From the Archives: March ‘23

The Art of Catching Nothing

From the Field, Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky

There had been a series of bad storms.

The kind that leave the landscape saturated, the rivers swollen, and the earth heavy with the smell of rain. By the time my son and I arrived at Mammoth Cave National Park for a few days of camping and fishing, the worst of the weather had passed. But the river was still carrying the evidence.

High, muddy, and moving fast.

Not exactly ideal fishing conditions.

Well, we cast our lines anyway.

There is something about standing beside a river or in fact any body of water, with a fishing rod in your hand. The anticipation is palpable. The possibilities are two-fold. The quiet understanding that whatever happens next is largely beyond your control.

We didn't catch a single thing.

Not a single fish.

But somewhere between casting into the muddy current, watching the water roll past, and spending time together in the woods, it occurred to me that perhaps catching fish had never really been the point. Of course it would have been nice, but was it really what we had come for?

We'd come looking for an adventure. And that's exactly what we'd found.

There's a tendency in our over-saturated capitalist endeavors to measure our experiences by their outcomes. The work project completed. The summit reached. The wave ridden. The miles covered. The fish caught. The photograph taken. Some tangible proof that the journey was worthwhile.

But the wilderness doesn't operate on our expectations.

Sometimes the river runs too high. Sometimes the weather turns. Sometimes the fish simply aren't interested.

And sometimes those are the experiences that stay with us the longest.

My son and I returned from Mammoth Cave without a single fish to show for our efforts. But we had the river, the woods, the campsite, and the time spent together. We had another small chapter in a growing collection of shared adventures.

And that was more than enough.

Perhaps there's something to be said for catching nothing.

For going anyway. For casting your own proverbial lines anyway.

For understanding that the value of an expedition isn't always found in what you accomplish, but in what you experience along the way.

After all, the adventure was never really about the fish. Was it?

Yours in Exploration,

Brian Facemire, Founder