Staying Close To The Water
What injured athletes can teach fly anglers about identity, connection, and purpose
In sport, when an athlete gets injured, good coaches don’t pull them away from the team. Instead, they keep them close and integrated, despite their inability to fully participate and play.
The athlete still shows up, watches games, and stays embedded within the rhythm of the sport. This isn’t because it speeds up tissue healing, but because it protects something just as important: identity, connection, and mental health.
I think about this a whole lot in the context of fly fishing. While the majority aren’t part of a formal “team” dynamic inside of our fishing pursuits, most of us have our crew, which in many ways is effectively the same thing. We have the friends that we float with, the buddies we tie with, the members of the group chat that we plan trips with, and the people we call up when we want to spend a day walking and wading our backyard water.
When someone’s dealing with pain, injury, or even just a season of life that keeps them off of the water, the instinct is often to step away completely, especially when you don’t have a coach insisting that you continue to show up. But if fly fishing is more than just a hobby—if it’s part of how we see ourselves, how we relate to others, how we spend time in the world, and a large part of how we organize our lives—then that separation comes at a considerable cost.
On the one hand, I believe that you don’t just stop being an angler simply because you’re not fishing. On the other hand, I’d imagine that many of us would agree that as time on the water decreases, that area of self-identity can have a way of slowly dissolving, too.
That said, there’s real value in staying connected with the water, with your people, and with the various components that make up our lifestyle as anglers. Off the top of my head, we might hang with friends while they fish, walk or sit by the river without a rod, talk bugs, flows, tides, and conditions, dry land cast, deal with the mayhem that is gear management, and go on IRL scouting missions. We read guidebooks and literature, check in on the ol’ YouTube university, go to film fests and fundraisers, shoot the breeze with staff at local shops, attend conservation meetings, engage in volunteer work, and so on.
As anglers, we have a shared culture and language, and while it’s probably fair to say that we’d much prefer to be on the water as much as possible, there are so many other elements that are necessary and a part of the sport. These other pieces aren’t random add-ons. I’d actually argue that they’re much of what makes fly fishing so unique and all-encompassing.
Across sport, this overarching idea is well understood.
Athletes don’t just lose the ability to train or play when they’re injured, they risk losing their sense of self, their role, their purpose, and their place within something bigger than them.
This is exactly why the best coaches are intentional about keeping injured athletes embedded in the environment. They still show up in the locker room, in meetings, at games, and even while traveling, when possible.
Phil Jackson, who coached the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers through multiple championship runs and who was frequently referred to as the “zen master” by sportswriters due to his integration of mindfulness and selflessness into his coaching philosophy, was well known for emphasizing connection and belonging. The triangle offense worked because of spacing and timing, yes—but also because players understood themselves as being part of a cohesive unit, all with unique and equally essential roles.
Even when a player can’t contribute physically, they still have a role in that system. Even while “on the bench,” they’re no less a part of the team. I’d argue that this principle translates more directly to fly fishing than most people might realize.
While fly fishing is at times framed as an individual pursuit, it really doesn’t function that way in practice. It’s built on shared knowledge, shared water, shared experience, and a shared commitment to protecting the places where we explore. The culture isn’t solitary at all, it’s rooted in art, mentorship, storytelling, conservation, and experiences that take place off of the water just as much as they do on it. It’s easy to understand why fly fishing becomes so connected to many anglers’ identity—it really does offer a direct avenue to become fully immersed.
For that reason, we’re actually very fortunate that when injury, life transitions, or maybe even some version of burnout pulls us off the water, the default doesn’t need to automatically be total disengagement. We can continue to ‘stay in it’ in many ways, even if things look a bit different.
Fly fishing is centered around being in relationship with water, with seasons, with ourselves, and with other anglers. And like any worthwhile practice, that relationship doesn’t disappear just because your participation changes. If anything, this is where it begins to deepen as it evolves.
When I created Wade Well and began building movement and mobility programming specifically for fly anglers, my primary purpose was twofold: to help mitigate injury and chronic pain, and to help elongate and improve anglers’ lives on the water. Not because we’re out here competing in a team dynamic hoping for titles and trophies, but because much of our identity and quality of life is tied to fishing. I believe that our practice of fly fishing makes us better human beings, and I believe it initiates an impact that ripples out into all of our relationships with others, with the environment, and with ourselves.
I also wanted to create another layer to our fishing practice where there was room for us to stay engaged with the sport—another avenue to experience the intersection of fishing, movement, and connection. And if I’m really being honest, my most lofty long-term goal is to convince every single angler to begin a Wade Well movement and mobility practice, because I also believe that we should all have tools to tend to our bodies in a way that feels meaningful.
All of that said, we should never lose sight of the fact that while our physical circumstances may change across seasons, and there may be times where we aren’t able to get out onto the water as often as we’d like, there are always ways for us to stay “in the game,” so to speak.
So if you’re in a season where maybe you can’t fish the way you want to, consider resisting the urge to step away completely. Stay connected with your community, your fishery, your body, and your passion for this sport that’s so integral to our lives. You’re an irreplaceable part of the team.