Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Grandpa's Stretch.



The story was often told on a car ride as we passed by. Like every family story it is told numerous times throughout your life until it gets to the point where one day, you will end up telling the story too; despite all the times you complained upon hearing it again and again. 

When I was a young boy, every time my family drove a long a particular road, my father would tell us that it was his Dad's favorite road to drive on. The road descends into a hollow along a small stream, where it is flanked by woods and small cottages overlooking the pavement. The few miles that the road encompasses are beautiful, especially during the fall when the leaves turn hues of yellow, orange, and red. My grandfather's favorite time of year. The road parallels our home water, a small stream containing a small population of wild brown trout before ending abruptly by joining a small highway. 

Whenever we passed the two sizable ponds down in the woods beyond the stream, my father would tell us that when his father was a young boy, he would walk the few miles from the nearby town where he lived, so he could fish this stretch of stream as well as the two ponds. In my youth, I always envisioned my grandfather walking to the stream in the dead heat of summer and finding solitude, shade, and cool water along its banks. I imagined him catching trout and sunfish all day long before walking back to town as the sun crept behind the hills. I also imagined that one day, I too would replicate this feat.

A decade later, I fished that stretch for the very first time. I found solitude and several willing brown trout to put a bend in my first fly rod. Since then, it has become one of my favorite stretches of water to fish and I routinely do so whenever I am in town. Often, I will walk its length, in the shadow of my grandfather stopping in the very same pools he probably stopped and fished in his youth. Maybe one day, the story will be passed on, and a future generation will find the very same thing awaiting them at the end of the road.  


People Say Carp Are Ugly?


Pucker Up.


Thats More Like It.


A Lunker.


Gin Clear & Cold.


Deep Bend Pools & Undercuts.


Still Low From the Summer Drought.


This Used To Be A Nice Hole.


Pretty Browns.


A Future Lunker.


3 comments:

Mike said...

Great read, thanks for sharing (minus the worn out butt-hole on the front of the first fish).

Elek Erdosy said...

One day you will find your Wanda,raise a family and pass on this and many more stories.( like the ones from Canada when you were 5 )My dad would be proud, as mom and I are, how you,Matt and Alexis have grown into fine young adults.
Love Dad

Nordic Angler said...

Very nice photos. Thank you Mark.