“Shall we begin like "David Copperfield"? I am born...I grew up. Or shall we begin when I was born to darkness, as I call it”. Famous words of Louie de Pointe du Lac, introducing himself in Anne Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire”. Now that was a “cool” vampire, not like the metrosexual modern day version we can’t seem to escape. Well as you already can tell I am a nerd, you can catch me at some of those midnight showings at the movies and reading all the classic books(that every highschool student dreads) for fun. Although, It was not always like that, I had my wild days just like anyone else, maybe more so than some, but those stories are for another time. Where am I going with this? Let’s get back on track. Just like Louie, Let’s begin when I was born into my fishing life, or born into the “light”. Much like the the life cycle of the bugs we try so hard to imitate, I have grown and evolved throughout my years on the water, in someways I have digressed, but one thing is certain, “change” has always been constant. Like most people, I started fishing at a young age, maybe 5 or 6. I was armed with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “pole”, repetitively chucking neon colored marshmallows from a lawn chair on the shore of a nearby lake. The bait made my fingers reek of a funky garlic, that even as a kid, I knew just wasn’t quite right. I call these years “the dark ages”. I couldn’t tell you my first fish or much about my fishing adventures during that time, but what I do remember changed my life and led me on my current path, right down to this moment, as I sit here writing. It was a mild summer day at “San Isabel”,a small lake, nestled in the mountains near Colorado City, a short trip from where I grew up. I sat back on my chair and eagerly waited for that small twitch of my “pole”, something, anything, that showed signs of intelligence on the other end. Those moments came, and although few and far in between, I loved every second of it. Even as a young tyke, I remember always trying to be aware of my surroundings, I had a hard time concentrating and staying on track and often found myself enthralled in what was going on around me instead of the task at hand. As I sat there, I watched others all around me; to my left was a group of men toting boxes of gear, which seemed to be filled with a never-ending supply of neon colored jars and to my right I observed a woman struggling to stick an almost elusive night crawler on a hook, not unlike threading a sewing needle. Occasionally, I would catch a conversation between some of them, One man would mutter “What color are they biting on?” to which the other would reply “Salmon eggs”. Which in turn made me think, Salmon? There is Salmon in here? Wait, what’s a Salmon? I don’t even know what a Salmon is. Then I would really lose track, just in the process of learning the rules of phonics, I was perplexed, S-A-MM-in, Sam-on, Salmon? Why is there an “L” in salmon, Just when I had this spelling thing all figured out, now there is silent letters? There I go getting off track. Focus. Anyway, as I observed the scene around me, I heard another guy giving directions to a group on how to catch fish, or as he called it using his “secret bait to slay trout”, which I can only guess was some sort of homemade concoction. As I looked at all the different people around everyone seemed to be sitting in chairs like me watching their “poles”. Some had more than one pole and others had bells hanging off of them but in general everyone seemed to be doing the same thing. One other thing was apparent, no one seemed to be having any more success than the next. All except one man. He was standing out in the water, dressed in a pair of canvas waders and a cowboy hat, He carried no tackle box, no stringer for fish. He wore a vest and seemed to methodically wave around a “pole”. This wasn’t just any regular “pole”, it was twice as long as any on the lake and seemed to bend like a noodle. It was unlike anything I had ever witnessed. He looked like an artist painting the beautiful mountain landscape behind him. Every four or five times he laid his line on the water, I would catch a glimpse of a silver flash just below the surface followed by a splash only to see his “pole” come to life dancing back and forth: a fish, The whole process happened so fast my brain had trouble processing. How did he do it? What kind of sorcery was this?! He seemed to have the reflexes of a ninja, much like the movies of Bruce Lee, that I watched with my father.
I watched as he did it over and over and so did everyone else, their faces looked sick with frustration. All the while, he had no expression on his face at all, in fact it seemed as if he was not aware of anyone or anything else, not the rumbling of the plane passing by overhead or the clunk of the kids throwing rocks into the water, nothing. Everything he did seemed so natural, his “pole” almost seemed to be an extension of his arm. A feeling came over me, a realization even at a young age, that’s how I wanted to be. I HAD to learn to do that. I continued to watched in amazement as he went through his casting motions, the line seemed to dance in the air, so powerful, yet as the line touched the water there was barely a ripple. The man was an artist, truly a master of his craft. The man was my grandfather.
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