Every one has an odd story about how they came into the sport of fly fishing, some from an ad in a magazine, some from their grandad, and others at a later stage in life from a friend. Mine started at Sea World…
In my youth, and still today, I’m fascinated with fish. The variety of shapes, colors and biology of all aquatic life is just so amazing. From my point of view the link between all organisms and the ecosystems in which they reside is like puzzle pieces that’s edges move on, ever so slightly, over time. I can’t remember an era where I didn’t have an aquarium next to my desk, whether it was freshwater fish, newts, saltwater fish or the full blown reef tanks I keep today.
The Year was 1989 and I had convinced my parents that Sea World was the place to take the family on a day trip, I was beyond excited and couldn’t sleep the night before, the thought of killer whales, penguins and ocean fish had my mind racing. The day was amazing I still remember the trainers lifting their arms as “Shamoo” blasted over them leaving the salty mist of sea water that you could taste in the air. As the day came to a close my uncle Tony said, “Let’s stop by the trout pond”. This seemed like a step down after the day’s world of exotic wonders, but that’s when things changed forever.
As an adult I see it as almost a joke. There were a bunch of colorless trout living on a staple cat food diet, in a concrete pool, swimming around in a circlcular sync, reminiscent of a commode in perpetual flush mode. But the minute that cane pole hit my hand and the rod bent ever so slightly it created a feeling inside that exist, unchanged, today. From that day on I spent all my weekend mornings begging my dad, and anyone I could find to take me fishing, until they finally broke. My father served as the bastion of my love for the sport and made sure I always had a full belly of pancakes with honey on top (I was a weird kid), before he spent hours untying tangled bird’s nests of fishing line. When we would visit my relatives my “Pap Gus”, the kindest person I have ever know, was my mark. He made sure I never missed a chance at fishing when he was around, he sat me at the edge of the local golf course lake while I cast into exhaustion.
One rainy weekend morning my brother and I were watching Rugrats and Ren & Stimpy cartoons, as we usually did while trying to pummel each other, we thought we were WWF wrestlers. While flipping through the channels I saw a man named “Jimmy Houston” give a bass a big ole kiss! I loved it, from that point on Saturday morning cartoons were a distant memory. A few months later, as the weekend rain pinged against my parent’s living room window, I took my Indian style seat on their green frizzy carpet and I settled in for my weekend fishing lineup when a show I hadn’t see came on the screen. This was a show with a whole new way of fishing, they called it “Fly Fishing”! I can’t recall which show got me first, “Fly Fishing America”, “Fly Fishing the World”, “Mark Sosin’s Saltwater Journal”, Flip Pallet and the “Walker’s Cay Chronicles”, or if it was Jose Wejebe bouncing around on “Spanish Fly”. None the less, the grace of the line flying though the air was almost like watching a ballerina dive across a stage or a painter glide his brush across a canvas in an attempt at creating a masterpiece, and it had me captivated. All of the line was in the air, with nothing but the flick of a wrist keeping it suspended. All this in an attempt to land a pea size hook into a 6″ zone of water and lift a massive speckled brown and red fish out of a babbling brook. How could this be…I HAD TO TRY IT!!!!
Again, my father as the steady target for my fishing ambitions, was asked every day for months “Can I please get a fly fishing pole”, and he always had an excuse for me. It’s too hard, you’ll never stick with it, who’s going to teach you, it seems like a lot of work, too expensive, we have no where to fly fish, and the list went on until one Friday we went to the local flea market and there it was the object of my desire, a 6wt bright yellow fiberglass Fenwick fly fishing rod and an giant Daiwa fly reel. I still have the rod to this today and when I hold it in my hands I just laugh. I used it for years to reel in hot dog sized browns and rainbows along with the occasional bas and shad, but compared to today’s rods it’s about the size of an 11wt and the reel could have held enough line for an angry tarpon. However at the time it was everything I could have dreamed of!
From then on my father and I had our best times on the streams and lakes, it was a place where everything else disappeared and until my high school years I would fly fish anywhere I could, in a trout stream, a bass pond, in my buddy Brandon’s chub filled back yard creek, and sometimes in places that were no more than a puddle, where I knew there were no fish. That’s when I realized it wasn’t only about the fish.
My father soon decided to try the fly, and that was an entirely new can of worms! From the minute he cast that line he was also hooked, he would stop at the local fly shop once a week, took classes for casting, enrolled the both of us in tying lesson and at some point we had a role reversal. If I wan’t ready at the door when the sun came up, he would already be on his way to the stream. I don’t think I ever saw him at our house on an early weekend morning after that! When I entered high school my favor for fishing wavered as I became a victim of the distraction of teenage boys, but still occasionally got to the water. It wasn’t until later in college the I fell in love with it all over again, and now 30 years after my first concrete trout pond, it’s still my muse.
Everyone, I believe, needs to find their bearing in life. For me, my North Star and the most consistent object of affection has been a fish, graphite and feathers, and plan to keep it that way until I have no choice but to enjoy looking back only on the stories from my flies…hopefully in a rocking chair with a breeze blowing softly while stream side. This journey has lead me to build relationships with some of the best people I could ever ask for on the water and in the fly shops, along with being lucky enough to have had so many people contribute to making the rod & fly my legacy. Most of all I thank my loving, patient and understanding wife and my mother for always giving me the time, encouragement and pushing me out the door to make my simple dream of standing in rough weather, in a cold stream. with water up to my knees while waving around a stick & string around possible.
Word!
~Adam