All You Do Is FIsh - Melissa Alcorn

The day he was born I dashed from the laboratory and took a grad school hiatus to welcome him into our flock and amuse his big sister for a few days. I’ve always looked into his Irish eyes and seen a funny, smart, and happy soul inside. Add years, miles, and the confusion of parents pulling him in two directions—the young man standing beside me at one of my favorite fishing holes is a shell of the child I once thought would run the world. I hoped time in our mountains and beside our waters would spark the light within, but then he breaks my heart with one question: "All you do is fish?"

The answer is no, but in his defense, it could appear that way. Our second stop after I picked him up at the airport was the Colorado Parks and Wildlife office to get a five-day, non-resident fishing license for the boy. The plan for the next five days all involved standing beside water. I didn’t have access to size 13 wading boots to put him in the water and Texans seem averse to sandals for reasons that escape me. The three pairs of sneakers pulled from him suitcase were not well suited to wading. We had lakes on the to-do list and a firm conviction that this teenager caught up in angst and city ways just needed a chance to be still. Although at six this child could have engineered his way out of any physics issue, the simplicity of tenkara was ideal for the issues he faced now.

He fished with a rod and reel on other trips with other people but no one had taken him fly fishing. As we stood beside one of the Grand Mesa’s plentiful lakes and handed him one of our rods he looked puzzled, but soon he was casting with mixed emotions about catching. It was good we each landed trout first so he could experience how it all worked. The rainbows we caught were sufficiently attractive that he found motivation to get one of his own. When his line jerked and his first trout swam in, he recoiled a bit and waited for me to retrieve his fish. He hesitantly took the net from me and dipped hands in to rescue the fly and release the slimy fish. This trout was uncooperative and the boy needed assistance but he maintained his calm and curiosity to handle this wriggling mess. He smiled like the wild Irish boy of old when he proudly held the rainbow, but joy flickered away as quickly as the trout swam away. His hands and shirt were messy and he wondered how to clean up. I pointed out the large body of water in front of us and the attractiveness of a man with fishy hands. He wasn’t amused.

We hiked to Leon Lake, a distance into the woods along meadows strewn with wildflowers and graced with warm sun, and the boy bounced along with more enthusiasm than I might have anticipated possible given the apathy he exuded. Perhaps the plan was working? Leon Lake was beautiful, the boy’s casts improved, but we could not find the right combination of fly and luck to pull trout from the blue. We packed up to return to our original lake. The shallow water was buzzing with trout and we had better luck. The boy got over being fishy and even set out to rescue a gorgeous trout trapped in the rocks by line caught in its cheek, thus making him the first one I’ve seen to reach in and pull out a cutthroat by hand. His look of satisfaction of having released a trout from sure death was one of the moments that will stay with me from his sojourn.

By the time the afternoon at the lakes ended we had caught a baker’s dozen between us, and kept a few so he could have the chance to taste the prize. We advocated to him that releasing is the better path to fishing karma but it seemed unfair to expect him to give them all back when he was clearly curious as to their culinary merit. After our dinner of grilled trout, he is more willing to put them back. It was not his favorite Colorado meal. We had a reasonably authentic Kotsuzake ceremony by the backyard fire pit to further seal his loss of tenkara virginity and pay respect to the trout.

The second day we handed him a backpack, loaded with his borrowed camping gear and tenkara rod, and forced him to hike five miles up to Crater Lake in the Weminuche Wilderness. He complained very little, but moved slowly, so slowly, and stopped often to check if cell coverage would give him an avenue to text someone out there in his world. In our world, the mountains are sufficient company. I told him early in our upward walk that the thing about backpacking is that it gives you abundant time to learn all the voices in your head and come to peace with at least a few of them. I assured him he could be mad, he could be ecstatic, or he could just be tired, but the goal was to keep moving the feet and seeing the forest and peaks. That seemed to work, and for a few brief moments even led to conversations of family life and how things had changed. Just as that chat found its groove, we arrived, set camp, and lost him to teenage slumber. When he resurfaced, he was ready to go fishing.

Crater Lake was a busy place that day and not the tranquil backcountry we sought for him, with a dozen obnoxious men partying at a campsite perched above the lake. As we fished, they hurled insults and taunts at each other and down at other campers trying to enjoy the scenic space beneath Twilight Peak. We found their presence distracting and it deterred some from the fishing experience we wanted him to have.

He had a hard time settling into the pattern and his casts reminded me of being on the sidelines at his lacrosse tournaments. He always had a strong arm and accurate toss. It was almost like his discomfort and anxiety were departing through his casts, and that he hoped to just clobber a trout with the tip rather than tempt it with the fly. We lacked surprise when he announced he was going back to our campsite. We fished on awhile, but actual bugs were floating past us without consequence and we conceded to a campfire instead of continuing futility.

The gents on the far side of the lake ramped up as we attempted to wind down. Our boy came out of hiding to sit by the fire with us awhile and shared our disgust as fireworks launched into the beetle-killed treetops. The boy laughedwith a bit of grimace when I suggested he remember this revulsion when he was out with his pals and someone suggested a certifiably stupid idea. Happily, we all went to bed without the forest ablaze and the inebriation sent the fools on the cliff to slumber relatively early.

The two of us woke and dressed for morning fishing as the sun emerged and began to melt heavy frost from late summer wildflowers around the lake. We worried our boy was encased in ice as well, Texans apparently also refuse to pack appropriate warm layers, but we left him to sleep knowing that he too would thaw when the sun found his tent on the ridge and turned it into a sweat lodge.

The fish were no more interested in our flies than the previous sunset and I envisioned them hiding out at the bottom of the lake traumatized by the explosions and spark rain. Try as we might we could not lure them higher, so we took a shot at enticing the boy out of his tent for breakfast. He did not like the rehydrated scrambled eggs and Spam, but at least we knew he was not hypothermic. He asked to go fishing and we obliged eagerly. There was no rush to make the downhill trek back to the truck, or he was eager to push off the walk.

He possessed a gentler cast that morning as I watched him illuminated in golden sun with steam rising at his feet, and he seemed truly anxious to catch and hold a trout. Regrettably, it was not to be and he took that in stride. As we moved back through the forest, past all the places we had stopped to rest coming up, he commented with more frequency on the beauty of the landscape and value of the opportunity. He’d found some mountain peace, but he also told me could not fathom doing many miles of backpacking and never, ever wanted to do it alone. He said his head was too noisy and he’d rather have company to talk to, even if a dog or maybe me. Perhaps this was progress.

I left the guys behind after our last snack break and bolted ahead to retrieve the truck and move it closer to spare the boy an unfortunate uphill finale. Further, I hoped the two of them would talk more. I was extremely pleased when I found them beside Andrews Lake with the boy casting into the water and Stephen hanging back with a contented look. The boy possessed the sweet smile I remember from when we took him on his first away from home overnight adventure to our place many years back. Then it was a trail ride sharing a horse with Stephen around the lake in Oklahoma and the three-year-old thought he was big stuff. It was a salve for my heart to see that joy again.

It was the fourth day when I took him to East Portal to fish the big pool in the Gunnison River as it moves nearer to the heart of the Black Canyon. It was just he and I. The vibe was distinctly different as if I was not to be trusted as a fishing guide. It was the last time I would attempt to force him out of the house and I wasn’t sure why I’d bothered. I thought he was ready for the new challenge of moving water and one place I thought he would enjoy was deep in the canyon with wrens calling and trout swimming at our feet. I was wrong. He never gave it a chance. In the span of twenty minutes, he lost two flies and I saw my faith in the power of nature to get through to this one float away. He said he was going back to the truck but not before asking his question.

We do more than fishing. Indeed, fishing really is not the point. It is just one avenue to be quiet outside. It is a chance, whether right beside the truck or five miles into the hills, to stare off into the depths or the heights. We have plenty of other means to fill that niche of experience. Fishing was just what we offered him, and what we thought would benefit him. But perhaps it was too quiet. Fishing, particularly without catching, left him too vulnerable to thoughts and, given his lack of experience with trout, his hope that another cast would break the spell was lacking. If so, he was done. So was I.

We did not fish again. His fifth day was spent sleeping and texting rather than adventuring. I cannot understand the ways of a teenage boy but I thought, with conviction, we had failed in the mission to give him relief from the stresses of home.

What I hoped would be a turning point to rebuilding his hope, felt more like consenting to gloom. Then he started texting Stephen, random post-trip things that indicated at least at some level the boy reconnected to one of us. And that may be sufficient. I wanted to land a big success for him but perhaps that was too ambitious. Instead, we just planted a seed that I hope will someday sprout into more adventures in fly fishing and mountain walking. We gave him a chance to be still and listen to himself. I just wish I could have pulled a few more trout off his line and worries off his back.