Oral History Minute: Shea Tuberty
This past Saturday we debuted our new exhibit Terra Ludis: Playground! So today we are going to feature our interview with Shea Tuberty, Ph.D. Shea is a lifelong fisherman and aquatic ecologist. We asked him to take us through his ideal day of fly fishing.
"By the time I want to get to the place I want to start, I am in the middle of nowhere with nobody else around except me and my dog, and I’ll spend the first ten minutes just watching the water, so I’ll usually stop at like a big pool that’s likely to have flies coming off and just see what’s moving, get the sun behind the flies so I can see them back lit so I can understand how big they are, what colors they are, are they dense or light, and then put something on and start fishing.
Plunge pools usually have several fish each pool, and if you’re not catching fish in the first pool, switch to something new, second pool and so on, until you finally get a hit, and continuing to watch the water. It’s a process. My favorite type of fishing is just dry flies on the surface all by themselves, it’s the easiest fishing, you’re less likely to get one of the droppers or nymphs stuck in the tree when you back cast if you have one big fly on there. You can see it the whole time as it's floating down the surface so you get the joy of watching the take which for me is the whole point of fly fishing, getting the fly in the perfect spot on the water, getting the perfect free flow to make it look like a real fly and then getting a fish tricked to take it, and then once they take it, getting the fish off so you can do it again.
Usually those mountain headwater fish will be small, so it’s not about landing it a giant fish and fighting it for hours and hours like you do with saltwater fish, it’s about getting the fish off and releasing it healthy and getting to the next one. So it’s that moment that it takes the fly and you realize that you successfully trick that fish, that’s the best moment for me, that’s what I live for. Taking a minute just to breathe it all in and look around where you are, some of the most beautiful places on earth are up here in the high country. I take classes all over the world to investigate rare animals and plants, I’m talking the places that are on all the documentaries on TV and create these amazing trips that you never think you’re going to take and I put them together and take these students there. But the week I get back and I’m out there fishing again, I’m like “Why bother? This is better, this is prettier.” So those kinds of mountain streams where you’ve just got plunge streams and moss rocks and dense vegetation and no people, really is my church and I’m not an evangelist, I’m not trying to recruit people to my church, I’m just trying to enjoy it on my own. So I feel at one with nature out there with my dog, he’s just my best friend, and he never says a word, but he’s so excited to be there too, and every fish I catch he’s out there too sniffing it trying to eat it, lick it. He puts his head underwater like a bear and chases it back upstream, it’s fun."
Image by Collin Jewell
Read or Listen to Shea's full interview at https://www.blowingrockmuseum.org/see/play