As it goes with most anglers, I was introduced to fishing by my father at the very tender age of three. I guess you could say, for the most part, as soon as I could grasp the handle of a rod with my tiny hands without dropping it in the water, I started to become an angler. In my early years of fishing I was unaware of fly fishing, and being just a young child I guess I didn’t understand fly fishing, so it didn't interest me. For a child of five, six, or seven years old, “tight loops” and “drag free drifts” meant absolutely nothing. All I cared about was feeling the tug of a finned critter on the end of my “pole” and then cranking the reel handle as fast as I could till the fish was right to the rod tip (even today I can still hear my father's words “stop reeling, stop reeling - that’s far enough!) - hehe!
So by the time I was what is commonly considered a “young man” (early teens) I already had a good ten years of fishing experience on the water and was a pretty decent little fisherman. My entire year revolved around one thing at that point of my life; and that was spending fifty four weeks of the year anxiously awaiting the arrival of the 2nd week of July, because the 2nd week of July each summer marked the start of our two week family vacation on the Au Sable river here in Michigan. During those two weeks my father, grandfather and I; would spend an average of eight to ten hours a day fishing each day of the trip. We trolled and spin fished for Pike, Bass, and Walleye and catch fish after fish and enjoyed every minute of it. For a fifteen year old young man; life could not be any better.
A couple years later at the age of seventeen my grandfather became very suddenly ill. This was not the grandfather I had fished with for so many years, this was my fathers father, and by the time I was of age to be a decent angler; gramps was too far into the late stages of his life to get out on the water with us.(something I still regret to this day). It didn’t take long after he became ill till grandpa passed away. He did not become helpless or difficult in his last days, nor did he try to fight it kicking and screaming. Grandpa passed away the same way he lived his life, quietly and with much dignity.
Shortly after his passing my father and I made a trip over to grandpa’s house, which fittingly stood in one of the oldest neighborhood in this area. We had come to the house that day to do a little cleaning of grandpa’s “stuff” in the basement since he had left eighty-five years worth of possessions down there and my grandma wanted to clean and sort some of it out. After going down the stairs we made our way around the old “octopus” style coal furnace that I use to think was a monster that would eat me when I was younger, and turned on the single light bulb that was hanging over the old wooden work bench in grandpa’s little work area in the back of the basement. Now I’m really not sure of this but I honestly believe there is a “little old mans handbook to life” out there somewhere and I think chapter one must be titled “keeping every screw, nut and bolt you ever find in your life”. Because there in grandpas work area was about five hundred mason jars, old cardboard cigar boxes, and metal cookie tins all full of every nut and bolt he must have came across in the last eighty-five years. What I found that day amongst all those containers would really change my life forever. As my dad was sorting through all my grandpas things in his work area I stood in the doorway and watched him trying to comprehend the feelings he must had been experiencing. He loved his father and had to be very sad at his passing, but being the strong man that my dad was he did not show much emotion or sadness in front of me; but I knew it was there just beneath the surface. He continued rummaging through jars and boxes and I basically just tried to stay out of his way. As I looked up I saw something sitting on top of one of the exposed rafters in the ceiling and said to my dad “hey what’s this?”
Dad looked up and immediately stopped what he was doing and walked over. I can’t really explain the look on his face but it was one of remembrance if there is such a description to describe a look; and I could tell he knew exactly what it was without him even saying anything. To me it looked like an old aluminum fence post from a cyclone fence. It was tarnished, dusty, and looked like someone had used it as a baseball bat hitting rocks with all the dings and dents in it, yet dad carried it over to the work bench like it was a new born child and cleared a spot off the bench to lay it down. He unscrewed the cap of the tube and slid the contents out onto the bench with a smile. As my young eyes peered over his shoulder I saw the funniest looking “fishing pole” I had ever seen in my life, I said to dad “the reel seats at the end of the rod, where’s the rest of the handle…it must be broke?”. Dad smiled and said “it’s a fly rod; this was your grandpas fly rod from back when I was about your age………would you like to have it?” . And with that simple question from my dad, my life would forever be changed!
It wasn’t but a day or so later that my father and I took our first trip together to a local fly shop. The fly shop (Geake’s Sporting Goods) was only about three miles from home yet somehow I never even knew it was there. The ol’ man behind the counter was the owner and he sat behind an old non electric cash register wearing a khaki colored fishing shirt and smoking a pipe. He spoke with a very deep slow gruff tone to his voice; yet it wasn’t in a mean tenor, it was just the way he spoke and for some reason it fit him well. We spent about an hour in the shop and by the time I left the old man had set me up with some neoprene waders, a tan fly fishing vest, a hat, pair of sunglasses, fly line, a fly box & flies, and some leaders. After getting back home I quickly strung up my new fly line on grandpa’s old rod and my father and I went out in the yard and started casting. My first casts were anything but pretty, down right ugly to be honest, and I was lucky to even get twenty feet of line out past the rod tip. My father tried to help me, but honestly he couldn’t offer much help with fly casting; because even though grandpa was a fly fisherman; dad had always choose to use spin gear, but I could tell just the fact that I was taking up fly fishing because of grandpa…that made dad happy.
Over the next couple weeks I continued my meager efforts of casting in the backyard; all in preparation for the up coming family vacation to the Au Sable that was just a few weeks away. I had been fishing the Au Sable since I was three years old, but always for warm water species in the lower reaches, and dad had promised to take me to the upper stretches of the Au Sable in Grayling to try this whole fly fishing deal I was attempting.
On Fathers day before our trip I decided against buying dad the usual couple Rapalas that I would usually get him (dad never was a necktie man) and I plunked down my money at a local shop for a cheap fly rod with a medallist reel and some ten dollar fly line. This outfit was about as cheap as you could find, I believe the red glass rod said ‘Red baron” on the side of it which didn’t exactly scream top drawer equipment, but at 17 yrs old it was all I could afford at the time. I hurried home with my newly acquired gifts for dad to find him sitting on the front porch enjoying the evening. After presenting him with the outfit I bought, I could tell in his eyes how much it meant to him. Not because it was a top dollar outfit, or because it was something so special, but simply because he knew I bought it just for him because I wanted to share some quality time on the water between a father & son.
I only got to take far too few trips fly fishing together with my dad, not because he didn’t want to, but because shortly after I started fly fishing dad entered a battle with cancer that made him very weak until it ultimately took his life. That first fly fishing trip between my father and I was taken back around 1989/1990 and to date it was and always will be the best trip I have ever taken in my life. Now here it is today 2006….dad has long since passed away, both grandpas passed on long ago as well, I don’t have children of my own so I’m the last of the men in my family to carry on my family’s name. And it seems most of my time spent fishing is by myself with the exception of the occasional “fishin’ buddy” that comes with me every once in awhile. That is how I like it though….alone, out on the water, just me and my thoughts and memories of dad and gramps. I’ve always said standing in a river is the one place a man can be “alone” and yet not feel “lonely”….and that still holds true today because I always have my memories. And if it weren’t for dad passing down the tradition of fishing and outdoors in our family to me, then I don’t think I would be half the person I am today.
Thanks dad, see’ya on that stream in the sky someday and we’ll make up for lost time!
Grandpa (Russel Clark) fishing the Au Sable circa-1975
Myself and my father (Terry Clark) fishing the Au Sable in Grayling circa 1989
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Price: $6.95 for each issue
The Premiere issue is ready for shipping & the Fall 2008 issue will be available September 1st.
