My grandpa passed before I was old enough to really know him, but he was an avid fly fisher in Southwest Montana. He journaled a lot of his fishing outings, and at our family cabin, we have somewhat of a memorial with a page from his journal, and his "fly box" that he wore on his head.
Obviously, I enjoy this little fishing shrine because it's my grandfather, but also, it reminds me that, as with a lot of hobbies, you don't need the most expensive and bleeding edge gear to be out there catching fish. I think this gets lost sometimes, and you see it by the new guys getting themselves in the weeds asking what exact line brand needs to go with what exact reel and what exact rod. "What would you throw here? I can't catch any fish, what am I doing wrong?"
I don't know what my point is, exactly. I do know that sometimes you just don't catch fish, and spending any amount of money on gear isn't going to help that. If my grandpa had as many fishless days as I have, he sure as hell didn't record them in his journal.
Posted by SnowedOutMT
1 Comment
Love this so much! What a great tribute and memory. My grandpa was the same way – unlike me, he actually hated fly fishing though. He was so traditional in the sense of “I can catch just as big of fish on a hook and worm on my spinner, why complicate things”
I think there is something we can learn from the simplicity of that generation.