In the mid-nineteenth century, the avid fly-fisherman and physician James A. Hensall, MD, elucidated what for many is the allure of that often solitary form of angling. “Fly-fishers,” he said, “are usually brain-workers in society. Along the banks of purling streams, beneath the shadows of umbrageous trees, or in the secluded nooks of charming lakes, they have ever been found, drinking deep of the invigorating forces of nature—giving rest and tone to over-taxed brains and wearied nerves—while gracefully wielding the supple rod, the invisible leader, and the fairylike fly.”
What is it about this so-called quiet sport, with its incantation of rod and fly, river, and nature, a sport of both stealth and strategy, that helps to lessen stress and calm the brain? Herbert Benson, MD ’61, the Mind Body Medicine Professor of Medicine at HMS and director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital, says humankind has learned over millennia how to turn off stress by “breaking the train of everyday thinking.”
“What better example of this than fly-fishing,” says Benson, “with the repetitive back-and-forth motion of the rod and line and fly? You’re focusing on where that fly is going to land on the water and that breaks the train of everyday thought.”
Sensing danger
Many fishing historians credit the first use of an artificial fly for fishing to Macedonian fisherman whose technique was described by Claudius Aelia
nus, a Roman author, in one of his works produced near the end of the second century: “They throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the color, comes straight at it, thinking from the pretty sight to gain a dainty mouthful; when, however, it opens its jaw, it is caught by the hook, and enjoys a bitter repast, a captive.”
Today, in the United States, more than 38 million people participate in the sport annually, mostly on cold-water rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds west of the Mississippi River.
The Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation and the Outdoor Foundation reports that among the people in this country hope to take up fly-fishing and other forms of angling, 38 percent say they see fishing as a means to relax and relieve stress. Many of these prospective anglers think the soothing sound of flowing water and the pull of a fishing line would be enough to drive their stress away.
