fly fishing and my father

My father is a man in his seventies. He has grown to be sweet and playful through the years and he has a young man’s heart. Always a hard worker, he continues to ply his trade even now.

Throughout my life he has been a positive influence and we share many of the same qualities. (Not all of them good.) When I was young, he taught me how to be comfortable in the mountains. He showed me how to appreciate the outdoors and all of the creatures in it. He taught me how to ski and shoot. Taught me to camp in the wilderness and how to wait for just the right light before shooting the picture. It was he who planted the seed that grew into a real love for the landscape around me, especially at elevations above 5280 feet. The one activity I most appreciate him introducing me to though, is the art of fly-fishing.

Fishing with a long, flexible rod, using tiny replicas of the insects in the water and attaching them to an impossibly thin line. To me, it is hard to describe the feeling of patiently, hour after hour, laying the “bug” softy in the current, trying to coax it into floating over the head of an unsuspecting brown, laying in the rocks at the bottom of the riverbed. When you do everything just right, the fish darts upwards, sucks in the lure and if you’re lucky, he’ll break the surface of the water and you get to see his beauty as he takes the fly.

It requires some skill and much patience to bring him in without snapping your line but when it happens, there is a moment when everything goes away and you get lost in your concentration and nothing else matters. When I am fortunate enough, and everything comes together, the tranquil feeling of gently removing the hook and guiding the fish back into the river from where he came, is magic. It is a rare feeling. One I cherish and wish I could experience more often.

Seems that these days I, like many others, spend way too many hours working and worrying about life and way too few on the true pleasures we, as human beings, have at our disposal. I intend to change that.

I love my father. I have a great respect for the fact that he continues to work hard and keep his mind sharp but I wish he would retire. It is time for him to enjoy those things he taught me to appreciate as a young man. He has paid the price. He has been a good provider. He has earned the respect of his friends, his family and his colleagues. It’s not as though we have never had the discussion. We have it all the time. The answer always comes back the same. “Dick, I don’t want to retire. What would I do?” Well Pop, why not fish?

If there’s one thing I know, it is, when I die, I do not want my headstone to read “Here lies a great photographer!” I’m thinking something more along the lines of “He was a good father, a loving partner and one hell of a fisherman.”