"Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” —Henry David Thoreau
Summer has come and gone, slowly bleeding into fall as today has fallen into night, providing ample opportunity for my mind to wonder and wander. Fishing, like the days and the seasons, is bound to the passage of time, a never ending cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Sitting here by the lake under a nearly full moon, bound to its own cycle, and surrounded by a choir of crickets, I am practically drowning in metaphors.
This trip really wasn't that special; part of my yearly routine is to head up to the lake to retrieve the fifth wheel that I had parked there in the spring. This time however, I decided to go a day early and explore the waters of my youth and this recent rekindling relationship I have found with a fly rod. The plan was simple, wake up early, hit the stream, throw on some waders, and try to keep the flies out of the trees and bushes.
Twenty five years ago, this was the water that made me love fishing. Memories of watching the planted fish fall from the bridge and the shooting stars from the bed of the truck, flipping rocks in search of bugs, and the feeling of joy that comes with a fishing pole and a pocket knife, come flooding back whenever I drive by this place. This was the spot. This was summer.
This morning, it is definitely not summer. I am nearing forty and it is thirty four degrees outside. The frost on the ground, some stiffness in my back, and the fog on the water seem to punctuate this fact, but honestly I wouldn't want to be any other place, either abstractly in life or very concretely knee deep in the middle of this creek. As I crossed at one point, it occurred to me that I never leak checked the vintage Red Ball waders, inherited from my grandmother, that I repaired this week, but I managed to stay dry, with the exception of a jacket and sweatshirt that I didn't have properly lashed to my tackle bag.
Proficiency comes from one thing: time. Whether it's time on the bike, time under the hood, or time in the water, I can really appreciate days where I can devote my attention to perfecting a skill for hours at a time. Today I managed to make a ton of really awful casts, spook fish out of the holes and pockets, and fail to set any hooks, but I also got to the point where I could pin point my landing, hone in my presentation, and test patterns on fish that I could clearly see in this pristine water. Like I said, beyond the childhood nostalgia, a fairly routine trip of me hunting or fishing and coming home with nothing but pictures of the landscape.
One of the oddest truths about hunting and fishing is the correlation between how miserable it is and how much fun you end up having. Extreme heat, extreme cold, all day sun exposure, monsoon rain storms, snow, you name it and somewhere is an angler, big or small game hunter, or waterfowler having the time of their life. This gets brushed off and oversimplified as primal, but it's so much more than that: people have been doing this and sharing their exploits with each other over a meal, a drink, or a campfire (or sometimes all three) for as long as there have been people. I pull into camp, my arrival eagerly anticipated, and over cocktails and fish tales the pure raw humanity of it hits me.
The routine part of this trip, the real reason I'm here, is what ended up making this trip extraordinary. The man who used to bring me here to fish now needs me to haul his trailer here for him to fish all summer long, and bring it back home for him when the season ends. This is hardly a burden, more of a feeble attempt to repay the everything I owe my parents, but this year it presented such a unique and wonderful opportunity that I was caught off guard.
My payment for the effort, he thought was some money for fuel and a pizza dinner in town, turned out to be the conversation of the evening. What began as a run down of nearby lakes and streams and the challenges each would present and the tactics necessary for success became a history lesson of the area, old trips, and old friends. To say my step-dad is quiet or reserved is a ridiculous understatement. Phone calls, if he even answers, usually end after a half dozen words, including hello, and the three hour drive to the lake could have as much as twenty minutes of conversation. Tonight though, somehow, I am gifted the wisdom and experiences of someone twice my age, who I've known for over thirty years, and an insight into the man who I'll always remember as the shirtless, cutoff Levi, fishing addict who helped raise me.
He told steelhead stories ranging from trips to Idaho to childhood stories of watching out for bears while fishing during the salmon run. He spoke of his father and his homemade, one-man, bull nose drift boat, fly fishing for salmon. We talked about the eleven-pounder that my mother caught, the merits of using ultralight poles and line, and the glory of the number three Mepps. We laughed to tears when he described my children's first fish, a four and a seven pound trout, caught with him and his Lake friends.
Tonight wasn't about fishing, or pizza. It was about life and our strong connection to the past, the land, and each other. Tonight we celebrated the end of the summer, silently hoping that next year we will be lucky enough to be right back here, camped out by the lake.
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Just saw you on Libertarian Podcast Review. Also love the Thoreau quote to open this piece!