The Proselyte

I've got a young friend I'm trying to mentor in life. Seems like anyone who's a father of two at the ripe old age of 21 could use a mentor. I thought is was about time my mentoring included fishing, as I knew my friend enjoyed fishing because he told me once of catching a nice bass in a farm pond somewhere. Time to put away the worms and learn the fine art. In spite of or maybe because he had just lost his job (the one I'd helped him get) and been sleeping on a friends couch and everything in life seemed hopeless, it must be a good time for me to take him fly fishing.

We got to the stream about 4:00 on Friday afternoon. I figured a big deep pool would be a good place to start. I'm sure the other piscator we passed did a double take at my asian buddy with his flat billed ball cap, loud t-shirt, baggy shorts and strangely laced chuck taylor con's - it was like hip hop meets orvis. I've forgotten how difficult it is to watch someone truly, truly flail a fly rod. "slow down, slow down, don't drop your rod tip, let the line straighten out behind you, like this...." I realized much like any 21 year old, he wasn't going to listen to me, so I put him into the big pool and eased to the side where the current picked up. Before I had a fly tied on, he'd missed a rainbow chasing his fly in the slow pool and he was into it, whipping that line harder and faster, piling yards of it 5 feet in front of him, but I kept to my business and shortly was pulling out brookies at will. He did alright. He eventually took two bow's in that hole and a third, nice brookie in the big hole above us.

Later that evening I watch him in the fading light, sitting on his heels like I've seen day labors do for hours smoking cigarettes in front of "able body" waiting for work. He'd cast from that sitting position and strip it in slowly and I wondered, hoped that the current of the stream and the focus on the fly had pushed from his mind the real worries and troubles that were threatening to wash him away. I hoped that like me, he could find peace for a few hours on a trout stream in the midst of life's struggles.