Watching White Egrets

Magazine articles and books on how to fish the seams fill the bookshelves of fishermen’s dens. Since Robert Redford produced the movie, A River Runs Through It, fishing clinics have been swamped with people learning to fly fish and read the river in order to catch that illusive trout.

I usually leave the house around 6:30 AM and ride my bicycle down the hill, past the zoo, across the University Street bridge, and then turn back under the bridge onto the Trinity River trail. For the next seven or so miles I watch the fish rising to pick bugs off of the surface of the river, dodge turtles crawling on the trail, and observe the ducks paddling around looking duckish. In fact, there is one hen with five ducklings who is currently demonstrating the finer points of being a duck to her young brood.

But being a fisherman, I enjoy most of all watching the white egrets fish. If you ever want to study a fisherman who does it perfectly, watch an egret.

They look intently at the water around them, then move deliberately, carefully, stand motionless—almost stick-like—wait on their quarry with their necks in an “S” ready to strike…and they always fish the seams.

Next, why watching egrets lets you know you matter to God