The trout are where you find them. A simple truth to remedy the most confounding question: where are the trout?

If I stop and think about it, I spend much of my free time pondering this question. I buy and read old fly fishing books from the 80’s written by men who were local legends for their intimacy of where the trout are, and how to catch ‘em. I pour over maps looking for little blue lines originating above three thousand feet. I listen to podcasts where people talk about fishing, hoping they will slip up and give away a mention of a stream by name. I spend hours at the vice, turning out flies more likely to end up lodged to the bottom of the stream or high up in a rhododendron rather than in the mouth of a trout. All of this flowing into one simple quest… to find where the trout are.

The honest answer is…if all I cared about was catching trout, I’d of moved to Wyoming, Montana, or Idaho a long time ago. But life isn’t that simple, is it?

Where the trout are is often where the family isn’t, where the career isn’t, and simply where God’s path for us through life isn’t.

But there comes a point in life where the wandering needs to slow down a bit and we need to take stock of what we have. January seems like a good time to do this. The year we turn 50 especially seems like an appropriate time. I guess this is the year.

The year to take time to learn the nearby streams, to make them familiar waters. To learn to catch the trout that are here. To stop trying to fish the whole river and instead focus on the seam in front of me. To see and appreciate the things I usually overlook.

Thus says the Lord “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” – Jeremiah 6:16

The year to fish fewer patterns; the old patterns. The year to rest on the bank and just observe. The year to wait for the right cast, and not force things to happen.

And in slowing down, being rested, being quiet, being content….maybe what we find is the trout were here all along, we just hindered ourselves from finding them.