Hearing the sound of the landing gear opening, I closed the copy of John Gierach’s “Trout Bum” and slid open the window shade to take in the views of Salt Lake City. The snowcapped mountains in the distance made me instantly feel cooler.
We had left the heat and sticky humidity of Atlanta early that morning, and I longed for the cool, dry air of the West. My head was filled with visions of the trout that awaited us in Idaho, and reading Gierach’s novel had only multiplied those visions; however, disembarking the plane, another writer’s words came to mind.
In “A River Runs Through It,” author Norman Maclean wrote, “…it is not fly fishing if you are not looking for answers to questions.” Those words seemed very apropos as I knew at least one of the members of our fishing party was searching for answers to a big question: “What do I want to be when I grow up?”
I was headed to The Lodge at Palisades Creek in Irwin, Idaho, for a fly fishing trip with my son, Dan, brother Michael Van Veckhoven, and nephew Billy. It was a trip I had dreamt about since catching my first trout a year earlier while fishing with Michael in the mountains near Blue Ridge, Georgia.
The trip was a much-needed escape for all of us. For Dan, it had been one of those periods of “heavy lifting” emotionally. He had just returned from a walk across Spain on the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage focused on seeking clarity about his future.
Dan had returned with answers, but only in relation to what he knew he didn’t want to do. Now, he was faced with determining what was next. I’ve always felt life is backwards in this regard. To know in your early 20s what you want to do with the rest of your life is difficult, if not impossible, for most.
As a parent, I have come to understand that the job of parenting is challenging at any age or stage in the lives of your children. You long to help them, to give them answers, but there are some questions they must answer for themselves. This was one of those instances, and my hope was that our trip would be an escape from those worries, at least for a time.
On our drive from Salt Lake to Irwin, I fell in love with Idaho. I have spent time in Wyoming, Montana and Colorado and loved them all; however, Idaho immediately felt different, it felt like home. It had the feel of a Mississippi (minus the humidity) with mountains, which I attributed, in part, to the farming that surrounded us in every direction and the people who were all down-to-earth and laid-back.
When I first caught sight of the Snake River bordered on one side by mountains and by flowing fields of barley on the other, I immediately felt relaxed, and my mind began to fill, once again, with thoughts of the trout we hoped to catch: a mixed bag of browns, cutthroats, rainbows and cutbow hybrids. I couldn’t wait to get on the water.
Truth be told, I was also anxious about getting on the water since it would involve fishing from a drift boat for the first time. In my mind, drift-boat fishing was going to be much more difficult than wade fishing. On the whole, I still view fly fishing as much harder than fishing with a spinning reel.
I am still a newbie to the world of fly fishing. The fact that I have successfully caught trout on a fly rod still amazes me. In the words of Gierach, “In the beginning, catching a trout on a fly is one of those things you have to do before you actually come to believe it’s possible.”
For a time on our first morning, I sat in the back of the boat watching Dan. This was his first time to fly fish, and I watched him closely, all the while reliving my first casts (or attempts to cast). Just after 11 that morning, Dan landed his first trout, a gorgeous brown.
The brown was the trout that I dreamed of catching on this trip and just before lunch, I landed my first. As I stared into the net and then at the magnificent fish in my hands, I was struck by its sheer beauty.
Once again, the words of Gierach came to mind: “Trout are among those creatures who are one hell of a lot prettier than they need to be. They can get you to wondering about the hidden workings of reality.”
Perhaps that wonderment is why I have fallen for fly fishing. I find myself more relaxed on or in rivers with a fly rod in my hands than any other place I’ve been, and it’s in those times that I am free to ponder both “the hidden workings of reality” as well as “what I want to be when I grow up.”
Here’s to those ponderings and to seeing you out there in our great outdoors.
Email outdoors columnist Brad Dye at braddye@comcast.net.
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