Fishing with Dad
Steve White, Associate Director, The Anglers Fund and Southeast Region Development
October 3, 2012 | Water Pollution
In celebration of the Clean Water Act's 40th Anniversary this month, avid fly-fisherman and American Rivers staff member Steve White writes about how clean water has impacted him throughout his life.
Fishing with my son at Green Cove Creek in Virginia | Steve White
Like many of the people I fish with these days, I grew up fishing. My dad taught me about salt water fish when we lived in Florida and then about largemouth bass and trout when we moved to North Carolina. While we liked all kinds of fishing, we pretty quickly settled into trout fishing in the mountains as our favorite.
Each year he would save up his vacation days to take me and sometimes my brother fly fishing, quoting T.S. Eliot with, “In the mountains, there you feel free.” Having studied at Sewanee and at Oxford, he would often bring his favorite authors into the long, comfortable conversations we’d have driving there.
The streams we would fish had great Southern names, like Gragg Prong, North Harper, and Lost Cove Creek, and were usually small streams, only a few yards across. We would lay out the maps in the evenings to pick a new spot for the coming day. Driving to the streams would be like sitting in front of a pile of birthday presents, not knowing but hoping. We’d look down from the gravel road through the trees and brush to get an idea of whether we had found the right place.
As we would step into the water and look upstream, we would talk about how the trees would arch above the stream, reaching up with bright green branches towards the brighter light coming through the top. It felt like walking into church with the altar just a little farther upstream. And then we’d start our fishing and love it. At the end of the day, he would think back and say, “When you’ve caught a trout, you’ve really done something.”
I now take my son to the streams my dad took me to, and often think about how much he would love fishing with his grandson. I point out large rocks that he caught fish behind and tell stories about how his biggest smiles were always on the river. So now, since I can’t fish with my dad anymore, we have a different family tradition: when we’re having a particularly good time on a stream or river, we reach down into the shallow water for a nice smooth rock that looks like the rest of them.
Then when we get back home, not that week or even that month but sometime soon, we drive to the cemetery. We sit down on the hard ground with the fresh mown grass, lay the rock at his tombstone and tell him the story. There are lots of rocks at his tombstone. Sometimes in the story we land the fish and sometimes the fish gets away, but it doesn’t matter. We’re just glad he’s with us.
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Submitted by Jed Feffer at: October 23, 2012
Steve, that is a great story about fishing with your dad and son. I am a passionate trout fisherman, and love to be out on the water. Last time, I fished Penns Creek in Pennsylvania, and it was beautliful to see the trout rising in their trout ballet. Thanks again, Jed
Submitted by Nicholas Flores at: October 16, 2012
Nice piece. But what we need the most is to convince Everyman that they have a stake in this too and they can make a difference.
Submitted by Kerry VerMeulen at: October 11, 2012
My earliest memory of environmental issues happened when I was about 7 years old so it must have been 1978. One of my friends had been fishing the White River in Muncie, Indiana and the fish they caught was so polluted that even the cat wouldn't eat it. It's flesh was brown and it smelled. I didn't know what had happened to it and when I was told that the river had done that to the fish because the water was so dirty I was so sad. Everything I thought I knew about the world changed that instant. Clean water doesn't just happen without intentional protection and planning, and we must never lose sight of that again.
Submitted by Suzanne at: October 10, 2012
My sister and I (as opposed to my 2 brothers) loved fishing with my dad. We'd either troll along in the boat on the lake fishing for bass or we'd stand on the banks of the Delaware River during shad season and whoever caught the first shad won the prize! These times hold such wonderful memories for me and are a constant reminder of my Dad. He also had a rule that whatever you caught you had to eat. Funny thing though - he had the awful task if filleting the sunfish we caught and then my Mom would cook them up using a tiny spatula to flip the tiny piece of fish! Unfortunately, the Delaware River is at risk of contamination from fracking (natural gas drilling). I can only hope and support the groups against fracking to keep the Delaware River as pristine today as it was 40 years ago.
Submitted by Rob Zarwell at: October 10, 2012
Amen Brother!!! That is what it is all about!
Submitted by Josh at: October 10, 2012
Steve, This is a great story about how rivers have the ability to bring family and friends together to create memories lasting a lifetime and even across generations. Although, it is important to protect our waterways for environmental reasons I think your article highlights some of their other attributes. Thanks for the inspiration.