Dear Miriam... Easing Into It

BY CHRISTINE PETERSON

When your dad was 12, he signed himself up for a fly-fishing class at the local recreation center in the little town where he was raised, caught a ride with his mom each day and learned how to cast in a high school gymnasium. He’d been fishing before. Your grandpa has a boat, and they would go out on a local lake and cast for walleye and perch. But he wanted to fly fish.

The drive that made him cast over and over in a basketball court in hopes that one day he could feel a tug on the end of his line never faded. He earned a degree in fisheries biology, guided anglers in Alaska and has become one of those people who receives gifts exclusively emblazoned with fish – fish hats, fish shirts, fish mugs and a fish lamp that’s been relegated to the garage.

Having a passion poses a quandary for parents, though. Do we push our kid to play football because that’s what we played and loved? Do we encourage them to ride horses, or dance ballet or ski or play the guitar because that’s what we did or do? We can. We can nudge and prod, cajole and even bribe, but we always know, deep down, they’ll do what they want.

So we decided when you were a toddler, just learning to walk and eager to touch any fish you saw, that we would take you fishing but you would learn when, and if, you wanted. We took turns looking at ice crystals with you while the other fished on rivers near our home in Wyoming. We brought snacks for you to eat on rafts and looked at bugs when you got bored.

We bought you rods and a pair of waders that leaked the first time you put them on. We helped you cast to rising cutthroat trout in a beaver pond when you were 3 and helped you reel in a walleye as long as your arm when you were 5. But you never really seemed interested in fly fishing on your own. You wanted to throw rocks (preferably not where we were fishing), look at flowers and wade in holes after we’d moved on. And that was fine.

Then in mid-July, right after you turned 7, we walked out onto a rocky flat near a milky, glacier-fed river in interior British Columbia. We were ostensibly on a two-week road trip to fish for bull trout, a top predator in these frigid waters and a symbol of cold, clean rivers and lakes. But really, we were on a camping road trip with little plans and even littler idea where we were headed each day.

That night on a tributary of a tributary high in the Canadian Rockies, you splashed through shallow braids in last-year’s school shoes turned thissummer’s wet wading boots. You tried to pry an old elk shed out from under a dead tree and picked up rocks perfect for skipping. Then we came up to a nice-looking hole on the river as the sun began to set somewhere before 10 p.m.

I threw my heavy streamer a few times, a black, sparkly thing. Nothing.

We thought about walking up to check out the next hole when you asked: “Can I try?”

I could see your dad try to act cool, like a middle schooler who just realized he might have a chance.

“Sure,” he said, walking toward you with a caddis fly on a 5-weight. “How about with this rod though, it might be easier.”

He stood behind you helping you cast, that wood chopping motion that may not look pretty but gets the job done. We all watched as the caddis floated down, swung around, and you raised your arm up and down again.

I figured you’d tire after a few casts, go back to examining flowers. But you kept going. Up and down, up and down.

Then suddenly your fly disappeared. You had a bite. On your cast. Your rod bowed down. Your dad went to help then stopped himself. You had this, he knew. You could do it.

“Keep your rod tip up,” he said, “hold the line tight.”

He came around the side with a net and dipped it in the water. Up came a whitefish, a beautiful, silver creature underrated but as ubiqui- tous to mountains as the mountains themselves.

You couldn’t stop grinning. Your dad couldn’t stop grinning. I couldn’t stop grinning.

After a few quick pictures, you released your first, very own fish back into its watery home.

I could say you love fishing now, that you’re as obsessed as your dad and never looked back. But you’re still 7, and deep pools are still fun for swimming. You ask to cast more often now, though, and have considerably more patience with a fly rod in your hand.

Hopefully you keep asking to fish. We’ll keep trying to play it cool.

Love, Mom