Often in life, the important things are not what we accomplish, but rather what we become in the process. All those experiences add together in ways we do not understand, until someday we look back and see how they were a path shaping us and making us into who we are today.

My Uncle sent me the below blog post, sharing how fishing has been a constant thread throughout his life, shaping him and changing him in ways he didn’t notice at the time. He did not ask me to post his writing here, but I am, as a tribute to a guy who gets it.

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I have always enjoyed fishing. It didn’t matter what kind. I started off going to farm ponds with family and then later, when I was old enough, would ride my bike along narrow, winding roads to access ‘remote’ fishing spots on a couple of local tributary streams. As I got older, and my bike was traded for a car, my exploration of nearby streams expanded. In addition to small warmwater streams I would spend a great deal of time fishing along the banks of the Ohio River. The lure of the bigger water was bigger fish. Never knowing what might come up from the muddy depths called me back continually.

Eventually, God’s plan for me included a career as a biologist working on that same river. Over a 17 year stretch I spent my summers on a boat conducting fish surveys, developing a fish index that is still in use today as a tool for gauging the health of the ecosystem. The first index of its kind developed for such a large river. Even when using electricity instead of monofilament, every day was exciting as I anticipated what might come up next. Of course, being on a boat every day I also had a rod (or two) tucked away and would start work early or stay out later than needed to wet a line and do it ‘the right way’.

I’ve fished remote lakes in Canada, pursued grayling in Alaska, stripers in Chesapeake Bay and landlocked ones in Tennessee, filled my plate and freezer with fresh grouper and snapper in the Gulf and had countless adventures and tight lines in many other places, each creating memories that will never be erased.

Somewhere along the way I also caught trout. My initial introduction, I hate to admit it, was in waters frequented by the stock truck……and the throngs of unscrupulous ‘anglers’ with jars full of PowerBait and cans of yellow corn. The stocked streams in my area were warmwater streams and their trout would be fished out by late spring, once the stocking runs ended. I would make occasional trips to the mountains in my home state of West Virginia where the waters were colder, and the trout could at least hold on through the summer. Those waters did hold some nice sized trout. Three 18 inchers in a day was a great day. In those days I was still driven by the anticipation of a hefty trout in my creel that fell prey to a well-placed Mepps, Panther Martin or Rooster Tail spinner. Yeah, yeah, I know, chasing trout with a spinning rod and rooster tails is unmentionable. But, it was part of my evolution.

Eventually, my schedule got fuller and so did my family life. Years went by without setting foot in a spring fed mountain stream. When I could, I fished the nearby warm water streams and eventually bought my first fly rod. I even bought a fly-tying kit. A laughable one, but it was enough to get me started. The first flies I tied were Clouser minnows. Thrown with a cheap, used 5 wt rod that I bought at a local fly shop, they worked well for scrappy smallmouths. Over time, I became somewhat frustrated with fly fishing. While fun, fly fishing on hot days in warm streams for bass just didn’t feel right. I was out of place. A few years ago though, I made the effort to get on the water with my nephew. He and I are close in age and grew up fishing the same streams in rivers near our hometown. Eventually, his job would take him to the mountains of West Virginia, where reproducing populations of brown, rainbows and the native brookies could be found. He spent hours studying maps and picking out remote spots where the trout may smaller and fewer in number, but the waters were remote, the surroundings spectacular and the trout weren’t overfished. He learned way before I did what ‘quality time’ on the water really means.

It only took one or two trips with him in those secluded, shady mountain streams to reconnect and reignite a passionate drive and excitement that I had not felt since my youth. My first memory as a ‘fisherman’ was being about 7 years old, standing on a wooden dock on a small farm pond with my brother and catching as many big, fat bluegill as I could haul in with my Zebo rod. I suppose we fished until the worms were gone and the stringer was full and that day some sort of flame inside me was lit. A flicker that only a few can understand. More than just an itch that has to be scratched, it’s a drive that can become a fever.

That fever now is just as intense, but it has evolved, or mutated, I’m not sure which. The passionate drive is not about full stringers, or for the potential leviathan to rise up from the depths of the Ohio at the end of a taught line, it’s about something more. It’s about allowing ‘the pursuit’ to be more important than the ’catching’. It’s about what happens between casts. Yes, it’s the challenge of choosing the strategy, the approach to the hole and feeling the heartbeat of the stream, but, it’s also about being connected to nature, in that moment, appreciating the solitude, the surroundings and the time shared with friends.

That mutation, I mean evolution, has called me back to the bench. Years ago, I tied that first Clouser with that first, crude tying kit. I caught a lot of bass on that cheap, used fly rod and those simple streamers. There is a special kind of reward that comes with catching a fish on a lure that you created with your own hands instead of buying one off the shelf at Wal-Mart or Bass Pro. It creates more of a connection, a personal connection between you and that fish. I don’t remember the first smallmouth, largemouth or sunfish I caught on a fly that I tied, but I do remember my first trout. My nephew and I were on a weekend backpacking trip that took us along the banks of a river known for its bronzebacks. We had fun landing lots of fish on that memorable trip, but the highlight for me was a brook trout, a very nice mountain brook trout, that was nestled into a cold pool where a spring fed steam entered the larger water. I was throwing one of those Clousers and apparently, it was good enough to fool a worthwhile squaretail. THAT is a fish that I remember, and that fish advanced by evolution even further.

Even though that was over 20 years ago, that one fish that fell victim to my trickery lit another kind of spark within me. Now, I am not only challenged in the stream, I am also challenged at the tying bench. My adventure doesn’t begin when I set foot in the cold stream and end when I hang my waders to dry at home, it begins when I sit at the bench and use thread and feathers (and maybe a little UV glue) to do my best to imitate mother nature and create something that will turn the most discerning eye of a wary trout and tempt it to rise.

Fly fishing now brings me almost (almost) as much reward when sitting at home at my bench with a warm glass of bourbon nearby. At the bench I reflect on the challenges of the fly as well as the challenges of life. It is a quiet time of inward and outward reflection. A time to recall moments shared on beautiful mountain streams and a time to dream about finding new streams to explore and new trout at the end of a tight line. It’s a time to get lost, to shut out life, to find solitude and to focus on the fly.

My feet are dry and my back is warm, but my mind is in the stream. Much of the same solitude and reward that satisfies me when I am in the stream can be found at the bench. I never thought it would be so. I’ve evolved from someone who needed a big fish, or at least the hope of one, from any water where I could wet a line to someone who seeks so much more, who receives so much more from this pursuit. Fly fishing truly is an art form. Every aspect of it. Norman Maclean, referring to his father said, “To him, all good things – trout as well as eternal salvation – came by grace; and grace comes by art; and art does not come easy”.  

I tie with anticipation, expectation, and hope that I will get the chance to test each one, test its worthiness and mine. On a stream fed by the rain, test its worthiness among the rainbow, brook and brown.

I don’t tie to fill my fly box. I don’t tie to save money; I tie to save myself. – E. Emery