You Just Never Know

You Just Never Know



Brady was always a lover of the outdoors. He had fished and hunted with his Dad when he was a young boy. He remembered with total clarity the days spent chasing trout in the rivers and streams in his home state of West Virginia. The nights spent fishing for flatheads on the mighty New river. And the days filled with the sweet smell of gunpowder and a wet dog by his side. He thought about all of this and other things as he pulled up to the stream where it had all began.



Had it really been that long ago when he had first pulled a trout from this magical stream? Twenty five years ago it had all happened and the memories were coming over him as swift and turbulent as the water that flowed before him.

He stepped from his old bruised and battered truck to stretch his legs for he knew Jim would be late. He always was. This could be counted on and Brady , on this day, was glad he was late. For he yearned to spend some time on the stream before Jim arrived, alone again at last on the river of his youth.



As Brady walked the bank of the stream he felt almost childlike as he bent over to pick up a limey green grasshopper and inspect it and the others that were leaping and flying every few steps he would take in the tall grass. He was always fascinated at their great abundance and close proximity to the stream. What intrigued him most was that with all these hoppers skimming the tall grass and with them certainly falling into the stream from time to time, especially on a windy day, the trout in this stream would seldom take a perfectly tied imitation drifted precisely over their feeding lane. He wondered why this was as he casually flipped one into the stream, only to see it disappear in a violent rise from a hefty slice of Elk River Butter.



Would today be the exception? He quietly thought to himself. After all it was rather windy and surely the fish were most likely keying in on those unfortunate hoppers that were violently blown onto the waters surface. He quickly checked all seven of his fly boxes and could not find a hopper imitation in any of them. Suddenly he remembered his day pack in the back cab of his truck and he had a slight skip in his step as he walked back to retrieve the bag that held all of his hopper imitations.



Opening the bag he was relieved to see that they were all still there. He was even more relieved to see that they were all still pretty much in the same shape as the days he had tied them. Most were tied ten or more years ago when he was going through his phase of learning to spin deer hair. He quickly grabbed the bag and walked back to the edge of the stream where he had seen the brown that had ate the grasshopper.



Uncasing his grandfathers old fiberglass fly rod felt nostalgic and he was very pleased as he slid the last bit of fly line through the guides of the antique rod. The rod felt a bit heavy to him for he was used to the new graphite rods that were much lighter and compact. But he imagined that the extra weight was the soul of his grandfather pressed deep into the rods very being and it all began to feel quite familiar to him and he was pleased as he tied on the deer hair hopper to the end of his fine tippet.



As he waded into the stream several fish were already rising. Making soft dimples on the waters surface and he knew there could not be any greater place in the world to be at this particular moment. He soaked it all in before he made his first cast to the rising fish. Making sure ever thing was as it should be and it was. He couldn’t think of anything but the trout and the hoppers and how they were all so beautifully connected. And it made him feel pure inside. He gently raised the rod and started a familiar sequence of false casts.



As the line turned over and the tippet began to straighten over the water, he stopped his cast abruptly, letting it fall quietly onto the water in front of two browns that were demanding his attention. As the fly drifted over the trouts feeding lane one of the browns made a slight turn and slowly came up to inspect the new terrestrial that had just invaded his turf. The brown drifted thirty feet or more, not an inch below the surface under the fly, before slowly turning and heading back to his feeding lane.



Brady thought to himself that maybe this wasn’t an exception to the rule type of day. And he made several more casts to the rising trout with no luck at all. He didn’t mind though for it was a glorious day and the coolness of the river felt quite intoxicating to him. So he kept on casting the fly with the same results until eventually it became waterlogged and started to sink.



Just as he was beginning to raise the rod to bring the fly up from the depths a yellowish flash caught his attention and he quickly dropped the rod and it was all happening so fast, yet to him he felt as if everything around him was moving in slow motion. In an instant his rod began to thump violently and he was starting to feel very alive and his body shook as he set the hook. The pool that was quiet and peaceful not ten seconds before was now a churning cauldron of a Brown trout and a fisherman and the water that it was all happening in felt electric.



Brady quickly pointed the rod towards the fighting fish and somehow managed to get the line that was attached to the brawling beast onto his reel. The fish began to make several long runs, head thumping runs, and the earth began to move and everything was just so crazy. Brady was having the time of his life and at the same time sinking feelings began to churn in his stomach every time the fish would make another charge to break free.



Finally, after a good two minute fight, the thumping that was at the other end of his line began to get less violent and Brady turned hard on his reel, moving his rod from one side to the other to throw the fish off balance. All the while the kid in him was laughing out loud with each tug on the line that connected him to the trout and brought him deeper into to the underwater playground that was allowing all of this to happen.



As the big brown slowly began to accept its fate, Brady got his first good look at the beast. It was a fish of a lifetime with a bright yellow belly and great red spots dotted all along its flank. As he gently slid the net under the brown he heard himself let out a victorious hoot and it startled him at first, but within seconds he was laughing and there was a smile on his face that would be hard pressed to find on any other man who had not the inclination or the want to be in a place such as this and to lend his life to the trout and the trout to his.



As Brady held the fish in the water of his submerged net and watched the colors turn from gold to red , the colors began to bounce off one another, shimmering and flashing in sequence, creating a picture so beautiful it could only have been painted by the hand of God.



As he released the fish back into the magical waters that lay before him. A familiar voice brought him back to the place that separates the wilds from the sprawling world he had left before he had pulled up beside the stream earlier in the day. “Any luck yet?”, Jims baratone voice asked. “A little bit, gonna be another typical day on the elk, their eating the small stuff.” Brady replied. “Dam it! I was hoping that maybe I could do some good with a hopper pattern with all these hoppers around”. “You never know, you just never know.” Brady answered with a Devil Anse smile.



Written by

Shane Stover