Havre Nice Day: Still waters run deep

Growing up, my father wasn’t much of a fisherman — never had that knack — and like father like son, I never was a big fan myself. But my little brother, he was a fisherman. I mean, by the age of 6, that boy could outfish most full grown men. I would dare to say that I think, in fact, he was one of the greatest fishermen I’ve ever seen.

I remember my brother sitting on the beaches of Burke Lake casting out his line and sitting for hours reeling in fish after fish. He was the one who actually taught me how to fish — although, like I said before, I was never a big fan. But much of the time it would just be me and him, fishing.

I always said, “He was about two years from think’n like a fish.”

When we grew older, though, we grew apart, I was no longer interested in watching him fish and my attention went other places. But one year my brother asked me, “You want to learn to fly fish?”

“Why?” I replied.

“Well,” he said, pausing for a moment, “one day we are going to need to fish the Blackfoot or the Bitterroot and if we are going to do that we are going to need to learn to fly fish.”

So my brother found one of his fishing buddies that already new how to fly fish and who was willing to teach us. That was one of my fondest memories of my brother. Together we learned how to throw a line, back cast, how to tie an arbor, what kind of flies to use and where. It was just like the old times.

One of the oddest things that I wasn’t expecting to learn about fly fishing was the music component — my brother’s friend teaching us how to cast to a four/four count. It didn’t take long for both of us to pick it up and just like that I was hooked — pun not intended.

Hours and hours a day for months, my brother and I would practice our casting in the front yard of our house — always to a four/four count.

My brother, of course, caught on much quicker than I did — it became an art form for him, a new challenge for him to conquer — but that was my brother, and I was proud.

Those memories are some of my most cherished memories and the years that followed I thought of them often. Following those months there were no more fishing trips, no trips to the Bitterroot or the Blackfoot. I moved out of my parents house and was busy trying to find my own way into the world — regretfully, too busy for fishing.

I tried to fish without my brother — going with friends or going out myself — but there was always something missing, something that was there before that wasn’t there if I went out without my brother.

Years later, unexpectedly, I got a call from my brother asking me to move to Montana with him — he added that we could finally hit those big, ruff waters of the Rockies. I agreed and one of the first things that we did when we got to Big Sky Country was fish the Bitterroot — he even had a fly fishing pole ready for me — and it saved my life.

We went fishing a few more times after, found some great spots and caught some great fish. Now that I have a wife and kid of my own and my brother is away attending college I often find myself wanting to give him a call but rarely find the time. But I know that when I do call we rarely will speak of the past — instead we will speak of the future and make plans once more to fish those big waters of western Montana.

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“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.” — Norman Maclean, “A River Runs Through It.”