Fishing With History

I went fishing the other day in the afternoon. Usually in Kansas fishing in January is a hit or miss event but I knew that after a warm up that melt the ice off the ponds that I’d have a good day with temperatures that climbed into the 50’s.

I usually get a real urge to get outside after the solstice when the days get a little cheerier with the increased daylight and temperatures. Probably explains a lot about my mood around the holidays when I’m not the nicest in terms of company.

I arrived at the pond around noon and was immediately happy to see signs of an active pond environment at the banks.

There was activity from raccoons everywhere which meant that water temperatures were up to the point where the fish would be active and I had a shot of going home with dinner in hand.

Thing is, when scavengers like raccoons are doing well, as evidenced by crawfish shells and empty clams waterside, you can be pretty sure that other things are active in that water as well…such as fish.

When I was a kid we’d never even have thought about fishing in this time of year, as all the pond inhabitants would have gone into a long period of dormancy. But due to the fact of global warming I can visit this habitat and see activity all year round. Not the best of things given that all the species here are very climate driven as to reproduction, but I wasn’t above taking advantage of their non dormant state to provide me of fresh fish.

I was fishing my favorite rig that day, a bamboo fly rod that my father had given me years ago when I had complained of not being able to fish the ponds due to the vegetation.

“You have to adapt to conditions” my father had said as he pulled the rod from its case.

“If you can’t drag through the conditions, you have to float above them.”

I had never seen anything like a fly rig before and my father spent the day with me to teach me how to float a lure onto the surface of the water gently and accurately.

“You have to be patient at this, and practice the skill” my father told me. “But in the end, it will make you a better fisherman overall. “

Since those days I’ve embraced fly fishing and have had some great trips and wonderful experiences across the nation. But the trips that I really remember always involve that original rod. It’s been rebuilt twice, and every time I take it out of its case I remember the day that my dad first gave it to me.

To him I imagine that it was just a piece of a forgotten past and that I would quickly grow beyond it, and truth be told, I bought a lot of expensive fly rods that have accompanied me on a lot of fishing trips, but I never have a better trip than when I drive out to the ranch and pull what is now a sixty year old artifact out of a specially built case and assemble it into the thing that made my father happy on a river…and catch fish…just like him…sixty years ago and a million memories later.