It Had Been 35 Years Since My Dad & I Last Fished Together
It had been 35 years since my dad and I had last fished together.
My earliest fishing memories were with my mom, dad, and brother, brand new Zebco rod and reel catching trout with sweet corn at a little pay-by-the-inch trout pond called the Cross-eyed Cricket just outside of Knoxville TN. For a little kid with ADD in the 80's trout fishing held my attention like nothing else. My pupils reflected the red and white bobber floating in front of me and I would set the hook on an 8" rainbow like it was a 120 lb. tarpon! We named the biggest fish in the pond "Walter" and though he eluded me in my youth, I would often catch him in my dreams. I fished with my dad like many young boys, and stopped fishing with him for 35 years for reasons that are all to familiar to many of us.
My Dad was a doctor, just as his father before him. Driven and hard working my father built his medical practice with long hours, late nights, and missed dinners. He crisscrossed the state of Nebraska serving patients in big city and small town alike, before jet-setting the globe to triage and treat the sick of Ecuador, Congo, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. While my older brother and dad were a lot alike in personality and drive, I was a wild child who didn't know how to sit with myself let alone be in relationship with a father much different than me. Rules didn't apply to me, and as the walls classroom and social norms pushed in on me, I pushed back, and hold to this day the record of being kept after school 24 times in 1st grade for my "unbridled energy". In 5th grade I was taught to tie flies at school as a carrot to keep me focused, and as soon as the school bell rang I would be on my bike with fishing rod and tackle box kicking up dust to the nearest lake. In my teen year as my dad was finding himself in work, my days were filled with punk rock, hopping trains, and repelling off of grain elevators in the middle of the night. I taught myself to fly fish, and with so much noise around me and in my head, the water became my quite place where I could think and feel. The water and fly fishing took root in my person, and would forever be an integral part of who I was and where I experienced life most clearly and honestly. My dad and I "got busy", distracted by life, school, work and friends.
My earliest fishing memories were with my mom, dad, and brother, brand new Zebco rod and reel catching trout with sweet corn at a little pay-by-the-inch trout pond called the Cross-eyed Cricket just outside of Knoxville TN. For a little kid with ADD in the 80's trout fishing held my attention like nothing else. My pupils reflected the red and white bobber floating in front of me and I would set the hook on an 8" rainbow like it was a 120 lb. tarpon! We named the biggest fish in the pond "Walter" and though he eluded me in my youth, I would often catch him in my dreams. I fished with my dad like many young boys, and stopped fishing with him for 35 years for reasons that are all to familiar to many of us.
My Dad was a doctor, just as his father before him. Driven and hard working my father built his medical practice with long hours, late nights, and missed dinners. He crisscrossed the state of Nebraska serving patients in big city and small town alike, before jet-setting the globe to triage and treat the sick of Ecuador, Congo, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. While my older brother and dad were a lot alike in personality and drive, I was a wild child who didn't know how to sit with myself let alone be in relationship with a father much different than me. Rules didn't apply to me, and as the walls classroom and social norms pushed in on me, I pushed back, and hold to this day the record of being kept after school 24 times in 1st grade for my "unbridled energy". In 5th grade I was taught to tie flies at school as a carrot to keep me focused, and as soon as the school bell rang I would be on my bike with fishing rod and tackle box kicking up dust to the nearest lake. In my teen year as my dad was finding himself in work, my days were filled with punk rock, hopping trains, and repelling off of grain elevators in the middle of the night. I taught myself to fly fish, and with so much noise around me and in my head, the water became my quite place where I could think and feel. The water and fly fishing took root in my person, and would forever be an integral part of who I was and where I experienced life most clearly and honestly. My dad and I "got busy", distracted by life, school, work and friends.
The growing number of months and years between our last fishing trip together went unnoticed by both of us but not unfelt.
The years went on and I went away to college and then grad school, and fly fishing remained an integral part of my life. My freshmen year I skipped class the first week of school to fish the lake in the middle of campus, while my dorm room shelves were filled with more fly-tying gear than books. I earned degrees that never made it from my top dresser drawer to the wall, and I finally embraced the reality that my heart was actually comprised of 73% mountain stream water, and I should be working with trout as a vocation. I poured myself into my studies, learning everything I could about trout physiology, habitat, feeding behavior, entomology, stream dynamics, and cold-water ecosystems. Bachlor degree #3 was hung proudly on the wall, and while my dad supported and loved me, we did not share the passion for fly fishing.
Years passed... My parents moved from place to place as I followed the trout from the Pacific Northwest to Colorado. I founded Ascent Fly fishing, segway my love for fly fishing for trout with my insider biologist's knowledge of their lives, habitat, and feeding.
I got to know so many of you as we shared life on and around the water.
Clients became friends over the years as they would come into my shop (which was my garage for over 9 years before opening a storefront in Littleton CO) and learn about their hopes and goals for the weekend before dropping pins on the best fishing spots and sending them out the door with a fly box full of flies. For me, fly fishing became less about conquest and more about connection. I helped Fathers and Daughters, Mothers and Sons map out experiences to connect over bent rods, climbing trees to retrieve flies, and memories cemented into their being by photos of trout proudly held in front of smiling faces. As we shared life between the trays in the fly shop we celebrated the birth of grandbabies, we stood by friends as they moved through addition recovery, and cried with those whose kids went before them. My Dad remained my biggest fan through the years, often visiting the shop to encourage me, but never joining me on the water. This isn’t all on him. Like so many of us, we didn’t fish together because we "were busy", distracted by life, kids’ activities, work, and friends.
In August of 2023 when I received a call that my dad had experience a precipitous decline in movement and speech, I booked plane ticket and immediately flew to South Carolina where they had recently moved the year before. He had a brain tumor, and it had grown far too long just out of sight. I moved my parents back to Colorado for my dad’s treatment and prayed. It felt like we were living on borrowed time. Where had the years gone?! We navigated surgery and treatment together, and 9 months later my dad is not only alive, he and my mom have moved in with my family to share what days and months are left to us.
This past week, my dad and I went fishing together after 35 years.
A client learned of my dad’s cancer and invited us both to participate in a Reel Recovery retreat on the South Platte River this June. Over a long weekend man with cancer from around the nation come together to share courageous conversations as they process the struggles, fears, and hopes of fighting cancer with other men sharing the same trenches. These conversations however take place along the river, where each man is paired with partner who acts as their fly fishing guide. Not knowing how my dad would respond to this invitation, I was surprised and deeply moved that he not only accepted the invitation but did so to better understand my heart and the sport and waters that have been so integral to my person, profession, and being.
I will hold in my heart the memories and experiences of that weekend forever. I watched my dad cast and mend, smile cheek splitting smiles as he recounted the fish he landed, and heard the wistfulness in his voice as he recounted the “Walter” sized monster that got away. My dad met many men who knew me as well. Men who had learned how to fish in my classes or shop, who had shared stories with their own families sprung from pins I had planted for them along rivers on the map, and how our friendships had grown over the year.
Fishing together allowed me to know my dad and my dad to know me in a deep and intimate way that can only happen when time is shared in the water. The strong currents of life are still pulling at us, but right now, in this moment we are together. Cancer and the cares of the fly shop drift away with the current as we hold onto each other for support and I point out the next cast, celebrate a good mend, and smile over shared fish and memories made on the water.
We might not have next year or even next month to go fishing together again, so this time I’m going to make sure that we have a trip booked for next week.
Fly of the Month
Pattern: Stubby Chubby
Sizes: 12-18
Known for its durability and long life even after a score of fish, the Stubby Chubby is both versatile and deadly. The little brother of the Chubby Chernobyl, the Stubby Chubby’s foam body, antron wings, and rubber legs are tied to a shorter shank dry fly hook and is equally effective when fished as an adult stone fly or as a terrestrial insect. We recommend that you fish them big, fish them often, and hold on tight!
Dry/Wet: Dry
Fly Category: Generalist Pattern
Family: Stoneflies, Terrestrials
Species: Golden Stonefly, Skwala Stonefly, Salmonfly, Grasshopper
Life Stage: Adult
