluency with all that’s in you—in your waking hours as much as in your dreaming ones. The latter, I believe, became harrowingly true for me on a multi-day float trip in the Gunnison Gorge, about five miles in and two hours of sleep deep.

Before I found myself drifting through the haunting red faces of Southwestern Colorado’s archaic Gunnison Gorge, I’d absorbed a thing or two from a few certain someones in my life who lived and breathed fly fishing—so yes, whether I liked it or not, I had learned to cast a fly rod, mend a line, and set a hook. How well? I’m not the one to ask. But even though I had caught a handful of good fish, I hadn’t yet caught the bug.

Enter the Gunnison Gorge. Though who am I kidding? The Gunnison Gorge doesn’t enter your reality, you enter hers. 2-billion-year-old rock, 2,000-foot walls, 33 minutes of sunlight at its narrowest point, and a number that won’t fit on this page worth of fish. Some might dismiss it as a little sister to the Grand Canyon, but I couldn’t make out what lurked along the towering rims, so it was big enough for me, and assumedly for anyone else who doesn’t frequent the shadows of vertical walls that make the dinosaurs seem like modern history.

Anyways, in late September of 2022, under the trusty guidance of Eleven Angling and RIGS Fly Shop, our crew of six crept down a vaguely distinguishable trail, with every step abandoning the duties of keeping life’s hamster wheel in motion, and approaching a 3-day orb of buoyant stillness only disturbed by the childlike hoots and hollers of a tight line.

I must admit, I wished at the onset that I could direct one eye towards my fly and the other upwards to the beauty that surrounded me, but I hear the scientists are still working on that particular functionality. And so, begrudgingly at first and with a fervent intensity all too soon, I began to do what we all came here to do—catch fish.

It was electric. I suddenly cared what fly I was throwing, begging my guide to explain each bug’s intricacies—my favorite amongst them the Playboy Bunny, a breed of his own making—to stow away in my memory bank for safekeeping. I abruptly assimilated to my new canyon surroundings, not daring to pause my gaze’s laser focus to take in the views lest I miss a bite. I impulsively began reading the water, scanning its surface for any signs of fishy water where I imagined the big one had staked a claim below. I started to wonder with borderline fury about how fish think, what they like, when they eat, where they hold, why they rise, and for the love of all that’s holy, whether or not we could extend this 2-night trip.

Much to my boat partner’s dismay, I verbalized the large majority of these quandaries, and though my guide answered each with patience, diligence, and shared enthusiasm, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was giggling at me between breaths—another angling-adjacent adventurer, lost to the ways of fly fishing at last.

As the sun set each evening, which happened quickly seeing as our new roofless box-home prohibited the entry of any low angle light, we’d watch in bewilderment as “camp” reminded us (and delighted us) that we were in fact dry land creatures. We were dazzled by a strung-light mini bar, artistically presented seared tuna, chocolate-drizzled ice cream, and no less than a blow up cornhole set that quickly became the main attraction at our nightly “pop-up parties,” as another angler dubbed them.

And, as some guests took to the water to wade for a trout nightcap, I contentedly made my way to my lofted, padded sleeping bag, where my dreams whisked me right back to where I longed to be— drifting along the Gunni with a fish on, absorbing the excitement of my spirited guide, following his firm guidance to let him run, get him on the reel, turn him this way, lead him that way, lift your rod, wet your hands, and to finally release him back to his all-but-humble abode, the Gunnison Gorge, the place I learned a new language.