The stream’s last defense was the thick alders that lined it, so thick that I doubt thorn bushes could have done much better at all to keep us out. The Lost Boys had told me no waders, you’ll destroy them in there in two minutes. I left my waders behind but questioned it of course, but now I could see, I could confirm. Pushing though the undergrowth, I felt a stinging on the back of my left calf, and then the same on my right thigh as alder branches that were intertwined better than the fibers in a rope held me back as I tried to push through. They grabbed fly rods, slashed at faces, pulled hats from heads, but in the end the will of the fly fishermen was more than they could hold back, and we stood at the water’s edge.
But this morning I came across some pictures from up on the towers, and it lead to me thinking about things that I took away from my short time in that industry. Mostly fly fishing, and a pair of old friends. In the picture I’m looking down past my boots at the featureless landscape four-hundred and fifty some odd feet below. But it wasn’t the height, and it wasn’t the memory of that specific job that made the picture special. It was my boots supporting me up on the narrow, cold steel up in the wind. They’re my wading boots.
I’ve never considered myself a sappy, emotional, or sensitive person. As a matter of fact I’m pretty sure I’ve done my best through a lot of my life to be just the opposite of those things. But alone by myself on a river or stream, I’ll admit that the water, and the fish, do bring out those qualities from somewhere inside me from time to time. That’s most likely the healing factor people talk about water having. Us fly anglers just happened to stumble upon the fact that a brightly colored fly line forming loops above the moving water happens to enhance the healing power somehow. I’m not going to try and analyze it. That’s a rabbit hole for another day. On a warm, sunny day like this, I’m happy to simply accept it for what it is, take it for granted, and enjoy it.
We never got run out, and I have to believe that whoever owned the property knew people fished there all the time by the beaten dirt path from the road down the steep incline leading into the bottom of a deep bowl full of water. I’d never do it today, because I now have a respect for other people’s property and an equal fear of being a father who would have to explain to my children after being picked up at the police station that they should do as I say, not as I do. It seems that I’ve grown responsible, dare I say slightly wiser as I’ve gotten older. All be it with an apparent lack of adventure that can accompany the two if allowed. I’m not saying I’m not adventurous anymore, just that when I choose my adventures, they’re more based on possible outcomes these days than they used to be.
I was pretty sure my brother had caught a couple certified pigs from this stretch a couple years ago, or at least this general area. He’d shown me pictures, huge twenty-plus inch fat browns, and assured me he’d released them, but never did come clean as to where he actually was. Just somewhere on the creek, and my suspicions told me somewhere around here, simply because he was living and working close by at the time. Of course, I wouldn’t have put it past him to rent a house and get a job close to a specific part of the creek just to throw everyone off as to where he was fishing. Nope, I wouldn’t put it past him at all. I never pressured him for the spot and he never volunteered it.
There’s never enough time for fishing lately. But even though time on the water is more valuable than gold this time of year you can always find something to connect you to the waters and the fish once the work day is done and dinner has been eaten, once the kids have gone to bed, and for me, once the wife has turned on that godforsaken Hallmark Channel where every movie seems to have the same plot and the same two female lead actors. I know when she flips to that channel without even being in the room. I can only describe it as a disturbance in the force. It’s as if a million voices suddenly cry out in terror and are then suddenly silenced. But like I said, even though it’s dark before dinner and icicles hang from the eaves outside the windows there’s always a way to stay true to the cause. For one thing there’s fly tying, and for another there’s a never ending list of books filled with fishing stories.
I’ll swear to anyone that it’s not about the fish to me when I go out, that it’s about the places. And the farm lake above any other place on the planet is more about the place than the fish to me, but there are great fish in it too. JP and his wife Bobbi were in the second Jeep and I really wanted them to get the full experience out of the trip. For all I know, any trip out to the farm these days could be the last. I expect to pull up to a For Sale sign one of these days, or worse, to the news that it’s already been sold. If this was their one and only trip to the farm, I wanted it to live up to the hype I gave it every time it became the subject of conversation. I realize that no one will ever love your favorite fishing spot as much as you, but like all fisherman, I try to impress its importance to me upon others. Because like all other fishermen, I just can’t help it.
I just started this too late. I wish I’d found fly fishing much sooner in life. It could’ve saved me a lot of heart ache. A lot of anger. A lot of depression. What you’ve got to understand is that even though I’ve always fished, there were a great number of years in between being a long haired head banger in high school stricken by the need to hunt bass in farm ponds with spinning rods and these years now, that I find time fleeting and calendars shrinking as I dream of chasing fish to the ends of the earth with a fly rod. The years in between were a distracted time the way I see it. There was always a fishing rod leaning in a corner of a closet or the garage that came out a couple times a year, but there were too many things taking my full attention, leaving almost none for the fish and the places they could be found.
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