“It only takes one fish to make a trip Ryan.” Some twenty four years ago, at fifteen years of age, while standing knee deep in what would become my most favorite trout stream, my Father spoke those words to me. I can remember the day vividly. It was a warm late September day. The sun, shining brightly, warmed my skin. A slight breeze ruffled the leaves and moved the hair on my bear arms. A faint smell floating in the air hinted at the autumn that was yet to come. I remember those things not because I focused on them as I do now, but because my Father had pointed them out. He often commented on how beautiful the day was. I however, was not giving those things much attention. Instead my focus was on the lack of cooperative trout, or in reality, the lack of my ability to catch trout. My Father, imparting his wisdom, told me that fishing is a funny thing. “It only takes one fish,” he repeated. “Catch one fish, the right fish, and a mediocre trip becomes the trip of a lifetime.” Reaching into his fishing vest, he pulled out a sleeve of Necco wafers. Handing me one he said, “What the heck-o have a Necco.” This is a fine memory in its own right that rolls around my brain every time I reach into my vest to grab a sweettart. Of course now I realize that it is not just the trout that make up a fishing trip. It is the whole experience; it is the weather, the company, the memories created and the feeling that defines fishing for me now.
“It only takes one” I repeat in my head, because today I am not doing my Grandpa or my Father, and the skills they passed down to me, justice. I am seeing trout. Some are even giving chase and hitting my Panther Martin spinner, but I cannot land one to save my life. Frustration sets in as I try to slow things down. My Father excelled at slowing things down and making pinpoint casts. More often than not, he would flip his spinning rod upside down or contort it in some fashion to accurately place a near impossible cast. I approach a hole in the stream. From the center to the right bank it is shallow with a sand bottom, from the center to the left bank the bottom drops away. It looks deep. Deep enough that there is no way I would try to retrieve a spinner lodged into the tree that had fallen into the hole. “It only takes one.” I place my cast.
A fish so unbelievably big follows my spinner out of the hole into the shallower water with the sandy bottom. The fish turns, letting my spinner get away, and faces upstream. It looks out of place sitting there. It’s black body contrasting with the light sand. As luck would have it, the fish stationed itself only twenty five feet up stream of me. While my first thought was salmon, the fish was in fact a very large brown trout, possibly a lake run brown that I estimate between twenty five and twenty eight inches. Placing my arm at my side, almost behind me, I flick the spinner high in the air, as to not spook the brown and well past it. I retrieve my spinner within a foot of the trout… it turns… chases… and bumps my spinner without ever opening its mouth. Funny thing fishing is. “It only takes one fish to make a trip,” and sometimes “the one” doesn’t even have to bite.
In the end I had a most enjoyable day, the weather was warm, the sun was bright and I was able to land several trout including a beautiful seventeen inch brown trout. Just another day in paradise.
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