About 10 years ago I wrote an article "Motor Trouble on the Red Deer", lamenting jet boats on the river and how out of place and unsafe they are. A lot of it had connotations derived from my dislike of the jets, how their use on my river intruded on my solace. While I still believe there to be a serious safety issue in certain braided and narrow reaches of the river, it's generally a non issue. Last night AJ & I floated for a few hours. We knew heading in that we weren't going to see a lot of rising browns, we hoped for one or two each. We worked a few more than that. We knew it would be a beautiful evening of sunset, bird life, and few others on the river. We put in, and right away the sound of a jet turbine filled the air. Sure enough, minutes later a boat flashed past, only doing mach 3 or so. These are tournament boats, not your little jon-jet combos seen on the Bow, nor smaller converted inboards. These are jet turbine propelled boats, $4-500 an hour to run. And they go fast. And God knows they must be fun to be in. And they are loud.
But you know what? They knew we were there. We knew that they are on the river. Why get upset? They'll be gone by early evening, and we knew no fish were to rise prior that anyway in those conditions. It mattered so little to us that these guys were out having fun on a wide causeway of the river. They have the right to enjoy the river as anyone currently. And likely will for a long, long time to come.
Why get upset given those parameters? Especially if you know, from countless data points of experience, that those are the parameters of the river well before setting out.
So, we chatted to them as we floated past their take out. The group of boats were in good spirits and we were as well, looking forward to our peaceful float. And you know what? We simply looked at them having fun as much as we were, in separate ways. Each was courteous and happy.
Would my perspective be different if there had been 4 or 5 boats doing doughnuts around our boats or tearing up the shoreline? Well. No. Not any more. When you have expectations of having a river with rising brown trout in every shoreline seam and having the river to yourself, with no other users, the Red Deer is the last one in our home range to come to our minds. There are many other users and few care about brown trout. If you fish the river, you have a 50% or greater chance of having someone impact your fishing. That's just the way it is. To be upset by it or even get worked up, what's the point? We're the oddballs, not the other users.
Happiness and contentment is not derived from others. It can be a state where we enjoy the moments as they unfold, realizing that we can control none of what happens anyway and we're just along for the ride. If our entertainment package wishes come to fruition, great, but if not we simply enjoy whatever unfolds. The key is that we can't control it, so why let it control our emotions or thoughts with perceived negativity? There was so much more to enjoy last evening, be it talking to happy jet boaters to our own company, to relaxing together and enjoying the hunt of a few nice browns. And we most certainly did just that.
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