Quiet Reed Fly Fishing - In Memorium

Orvis flies, a sample

A fellow I worked with in Corvallis would occasionally brought in a fly rod he was building. I always admired his work, and after reading Casting a Spell by George Black (a couple of years after moving to the East Coast), have a great appreciation for the talent it takes to make one, and the heritage skill followed. Don Chen and I could also talk baseball - he was raised in New York City's Chinatown, and cynically would comment about his latest disappointments with the Mets. The last time Don and I talked was when I visited my old unit two years ago during an official visit of USDA locations in the Pacific Northwest. We chatted briefly, and he mentioned that he had been dealing with cancer - a development that had occurred during the seven years since I moved onto my new assignment in Maryland. It may have been during that short visit that Don gave me a fly that he had tied - a simple gift. A couple of weeks ago I was doing my weekly scan of the obituaries in the Corvallis Gazette Times - a kind of morbid ritual that my father has been doing for decades with the print copy of the home town paper where I was raised, and now me via the Internet for back home in Oregon. It is with some regularity I see the name of an acquaintance made during the 17 years I lived in Corvallis. This time, Don's name appeared in the list from a week earlier - the cancer caught up with him. I will remember Don's small side business Quiet Reed Fly Fishing, and smile when I look at the small token of bent wire and thread-tied fly, and think about the split strips of bamboo glued together and whipping through the air over a still pool of water along a running river.

Visions of Fly Fishing Dance in His Head

I used to fly fish when taking pack trips back into the high country of the Sierra Nevada. I haven't backpacked since my early 20's, so haven't made any attempts at flexing my wrist or guiding a fly towards a pool in a mountain river in a long time. My fly fishing experience began when riding horses and leading pack mules for family excursions to high mountain lakes. Sometime I need to write down some of those stories from the 1970's, maybe in the style that Brooks Gist did in his 1950 book High Sierra Adventure that describes holidays in the back country.(1) When my folks packed up on the farm and moved to town, I acquired their copy. It sits on our book shelf with a few other family heirlooms.

Old fish creels

The only remnants of those summer fishing days is a rod in the garage, a saddle in the guest room for our grandsons, and three old creels that my dad gave me when he sold all of his pack gear a hand full of years before he and Mom moved because he wasn't able to physically tolerate the high altitudes of the back country in his later 70's. The closest I have been to a fly rod lately has been watching a friend do some casting in Montana 12 years ago, reading George Black's book Casting a Spell, walking through an Orvis store in the Park Meadows mall in Littleton a week ago, and looking at a copy of Trout of the World in a Cold Water Creek store while Jan bought some new clothes - is this a sign?

Live trout tank

My grandson Josiah was interested in the tank of swimming trout near the fishing section of new Cabela's store near the junction where E470 meets I-25 north of Denver. While driving back to Fort Collins this morning after seeing Jan off to her flight at Denver International Airport, I asked Josiah if it would be alright to stop by the  - I explained that there were stuffed animals there, hoping that would entice him more, even though he was willing to go in the first place. Jan had heard that a Cabela's store is supposed to be an experience - that the stores are full of wildlife displays.  I sent a text to his dad with the picture writing, "We may have to take a try at this next season." These were the only wildlife specimen in the store that were alive - at least that we saw.

Stuffed animals

From the time we walked into the store, and as we walked across the store, there were many kinds of animal displays. I noticed the fishing rod section across the store - the tips of long poles in rows were easy to spot. Once half way through the store, Josiah commented, "I thought you said there were stuffed animals in the store." "Josiah, those are the stuffed animals." "Oh." he replied. He was thinking of the cuddly kind of stuffed animals that he and his siblings have at home. The exchange was worth a small smile on my part - but not a hint of teasing in it.

Perhaps with the exposure to the Colorado outdoors since moving here will have an impact on my part-time interests. Given the great number of recent chance encounters with fish and fly fishing, perhaps I will need to pick up a fly rod and reel sometime soon, and see whether I have a little bit of my muscle memory for casting still in me, and can pass that on to Josiah.
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(1) Brooks Gist's brother was one of my middle school teachers.