I was 14 years old the first time I went fly fishing. This means that I’ve been fly fishing for well over half my life. Also, fly fishing has been something that has been part of my life more, from a cumulative perspective, than I lived with my parents, that I’ve known my wife, or that I’ve spend time in any one home.

Being a new angler as a teenager entailed some trade-offs. I couldn’t drive myself anywhere. But I could also fish without buying a license for those first few years. Living in northern Virginia, that meant if I could get there then I could fish there for free. I took advantage of generous angling mentors and friends, travelling in-state as well as to nearby Maryland, DC, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. But what money I did make was absolutely spent on gear. I didn’t want to party. I didn’t want the latest and greatest shoes. I wanted fly fishing gear.

Although it meant that some of that money had to go towards licenses, turning sixteen also meant autonomous transportation. I’d eat fast food and sleep in my car. Suddenly, the woods and waters held more allure than the football field and the wrestling mat. I also had parents that encouraged my growing obsession. Having your son be into fly fishing rather than all of the typical teen goings-on is a pretty easy pill to swallow.  I wasn’t a saint, but I was always more into mischief and fishing than real trouble.

Fly fishing is so simple at its core: cast and catch. There is also such complexity when you wade a little deeper. Neurologists and psychologists speak of the propensity for adolescent brains to absorb information. For my formative years all things fishing got to jump to the front of my mind’s queue. When not on the water, my mind was engrossed in books, videos, seminars, fly shops and the incomparable Pennsylvania Rivers Conservation and Fly Fishing Youth Camp.

To be honest, I didn’t was completely unaware about conservation when I started fishing. I didn’t litter. I didn’t kill fish for the sake of killing them. There wasn’t any knowledge of everything that protecting the fish and their ecosystems entails. The Pennsylvania Rivers Camp and the Northern Virginia chapter of Trout Unlimited helped significantly. Fishing lured me in, but once I was hooked I was able to see the other side of utilizing the resource.

Nostalgia is an intoxicating impulse, but I think it is often legitimate. I look back on my first few years of fly fishing as some of my most memorable. I couldn’t cast, was preoccupied with catching lots of fish, and probably incessantly talked about fishing to the annoyance of anyone within earshot. Now familiar waters were still new. I was seeing things in nature at a high-speed pace. Every trip fly fishing meant experiencing something for the first time.

Over 20 years in and the experience has aged well. I can continue to fly fish. Now, because of the experience, I can do what I can pass it on. These days it means teaching  my audience of four at home… along with a few thousand online acquaintances. I need to remember to do it intentionally; to do it well. One of the most dangerous things for us is to forget what it was like to be young. Once we do that we are in trouble. Catching fish matters. But it is more important to hold on to what mattered at 14. Those are the things  that make fly fishing, and life in general, so wonderful: mystery, spontaneity, and just a little mischief.

 

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Fly Fishing at Fourteen was originally posted in February of 2016. The post was twice as long as the edited version found above. Revisiting older articles gives me an opportunity to see how my writing has evolved. More than that, it gives me a chance to see how I have grown. This post is a great example of that. Thanks for reading.