Fishing Trip(revised)

A Life of Love



(The ending of the previous chapter)





Jeff sees Bob by the water’s edge. He doesn’t appear to be fishing. Just standing, admiring all the family members around. He thinks that Bob is probably thinking some like thoughts as he. It causes his mind to go back in time. Back in 2009, the spring after Bob’s graduation. He had finally become able to manage a fishing trip, just him and the boys. His consciousness seems to yield to the daydream, as he is unaware of his current surroundings.










Fishing Trip
(Chapter 6)

He wakes up at 5:18 A.M., 12 minutes before the alarm was set to go off. He thinks to himself, why be it that if nothing’s going on he may sleep all morning, but when fishing is on the agenda he wakes up a head of time.
“Man I can’t wait! I’m going to go ahead and wake Dad.” He whispered to himself. This is going to be a lot of fun, and we’ve already had a lot of fun. We just got here last night and unloaded everything. Naturally we had to stop and get hot fudge sundaes before the “roughing it” started. Dad isn’t all that big on roughing it anyway. Then of course we played a couple of rounds of Liver Pool Rummy. He had even won the first round. Good thing Jack won the second round or he would have been mad. Not really though, he’s pretty much out grown that. He and Jack use to always be at each others throats but it seems now that they’ve really become close brothers. Dad really likes to see that, you can see it in his eyes and smiles, he thought to himself.
“Hey Dad, Dad”, he whispers loudly, “’bout time to get up.”
His dad rolls over and says, “Yeah I’m awake. You think we need to get ready?”
With excitement in his voice Carter says, “Yeah, you want me to go ahead and wake Bob and Jack?”
“Sure, go ahead.” Jeff returns.
Hurriedly Carter goes to each of his brothers and wakes them. They were sleeping lightly as well and jump out of bed.
“Man this is one cool cabin!” Bob exclaims.
“Yeah really!” Jack agrees.
As the boys are busy getting dressed and all their gear ready. Jeff fixes pancakes, eggs and sausage. It is kind of a tradition, anytime they get up early to go hunting or fishing Dad usually fixes pancakes or French toast.
“Oh, you’re not fixn’ French toast?” Jack questioned. French toast was his favorite and Jeff knew it.
“Nah, that’s on the menu for tomorrow Son.” Jeff said.
“Cool” Jack’s voice immediately sounds better. He used to hate fishing, hunting and stuff like that, but now he kind of likes it. Well, he for sure likes being with Dad and his brothers just having fun.
“Okay, now where are we?” Asks Bob.
Then Jeff starts in and can hardly stop. “We’re just short of Bolder, Colorado. The water will be crystal clear boy, you’ll love it!” Jeff says. “They say the trout are big and plentiful. You’ll have to really work on using that fly rod; stream fishing is nothing like fishing at the trout pit in Kansas. But you guys are going to love it. I’m gonna love it!
“I only did this once when I was about Carter’s age. We had brought Patty up here for College at Western State. Dad and I brought these same two fly rods and fished for an hour or two. I don’t think it was much longer than that anyway. We just caught a couple I think. I just remember being glad that the two of us had a chance to do something like that together. I know I’ve told you boys this over and over, but here it goes again. You are the most important people in your lives, take care of each other. And always remember to maintain your friendships with each other. I love you boys. Come on, let’s do these dishes and hit the stream!”
Carter jumps up and says, “Yeah, lets go. Hey, you guys finish getting everything ready, I’ll do the dishes. Just bring ‘em to the sink for me.”
The bank is pretty clean of brush and vegetation. The stream is almost full, just low enough to make walking along the edge easy. The water is so clear, even the rocky bed looks as if someone has scrubbed every rock and pebble. It makes him thirsty to look at it. About any place you see still water you can spot at least one trout.
“Oh man, there’s a big one.” Bob exclaims softly, but loud enough they all can feel his excitement. “I’m gonna get him.” Bob works the fly rod like Dad had taught him. He had had little time for practice in the short time to prepare for this trip. Still he feels confident he can do good enough to land this dandy rainbow.
“Be sure you only land the fly. I mean don’t let the line slap the water.” His dad speaks barely loud enough for him to hear. “And be sure to stand back from the waters edge some. If he sees you he won’t hit.”
“Yeah, Okay.” Bob whispers agreement.” He pulls the line out of the old Eagle Claw, reel his grandpa had given his dad when he was just a kid. Just about an 18” stroke, then again, and again. Whipping the rod back and forth, quite smoothly.
Jeff watches in awe. Bob always learns fast, especially in hunting, shooting, fishing and like activities. He thinks of all the critters Bob has shot with that shoulder busting, single shot he had bought for him when he was about 10 years old. And then a couple of years later he remembers thinking that Bob was really a better hunter than even himself.
Yeah, it seems he is a natural outdoorsman. Finally, he drops the fly right out in front of the big trout. Only the last few inches of line slap lightly, nearly a perfect cast! In the trout's vision, it must've looked like the fly had just lit on the water for a quick drink, because instantly, wham!! He hits the fly and man the fight started. He is even bigger that we thought he was. And with that long flimsy rod it is quite a fun battle for Bob. Just when you would have thought the rod would surely snap, the rainbow shot out of the water. Much like a professionally filmed scene on The Outdoor channel. It seems like 3 feet in the air.
By now Dad, Carter and Jack are watching, with looks of excitement and joy. It seemed like forever, when finally Bob gets the fish landed. Carter is the closest by and already has the net in hand.
“Here Bob, just hold it up high” Then he dips him up. Brings him to the bank and Jeff comes up with the scales and tape measure. 19” long 4.25 pounds, what a fish! This is going to be a fun day!
Jeff is exhausted, sitting around the fire, but so well pleased. He’s always wanted his boys to have fun together. When they were all under about 12 they had all had lots of fun: fishing, camping and hunting. They also spent a lot of time shooting. When Bob and Carter were about 8 & 10, he would through a Libby’s pudding can in the air and they could both shoot it with their pellet guns. Yeah, these boys had won many turkeys and hams in turkey shoots in the nearby towns. He grins and chuckles to himself. He just loves those memories. But it has been a while since they have done anything fun like this: as just Dad and the boys. Thank God for answered prayers.
The next morning started out much the same. Carter, the big fisherman that he is, only caught a couple of small ones yesterday. So, today he planned to venture on down stream a ways and see if he can find a “sweet hole.” He really wants to catch a nice fish.
It sure was fun watching Bob catch that big one yesterday. He kind of laughed to himself thinking; when they were younger he would have been furious about not catching one as nice as Bob and would not have been happy unless he did. But now he just didn’t feel that way. Probably partly because of becoming more grown up. Also, one of the first times he and Dad went to church in Tulsa, the sermon was about jealousy and envy. He didn’t realize until then how much of a poison those two emotions were. Makes good sense. It sure feels a lot better to just be happy for the other person. Oh well, he is having more fun on this vacation than any time in his life.
He comes up on a spot that looks terrific. The side of the stream he is on has about a 3 feet high bank. If these trout are anything like Kansas’s bass, he knows this bank would be great. It also will help to hide him from their view. There are several small trees also to help cover him and give shade on the water. Man, it looks good! He fights the urge to walk up to the bank’s edge to find if he can see any trout in the stream.
He knows if he can see them, they can see him and will not go for the fly. He wishes Dad were here to see this spot he has found and be here when he catches one. He is sure there must be some nice ones in this hole. He unhooks the fly from the eye in the cork handle, made just for that. Then he carefully takes a good look at the fly for any damage. It does look kind of rough, but not bad enough to throw away. He decides to replace it anyway, for this honey hole. Well might be a honey hole, yet to be proven.
He spies an open area between trees, what looks big enough to give him room to work the fly rod. He makes his way up to the area, staying back a few feet from the edge, beginning to work the fly rod. Even though he didn’t do much good yesterday, he had lots of practice working the rod and spring loaded reel.
This was Grandpa’s reel, he thinks to himself. Dad had given him several helpful tips yesterday also. He said he really hasn’t used a fly rod much, but he vividly remembers Grandpa’s instructions. Grandpa was an excellent fly fisherman. Often times he’d get out the fly rod just to catch perch for catfish bait.
He pulls out the line with his left hand as the right rears back the rod and then forward in a whipping fashion. Each time he whips the rod back he pulls out another stroke of line. Several times he repeats this action until he has enough line out to drop the fly about 30 feet out and right along the bank, just a few feet out from it.
Awe, beautiful, the perfect cast! It didn’t look like the line slapped the water at all. He remembers the movie they saw a couple years ago. Dad got a big laugh out of it. Because the actor was fly fishing and the each time he whipped the line it slapped the water. It probably would have scared off every fish in the stream! Obviously the producer had never been fly-fishing or anyone else on the set apparently.
Now he works the line in the palm of his hand making the figure 8. As his hand begins to get full, he lightly presses on the trigger of the reel and it automatically reels some in. As the line comes close to him, he picks up the fly with a dexterous whip, letting out the line that is in his hand and then repeating the pull-and-whip action that he had just performed.


A work in progress.