Raising a Fisherman: Part One

“A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip—
Oh, I envy them, as I see them there
Under the sky in the open air,
For out of the old, old long-ago
Come the summer days that I used to know,
When I learned life’s truths from my father’s lips
As I shared the joy of his fishing-trips—
Builders of life’s companionship!”
---Edgar A. Guest “A Boy and His Dad” excerpt

My Son Jake

My son caught his first fish on a fly in the Big Laurel River. I taught him how to tie a couple of fly patterns before he could read. He landed his first fish on a fly he had tied himself. I’ve never known a child to fall in love with fishing, of every kind, more deeply than my son. I thought his passion for fishing might diminish over time, but it hasn’t. It has intensified. When he entered his teen years, I remember thinking, “Jake’s gonna have to learn how to make a living fishing because it’s all he wants to do!” That’s exactly what happened. Currently, he works as a pro fishing guide and manages the fishing department of a marine store in Everett, Washington.

I introduced Jake to fly-fishing while he was still in diapers. I would take him out in the backyard and, holding the fly rod with him, we would make casts toward a white paper plate I laid in the grass. The ‘fly’ was a little red piece of yarn. I told him that when he could make the yarn hit the plate over and over again (from a distance of about thirty feet), he would be ready to cast to a real fish. He became obsessed with the game. Before long, the accuracy of his casting would amaze friends and family as they watched this tiny tot fly-fisherman practice in his backyard.

He displayed the same interest and tenacity when it came to the delicate and tedious process of fly tying. He was producing Renegades, Blue-wing Olives, Elk Hair Caddis, and bead-head nymph patterns before he entered grade school. He began modifying flies (as he had seen me do) adding his own personal touch. At the time, I was ministering in a mountain church called Woodland Hills. The pews in the church were upholstered the color of Dijon mustard. Jake and his buddy, Jared Wallin, picked fuzz from the pews (probably while I was delivering a sermon) and used it as dubbing for their dry flies (dubbing is any yarn or yarn-like material used for the body of a fly). It was on one of these inventions (Jake called them ‘Jesus’ flies) that my son caught his first trout on the Big Laurel River.