I've Never Met an Idiot on the River

by Henry Winkler

There was not a single beam of moonlight. I caught that lovely trout purely on Winkler sonar alone. What a wonderful experience that was! What a wonderful feeling. I’d accomplished something rare in the world of sports and certainly rare in the world of me. It’s something you never forget. Even as I write about it now, it makes me smile.

  Even better, I did it with Max cheering on his dad. I’ll never forget that moment: the darkness, the sound of the fish feeding on swarming insects, and especially the cheers from my son, which were like echoes of all the encouragement Stacey and I had given him and his brother, Jed, and sister, Zoe, over the years.

  That moment is on my life’s highlights reel. I seem to have more of those magical moments in Montana than anywhere else. Being there allows me to be present and to savor all that occurs as it occurs.

  I mean, where else would a guy hear a fish slurp? And where else would you hear the heartfelt sincerity in a son’s encouragement of his father?

  When I fish in the busy silence of a Montana river, I am grateful time and again for the gifts that come with listening, not just with the ears but with the heart and soul. In the terrific book and movie

  A River Runs Through It, one of the characters says that the only way to hear God’s voice is to listen to it in the river. I think there are many other places where you can hear God’s voice, but the river is surely one of them.

  Whenever I’m on a river, I marvel at nature’s plan. There are purple and yellow flowers on the Montana riverbanks that you can’t find along the rivers in the Amazon or in Switzerland. This confirms for me that there is a Plan, a wonderful, thoughtful Plan that we must be careful not to ruin.

  On the river, I’m reminded also that when I am truly quiet, I hear not what I’m thinking or expecting, but what is there to be heard. One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned as a parent is that if you really listen, you can hear what your children truly need rather than what you want to give them. The same applies to listening to the director. Acting is reacting and responding to the situation and to your fellow actors and the script provided.

  Active listening is the secret art at the center of all experience. You have to be quiet and open, not just quiet. At one point in my life, I thought this was a unique truth that I’d discovered but, to my dismay, I came to realize it is a bit of wisdom passed down through the ages in many different forms by many different voices and to many different listeners. As I’ve grown older, I’ve accepted that being original is not nearly as important as being aware; the revelation, the epiphany, is the thing.

  But it’s not just about listening to the world or to others. Listening to yourself—to your own intuition and instincts—is equally important. The best fly fisher-folk cast to where they know the fish will next appear. They don’t have a sixth sense. They have a fish sense. Their sonar picks up fins in motion, and they hone in.

  After all these years of trying hard to become a better fisher-folk, I have come to rely on my intuition about where the fish will be lurking. I trust my gut. One of the rules of life I picked up somewhere is that your head knows some things, but your stomach knows everything. Every time I’ve violated that rule and second-guessed my gut instinct, I’ve been smacked in the mouth with a two-by-four.

  Oh, you want an example, do you? Turner & Hooch! Need I say more? I was hired to be the director of that movie and my gut told me not to do it, but I overruled the aforementioned gut and thirteen days into filming, I was fired. It was a horrible, horrible moment in my career and in my life.

  I didn’t recover from being fired for the longest time. Overcoming that feeling of rejection was a lesson in itself, but the greatest lesson was buried in the experience. It was learning to trust my intuition and not second-guess myself. I knew when I first read the T&H screenplay that I should not take the directing job. I just couldn’t resist because it was a feature film for Disney. I was enchanted by the Disney magic—all that pixie dust and Mickey Mouse stuff—instead of listening to my gut.

  That’s not to say that following your instincts will always bring you a big payday. I’ve spent many hours casting into waters I felt were promising, only to watch my fly drift unheeded while behind me I could hear my guide Rowan coaxing the fish: “C’mon, fish, take it. Take it now, you know you’re hungry.”

  Some days, the fish don’t cooperate. It’s the same with acting: Some days you give a great audition for a role but you don’t receive a callback. Still, when you follow your intuition and do your best, living with the not-getting is so much easier. You always have the satisfaction of having left your best in the audition room, or on the river.

  Doing your best is a tremendous defense against disappointment. When you take your best shot and fail, you can pick yourself up, you can dust yourself off, and you can always start all over again, filled with hope. And isn’t that what fishing—and life—are all about?

  Chapter 3

  Point, Push, and Pray

  My adventures in nature photography began many, many years ago when Stacey, Jed, and I were vacationing at Jenny Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park. Like most tourists in the area, I was awestruck by the beauty of the mountains, rivers, and forests.

  One day we wandered into nearby Jackson, Wyoming, a beautiful mountain town. We were walking through its charming downtown shopping area, when I was drawn to a photography gallery called Light Reflections, which was owned by the happily named Frederic Joy.

  Mr. Joy was not only a very good photographer but also a terrific businessman. He’d set up shop in the absolutely perfect place for selling nature photos to enraptured tourists. But really, he didn’t have to sell me a thing. I sold myself, for Joy, for Joy!

  I spotted a beautiful photograph that captured the natural wonders surrounding us—snowcapped mountains, purple flowers, and a lustrous lake—all in one frame for only three hundred dollars plus tax, shipping, and handling. And I bought it.

  Later I wondered about that purchase. I wouldn’t say I had buyer’s remorse because that wonderful photograph bought from Mr. Joy makes me a happy Henry to this day, many years later.

  Still, a few days after it arrived at our Los Angeles home, the thought did occur to me that maybe I, too, could take a framable photograph in a place as gorgeous as Grand Teton National Park, one that I would enjoy looking at again and again.

  I asked myself, “Do you, Henry, think you can take a picture that would please you enough to have it hang in your own home?”

  “Why yes, I believe I can!” replied me, myself, and I. (I have these conversations with myself quite often—very enlightening.)

  And with that, my adventures began as an aspiring nature photographer, as opposed to a family photographer. Prior to that revelation, I had spent most of my photo time snapping pictures of Stacey, Jed, Max, Zoe, and the Winkler puppies at home or on vacation.

  But from that day forward, the sun was not allowed to set on either the right or left Teton without my camera capturing the moment. No prairie dog or flowering plant was safe from this zealous shooter.

  Sometimes I wonder if my dyslexia plays a role in my fascination with photography. Dyslexics are challenged when it comes to processing visual information, so the desire to capture and study images would seem like a natural response to that, don’t you think? I just know that photography feels natural to me. I enjoy the luxury of studying my pictures. I see something fresh and exciting in each of them every time I look at my photos.

  I’ve learned that many famous and not-so-famous photographers had dyslexia. Mr. Ansel Adams, the legendary landscape and nature photographer, for instance, is believed to have been dyslexic.

  Mr. Adams and I also share a few other things. He, too, was a big fan of the vistas at Grand Teton National Park and, oddly enough, Mr. Adams also knew Frederic Joy, who studied photography with him. And, like me, the great Ansel Adams started his adventures in photography with a very small camera. His was a Brownie. Mine was a pocket camera, until Stacey and the kids took up a collection fo
r my birthday one year and presented me with a more sophisticated Minolta with removable lenses. Even so, my amateur status was never in jeopardy.

  To this day, I have never turned a knob or pushed a button other than the shutter on my camera—ever! I just can’t figure out what the other knobs and buttons mean, even though I sleep with the manual under my pillow.

  With many years and thousands of photographs under my belt, I still stick to the basic three P’s of photography:1. Point.

  2. Push.

  3. Pray.

  Serious photographers will be delighted to know that my favorite shutter speed is Automatic. An f-stop, to me, is a station on the subway to Brooklyn (I think). The only technical adjustment I’ve ever made over the years was to the focal length of a lens.

  There is no doubt in my mind that there are millions of photo people out there with more training, talent, and skill than I have—photographers who have taken classes and studied the technical aspects of the craft. Me? Aside from enjoying nature, my interest in photography is purely in the product, not the process. The photos I take are dictated by my instinct. I usually snap off three shots of the same subject: very close, a little wider, and then the widest my lens will go.

  I’m a self-taught photographer, and I couldn’t teach myself a thing beyond the basics. For instance, even though I began taking photos in the days when die-hard photographers made their own prints, I was totally in the dark about darkrooms. Back when I was still shooting negatives, I took my film to Harry’s, a camera shop in Studio City. They made contact sheets for me so I could pick out my favorite shots and order five-by-seven and eight-by-ten glossy prints. Sometimes I would crop them myself using a grease pencil and a cutter, which was about as photo-geeky as I got.

  Still, I became a film purist. When digital cameras were introduced, I heartily vowed “Never!” (Note to self: Stop with the Never!) I was such a film-o-phile that I’d take forty rolls on vacation and snap every frame. Then, once the contact sheets were made, I’d bring them home and our entire family would vote on which photos were worth printing. The voting didn’t take long. Often there were only six or seven keepers from a trip.

  Eventually I realized there were certain advantages—not to mention substantial savings—with digital photography. “Film, schmilm,” I said. With a new gift of a Nikon COOLPIX from my wife, I became a digital convert. (So much for Never!) Today, I am even friends with the digital Picasa photo-editing software, but our dealings are limited mostly to clicking on the “crop” icon (much cleaner than the old grease pencil) or, my favorite, the “I feel lucky” icon.

  The great thing about digital photography is that I can take as many photos as I want without lugging forty rolls of film to the river, where they might fall in, as I tend to do. Whether I’m shooting with a digital camera or film, I love capturing images that touch me emotionally and, as I said, instinctively. I click merrily away, later deleting all photographs but the ones I want to savor, or those with an emotional value. I think of my photographs as visual take-home food: little tastes of Montana to tide me over until I can return to the great West.

  As you can see in the photographs I’ve included here, reflections are one of my favorite images. I’m not sure why, but I am intrigued by their imperfect symmetries—the way patterns are often repeated but slightly altered in reflection. I hadn’t realized how drawn I was to photographing reflections until my first shots came back from the developer, and I saw how many reflective ponds, pools, rivers, and lakes I’d photographed.

  There is also something so compelling about looking into a simple puddle and seeing a reflected building or a stormy sky spring up at you. I’ve been known to blow up my puddle portraits to sixteen-by-twenty-four prints and hang them on the walls of our home. Some people disdain puddles on the wall. I’m of a different mind!

  My critics—nearly all of whom have been claimed as exemptions on the family tax return at one time or another—seem to feel I am overly fond of photographing fish. Not just any fish, but those lucky enough to be caught by me.

  I plead guilty by reason of fin-sanity.

  I’m crazy for fly-fishing and even crazier for fish catching, but most importantly, I’m for fish releasing. I am an avid trout fancier because they are so beautifully colored and patterned. Trout are majestic—like the Tetons, only scaled down to eighteen inches.

  I’ve been known to catch sixty trout in one day, and before I release them I record the length and weight of each one in my Fishing Journal. I also photograph each trout before saying “Thank you,” and placing it back in the river to swim another day.

  I carry my journal and my favorite fish photos everywhere, along with photos of my family and dogs. I am known to be quite unabashed about showing my fish portraits to anyone, at any time, in any place. I share them with fellow fisher people in Montana, with fellow actors and actresses in Hollywood and New York, with total strangers, and sometimes even with potted plants and statues in the park.

  My fish photos are stored on my cell phone, stashed in my carry-on luggage, hanging on the walls at home, and lined up on every bookshelf and mantle. Some are duplicates. I don’t care. Every time my eyes fall upon these photos, the feeling is always, always exquisite. I love them all. My family loves them, too, because they know how important fly-fishing and my trout are to me.

  The very best thing about my photographs, though, is that everywhere I look, I am reminded of my friend, the river.

  Chapter 4

  Casting for Joy

  Recorded in August 2010 in Idaho on Henry’s Fork, a tributary of the Snake River

  Hi.

  So here we are.

  It is Sunday morning.

  It is about ten o’clock.

  10:04 to be precise.

  We’re in Idaho.

  We have come to the Henry’s Fork.

  The Warm River flows into the Henry’s Fork.

  And it looks to me like there are two or three boats ahead of us that are putting in.

  There’s not a cloud in the sky.

  The sun is unbelievable.

  Shining brightly.

  And the water is calling me.

  I wish it were the fish calling me.

  The adventure begins.

  Of course, the first part of the fishing vacation is putting your rig together.

  Organizing it.

  Checking that the parts of the rod have been fitted together well.

  You have to make sure that all the stripping guides are perfectly aligned, that the new line has its leader, that you know what fly you’re going to use first.

  My guide, Rowan, and I chat about this as the boat is being readied to slip into the water.

  We’re starting out with a hopper, a rubber-legged fly that has a dropper nymph off the back.

  So we have a fly on the water and for backup—always have to have backup—we have the rubber-legged stone fly that will sink below the surface. Yes, it’s probably a great thing to know your flies.

  But I don’t have to, because I have the master with me, Rowan, who knows everything there is to know about fishing on this planet, or any other.

  And a little chipmunk just ran by along the bank.

  So we share all this beauty with the wildlife, large and small.

  Wait a second! There are two golden eagles circling above the river, looking for breakfast.

  Wow-ee!

  I am grateful to be alive.

  I am GRATEFUL to be able to do this.

  I’m sitting in front of the boat, filled with the anticipation of cast ing out the first line of the day.

  The excitement of connecting with that first fish is over-whelming.

  There is a hatch of mayflies, I think, right?

  They are mayflies.

  Yes, they are mayfly spinners, to be exact, just swirling through the air.

  How do I know?

  Rowan just confirmed it.

  That is always a REALLY good sign because they are my trout�
��s favorite snack.

  But a cream-colored midge fly is what all the fish seem to be going for.

  So, at 11:45 we change flies.

  And I catch a brave little rainbow.

  And when I say little, we’re talking five inches.

  As I pull up on the line to set the hook, this little guy flies out of the water, over the boat, off the line, and into the river on the other side.

  This morning is filled with fish that size.

  And it is just gorgeous here.

  Every time I look up and see where I am, it takes my breath away.

  Everything is still green.

  It has been kind of a chilly summer.

  Today is a beautiful day, in the seventies.

  Sometimes I just feel the river and I are one.

  And I don’t mean that in any kind of cosmic way.

  You juuust . . . you FEEL that there are fish and you just know where they are sitting under the river’s surface, waiting to out smart you.

  And you FEEL that they’re going to become one with your line.

  Of course, there are those other times you feel cold.

  Totally disconnected.

  You have no instinct whatsoever.

  And it turns out that’s how it is—you pretty much get skunked.

  Which I would imagine is the same thing in life.

  Confidence—that CENTER of yours.

  The just living, and not worrying, and just PRESENTING yourself.

  It makes all the difference in the world—

  whether it be a social situation,

  or work situation,

  or a fishing situation.

  It is amazing how the type of energy you feel and put out determines how successful you’re going to be.

  It’s not just your ability, because you can have all the ability in the world.