My wife once thought that the habit was a funny thing! When the trout wouldn't cooperate, I'd simply ask them too. You know, politely at first. Then, if they persisted, I'd break out the secret weapon on them - I'd softly sing to them (as one would call the cat), "Here, fishy, fishy, fishy...". Sometimes it works, sometimes . . . not so much. However, I keep on talking to them. Asking them what they want from me or why they treat me so bad.

Most days they never answer, some days they tell all, like a washed up Hollywood deva whose just dying to be seen in the spotlight again. Those days, the ones where the trout bear their souls to me............those are the days I remember most. Those are the days God blesses me with an extra dose of memories. At less than a year old, it is reported to me, that my father posed to me a simple question to which I giggled and wiggled with all my might. My father, an avid fisherman who loved to catch catfish and crappie, spoke the four You wanna go fishin'?"

OHHhh, those You wanna go fishin'?" would leave girlfriends "stood up" and would be the cause of more than a few missed Fridays at the elementary school. I remember my old elementary school… the old car tires that dotted our school yard, (recycling had just poked it's nose into the door of public thought back then), as evidenced by rows and rows of the wretchedly ugly used tires, painted bright blue, mind you that we were forced to use as "playground" equipment. Many days Dad would be waiting, just beyond those old tires, the truck loaded with gear and the boat behind the truck. It seems Iike I can vaguely remember the other boys(and a few girls, I'm sure) being jealous that a bunch of my weekends started with dinner on the road and two days of fishing with my father.

He loved to fish, and taught me to love it as well. The other thing he loved was football. Thinking back on my childhood, football and fishing seem to almost blur together in a swirl of boat rides and tackles, campfire stories and quarterback sacks. They almost seem joined together and I really can't remember a time of the year when we weren't doing one or the other. I grew up playing football and going fishing, . . . or thinking about fishing, . . .or talking about fishing with our next door neighbor. 

Weekends of fishing were second only to the weekends in the fall when I played nose-guard for whatever recreation department football team I happened to be on that year. Dad just knew that I was going to play football in the NFL one day, and had I remained above average in size, I have no doubt that I would have given it my best shot. Mom and Dad coached, supplied drinks, cheered, yelled, cringed, laughed, prayed and gave their time to this eight year old with a oversized helmet and droopy pants. They were my biggest fans and I could hear them, (especially Dad) yelling for me from the stands.

Unfortunately, at the age of fourteen, everyone else caught up to me, and passed me by. Dad died from his second cardiac arrest and I suddenly lost interest in the game. Mom did more than anyone should have had to, to keep us in clothes and food and school things and bikes and eventually, when I was sixteen, my first car. Dad would have been proud, though I don't think I've ever told her that. After Dad passed on I got depressed and quit the game we both loved before my size forced me into quitting it anyway. So much for football, I thought . . . and that's when I began to take my fishing seriously!

With football a memory and a dream, I turned to fishing a few years after Dad passed on. Mom, like my wife now, has no interest in fishing. It's not that they don't like it, it's just that they could take it or leave it. It's a little more than that to me, though and it grows with me every year. I was a teenager at the time and soon began to wonder if girls would be better than fishing. I wasn't the most popular person in high school, but I had my share of dates. Girls proved to be a worthy adversary to fish, and I believe that the former is definitely more important with me now. However …

I'm still pondering the matter and will have to get back to you on it! (If my wife reads this, I think I had better go and build myself a dog-house with some a/c for the coming hot summer months! ) Dad never held a flyrod, never cast a line at a trout, never saw the subtle rise of a "very decent brown" in a calm pool. I'm sure he would have loved it, though. If he were here right now, I'd show him . . . Right after I hugged him and told him all the things I never got to tell him. The first thing I'd tell him, is how much I looked up to him as both a father and a fisherman.

I'd tell him all about trout fishing, too, and thank him for teaching me all the things he did about fishing, friendship, love, respect, and honor. If my father was ever anything other than a gentleman, he never let me see it. He was the best father I could have had fishing or otherwise. Mom and Dad loved me more than anything else in this world, and it's sad to only see that now, at thirty years old. I suppose I could have seen it sooner, had I only looked. I was too busy, though, to see anything when I was young.

Now, I try to look around and see everything. I don't want to miss anything that I may not have the chance to see again. So, I continue to fish, mainly for trout now, in some cool mountain stream, in the middle of the dark Appalachian wilderness. Often thinking of my parents as I walk the trails to and from the creek. Often giving thanks to God for giving them to me; for choosing to let me live under their love and guidance.