Dad is the World’s Greatest Fisherman

My earliest memories come through like faded Polaroids. I’m crouched in the shadow of my father, poised on the grassy edge of a tiny trout stream high in the Sierra Nevada. Dad flips a little fly into the rippling current and drags it across the surface. The trout panic, but starvation gets the better of one, and in a split second a wriggling golden trout is hoisted to the bank. I pounce on the slippery prize, squeeze tightly, remove the fly, and add it to our stringer. My hands smell sweet with trout, and I can imagine our morning catch sizzling in bacon grease, eyes shrinking to tiny white balls. In my memories, Dad and I fished together all the time. His memories are probably more reliable:

“I remember you being more interested in the tree frogs in the meadow,” he laughs. “For the first couple of years, fishing was just like any other wildlife harassment. As long as you were chasing something, you were happy. Then the fishing disease took hold.”

In my broken family, fishing was first deemed a “disease” by my Mom. The year was 1970, the scene, Arcata, California. Mom was working full time while Dad went to school. After serving in Vietnam, Dad decided to get a science degree. Fisheries seemed like a natural avenue for an avid outdoorsman, and he enrolled at Humboldt State. The arrangement was a sure-fire recipe for disaster, and the ripples from those years still lap at the edges of my psyche. So much pain flared as these two people learned how wrong they were for each other. So much guilt was stored up, presumably to prevent me from following in my father’s footsteps. But the shocking power of fear and guilt is in their ability to create what they most loathe. Sure enough, I turned out even fishier than my Dad, and that’s saying something.

The outcome was for the best, as is most often the case. In fact, fishing and the outdoors are what eventually saved my father and me from lives stained by guilt. We both tried our hand at conforming to expectations, and it didn’t work. We both learned to embrace who we are–namely, fishermen.

These days my Dad and I spend a lot of time together. He still loves to fish, though not as much as in his youth. He retired last year from a rewarding career as a science educator, and now is free to stay with me for weeks at a time. We have a lot of fun, me rowing him around, steering him toward big flashy fish just like he hauled me around his favorite waters in the High Sierra. Whatever else happens in our little lives, we will have fished, and fished well. We know how fortunate we are, and we relish our days. We have explored the finest waters from the Olympic Peninsula to San Diego. We have climbed peaks, bush-whacked through wilderness, gone crazy from blackflies, and marveled at the beauty of our native West. Wherever we go, I know my Dad will catch fish. Because, to me, Dad is the greatest fisherman in the world. RR

I love you, Papa.