Most of us get our starts in the fishing world with our dad or our grandpa. I was lucky to get a little of both. I fished a lot as a kid but once I hit my teens it was no longer cool. In my early twenties I was busy chasing skirts and fished occasionally. In my thirties someone finally caught me and soon we had kids of my own.
Fishing was just about out of the question with little babies but they didn’t stay babies for long. Before I knew it a pair of rambunctious little boys wanted to go fishing. I still haven’t figured out where that urge to go fishing came from, the neighbor, TV, a book. It wasn’t from me, I was busily caught up in the nonsense that takes up to much of our adult lives.
As so often happens, kids lead you down paths you normally don’t travel yourself, so it was with fishing; it was like doubling back to the fishing days of my youth. Like most fathers I endured the tangles, the broken rods, muddy, wet kids and dogs, worms left to cook in the trunk for a week. Not to mention the mortified mother’s reaction after the exuberant retelling of the story where “the biggest fish were at the bottom of the cliff where the rapids come in”. I was fishing again, in good company, relearning a lot of things I’d forgotten, not just about about fishing but about life itself.
Kids are quick to learn when their interests go from sparks to bonfires and the tangles and brokens rods become fewer and fewer and their own techniques become more refined and then one day it finally happens. Dad catches one, kids catch ten. Three things happen at this point, the birds have flown the coop, the competition is on (though you only admit it when you are ahead) and finally; your are now trying to keep up with them.
I was prowling around the web a couple days ago when I found Tyler Befus’s website. Here’s a kid who, at a young age has also found a lot of enjoyment and success in the world of fly fishing and it made me think about what a great thing it is for our kids to be able to head out with fishing rods in hand on an excursion that hopefully lasts them a lifetime and how enjoyable it is to follow along for as long as we can.
