You mean in life, or fishing? I hear you. When I write, you never know which one I’m talking about…sometimes, many times - both. I know I lose some folks on this blog by blending the two, but I pick some folks up, too, that are intrigued by how much the two have in common, and what great symbolism and perspective fishing offers on life. You should try it sometime. Read fishing stuff and think about your life. You’ll be surprised, and it just may help you understand a little about yourself, others, and the relationships you have with others. Heck, there may be a half dozen things in this post, you never know. I’ll start out talking about a recent fishing trip I took with a good friend, and we’ll see where it ends up.

I picked up the phone. “Craig”, a friend said on the other end of the line. “I can go fishing tomorrow morning”.
“You read my mind”, I replied.

8 am the next day I was loading up the boat with goodies, tackle boxes, spin and fly rods. On this morning, the lake was flat glass calm like a clean slate, and man did I have a good feeling about it. The coffee tasted good, the lake had that wonderful morning smell, my jacket felt warm and the cool air on my face finished waking me up. Drake, who of course was going, already jumped in the lake after minnows, making sure he waited until he was next to us to shake.

Off in the distance I could see bass driving minnows up to the surface and slashing through them like a razor, flying end over end at times. The first “pattern” of the day became apparent, so I thought.

We got on the boat, Drake jumped on, and we idled the boat out to the sunken island where all the commotion was, drifted into range of some splashing bass and casted large fly minnow imitations into the bubbles that remained on the surface from their earlier feeding. “There’s one”, I said, “Oops - he’s off”. I made the common mistake of reaching down to turn the trolling motor in a different direction, which almost always results in a lost fish. Though it looked like we hit the jackpot and would be catching fish hand over fist, we caught one more on that pattern, then the bass just quit. They had been chasing minnows all over the lake, and just quit.

We shot over to a drop off line that always produces well with the flyrods, but no takers that day. Slid up on a flat, then to a depression in the flat which almost always has fish around it, too. Nothing. Uh oh. Though the wind was switching around to the southwest, and the day promised 80 degrees which is usually good fishing, the lake patterns were going to be tough…again.

My friend for the day, Derek, and I have done a magnificent job of picking tough days to fish together on my home waters. It had been several in a row, and by now I bet he was wondering how much I had fished that lake, and oh, by the way, if I was really a guide or whether it’s just a story.

A couple of more patterns, one of which was an inflow current pattern that had produced good results last time we fished together, again nothing. We stopped right over a huge school of gar pike in the middle of the lake, 50 feet of water, where they were feeding on something. A splash here, a splash there. Everywhere we saw a splash we cast a minnow fly, and this went on for 30 minutes - no takers. I’d never seen anything like it. We strained to see what they were eating. We saw no minnows whatsoever. We conclude they were not eating, but splashing the surface for some other reason. We left, and tried a couple more drop offs. Not even small bluegills on nyph flies, which are almost always eager to hit flies.

We stopped for lunch at Riverside Pizza on the river that passes right behind Golden Drake Outdoors. Drake jumped off the boat, peed, and jumped into the shallow water to resume chasing minnows. If we couldn’t catch fish, he was going to. It had turned into a bright sunny day. I was slipping into that daze where I was irritated at not catching fish. Frustrated. Can you imagine? A gorgeous late September (tune flash - and I really should be back at school) day on the water and I’m…irritated at not catching fish. What an idiot. How many people would give anything for a day like that and I had to find something negative, even if it was as a little thing as stupid as that. It’s almost like I had to find something bad to try to balance out so much that was was really good, like a chunk of me has to have some negative somewhere. Can’t just let the good things be good things and overlook the bad. Hmmm…. it’s about life again. See what I mean?

After lunch and something to drink, we felt refreshed ready to take on one more pattern before calling it a day. It had to be a drastic shift in approach, location, lure, and presentation. We decided to try the rivers that interconnected the chain of lakes, so we pushed through the next lake up and into the river upstream all the way to the headwaters. We anchored there, and rigged up, and used the trolling motor to ease ourselves downstream at our pace, not the current’s pace.

We started out with finesse plastic worms, just to see what was around. I cut my black plastic worm down from 4″ to 3″, super finesse, cast upstream out of the sun into shade and cover. Drastic change. Bang! A 12″ largemouth. Drake finally gets to lick a fish. Derek was into a nice fish too. Another largemouth, several rock bass, a couple of really nice largemouth, and we were into the swing of things. Derek switched over to the flyrod and his hand tied clouser minnow and caught several bass and rock bass right in a row. Man, is he a great fly caster. He even caught one nice largemouth in the churned up mud a boat had caused as it went by. That was very interesting, as I always thought boats scared the fish in the river. Another rule broken. Derek added a perch to his flyfishing bag for the day, and in fact that was the first perch he ever caught on a fly, so good deal. Drake got in all the fish licks he wanted, and laid down on the bottom of the boat to nap.

We would have stayed longer, we hadn’t even fished the best part of that particular river stretch, but business called and we had to leave it there. That’s ok. We had stuck with it, worked at it, and it was worth it. Yes, it was the most beautiful day out on the boat I can remember, but there’s also something special about not giving up, trying new and creative things from the endless possibilities, endless ability to hope, and then having things work out. How sweet it is.

I suppose for alot of folks the word “Dad” conjures up many different feelings, every one unique. For me, it’s respect, admiration, of course, but deeper it’s thankfulness and - but much harder - love. See what I mean? Different than others I’m sure. Hard to let yourself feel love for your own Dad? That’s just the way it is…it’s there all right, solid as a rock, there’s just a certain awkwardness that’s always been there that makes it hard to break through, feel it and say it.

Such was the subroutine running through my brain this gorgeous weekday as my Dad, Drake, and I were fishing together. Sure we caught fish, but as you know it’s never just about the fishing. Family, friends, relationships, and life experiences all seem to get wrapped around, and wrapped up in fishing.

Dad decided to try to re-live some of his childhood memories, probably 60-70 years ago, by fishing with his favorite lure at that time, a 2″ orange flatfish. This is the lure he caught smallmouth, rock bass, and other fish in the same exact spot we fished that day. It was clear and sunny, about 3 in the afternoon, and the water was crystal clear. From living on the lake the last 15 years, and guiding it the last 5, I knew that choice was going to be tough.

I used a small 3″ plastic worm with ultralights and 2 lb test and caught several smallmouth, rock bass, a bluegill, and a perch. I was happy Drake got his excitement, his fish licks, and felt like he was part of the fishing trip which he is, always is. Dad persisted with the flatfish, and caught nothing. I wanted to say something…but couldn’t. He was here far before me, and this was really his lake, his time.

I wanted to say something because I understood that things were different when he was a kid. Heck it’s hugely different than when I was a kid. The lake was less busy, less weedy, and he doesn’t remember but those guys never fished in mid afternoon. They fished at dawn or at dusk. They fished a sunken island that was totally barren of weeds, just gravel, sand and rocks. He used to put sinkers on the line and run that flatfish right along the bottom where it bounced off the gravel and rocks and triggered those big smallies into smashing it. Now it is so choked with fertilizer fed weeds that a normal lure snags weeds half way down on almost every cast. It’s so sad. People want their lawns green so bad they will destroy an aquaculture. Then pontificate as to what everybody else needs to be doing for the environment. It’s one of the reasons I’m leaving the chain. It’s so much different than when even I was a kid, it’s got to be a heart breaker for Dad. I can’t wait to buy a house on a contained, low populated, wake free lake. I hope I can get there in time to take him out on a real lake.

Maybe Dad knew this too, but wanted to believe it was otherwise. I wanted to say something because I had spent so much time figuring out the lake the last ten years. I knew if I could just switch him over to a small plastic worm he’d catch fish. For crying out loud, I’m the only guide on the entire chain of lakes. If I could just find some way to make it easy for him to change over, he’d catch fish. But I knew what he was doing. But for some reason, the right reason, I kept my mouth shut.

We talked about alot of things. Most of it “surfacy”. You know what I mean. How’s the family, kids, dogs, etc. Never brought up anything significant, though I wanted to, in fact needed to. I wanted his wisdom on a life changing event I recently went through. When you’re not on the right “level” with someone, though, it’s difficult to bring up serious things you want to talk over.

So we fished until he got tired. He said he was disappointed. I felt bad, though said I understood. At the dock I held my arm out as a “railing” for him to use as he climbed out of the boat. I told him I did that with all the clients I took fishing, and it was just a habit. My mind flashed back to the man he used to be. I couldn’t help it. A B17 pilot, olympic swimmer, world known orthopedic surgeon. In his prime he could have picked me up like a boomtruck and placed me feet first on the dock. Funny, I remember when he actually did that when I was a kid.

I’m 50 and he’s 84. He’s alot slower, less steady, and that’s the way it is. I sometimes hurt because though I keep trying, I still can’t break through that “thing” and get on a level where we just talk about anything and everything, you know, talk in a real way about the things you really want to say and hear, not just the latest news. I guess we all just keep fishing for the big ones in life, even if they do stay just out of reach or just keep getting away.

I’m going to get back out on the boat and go “fishing” with Dad very, very soon.