Mad About Midd I'd rather be fishing...

Author: Dave Barker

I sent my acceptance card to Middlebury over four years ago with the foolish notion that I would be attending an outdoors resort. After the rigor of getting into a select liberal arts school, I figured that it would be all play and no work for four years in pastoral Vermont. The true abbreviation for Middlebury College would be MMC instead of MC. There would be ample time for Long Trail ambles; I would become an uncanny canoeist. When work rolled around, I could throw my laptop in my backpack and open a Word document somewhere in the Green Mountains.

The Viewbook led me to believe that most students lounged on the grass of Battell Beach, typing away on tangerine-colored iBooks. Of course, the Viewbook, like beer goggles, tends to distort reality. My hopes sank during those first few years, but last weekend, with finals around the corner, I checked into the resort.

I found Club Midd with the help of the College fly fishing club, MiddFly. Founded in 1999 by two first-year roommates, the club has slowly evolved into an active organization for anglers of all levels. Casting clinics, lectures, competitions and fishing trips have been part of the spring revival of the club.

Last weekend, I took fly casting skills, gradually honed over my time here down to Southern Vermont for a club trip. The great part about fly fishing is that you don't need to cast with the artistic rhythm of Brad Pitt in a movie like "A River Runs Through It" to enjoy yourself. Life can't get much better when you're spending time on a river.

When fly fishing, you spend your time in the river, feeling the tug of a roaring current or slippery rocks underfoot as you wade up or downstream casting into places where fish are likely to hold. The sport frustrates more than it satisfies, as certain species of fish like trout become restrained after being offered imitation after imitation of their favored insects.

Indeed, the trout we encountered on the Battenkill River and southern stretch of Otter Creek gave us the coolest of cold shoulders in the 40 degree water. The brown and rainbow trout we did hook had been recently released from a hatchery, and well, you can't blame a fish raised in a pen for wanting to sample our diverse flies with names like Wooly Bugger, Prince Nymph and Copper John.

Even if the fishing wasn't the most productive, leaving campus for a couple days has to be more productive than outlining a paper two weeks before it's due or underlining and highlighting for hours. I find myself more productive upon returning. Sometimes you have to check-out during the busy times and check-in to your favorite resort.