The Trip We Never Took

There was a time when my Pap and I were supposed to go fly fishing together.

We talked about it. When I got into fly fishing, he wanted to go with me. It wasn’t one of those things where I discovered an old fly rod after he was gone and suddenly learned that we shared an interest I never knew about. I knew. He knew. We talked about getting onto the water together.

We just never got the chance.

I fished plenty with Pap using spinning rods. We have plenty of fishing stories together. Whether it was how nervous he became when I was netting his 22-inch golden rainbow trout, or the time I dropped his stainless steel pliers into Little Pine Lake, those are memories I can look back on and laugh about.

But the reality is, we never got to fly fish together.

By the time I was getting serious about fly fishing, Pap’s health made the kind of fishing I wanted to do difficult for him. Wading into a Pennsylvania trout stream simply wasn’t realistic anymore. I could see that he wanted to do it, and I wanted him there too. But wanting something doesn’t always make it possible.

Eventually, there wasn’t going to be another opportunity.

That’s one of those things I wish had turned out differently.

About 16 months ago, I inherited his fly rod.

His only fly rod.

It’s an old Scientific Anglers System 5, 7 feet 7 inches long, paired with the old System 5 reel. By modern standards, there isn’t anything particularly remarkable about it. The reel looks tiny beside today’s large-arbor reels, and the rod certainly doesn’t resemble something that just came off the wall of a modern fly shop.

But I know at least one thing that rod has done.

Pap caught his personal best brown trout on it.

Twenty-five inches.

I find myself thinking about that fish whenever I pick up the rod. Somewhere, at some point, Pap stood with this same cork grip in his hand while a 25-inch brown trout pulled against the other end. The rod bent. The reel turned. Somehow he got that fish into his hands.

I wish I knew every detail of that story.

I don’t.

But I know the rod. I know the fisherman. And I know the fish was 25 inches.

Sometimes that’s enough.

I know a few other things too. Two of Pap’s favorite flies were the Muddler Minnow and the Leadwing Coachman. They’re older patterns themselves, flies from another era that still catch fish today. There’s something fitting about that combination: an old Scientific Anglers rod, a small System 5 reel and a couple of traditional flies that Pap trusted enough to keep fishing.

For about 16 months, though, all of it has stayed out of the water.

I haven’t fished the rod.

Part of that was probably because I didn’t want anything to happen to it. When you inherit something from somebody you loved, there’s an instinct to protect it. If I leave the rod home, it can’t get scratched against a rock. I can’t break the tip. I can’t drop the reel. It can stay exactly as it was when it became mine.

For a while, that felt like respecting it.

Lately, I’ve started thinking almost the opposite.

Pap didn’t own that rod because he wanted somebody to preserve it.

He owned it because he wanted to catch trout with it.

And apparently, at least once, a very big one.

A fishing rod that has already handled a 25-inch brown trout probably doesn’t need me protecting it from Spring Creek.

So I’m taking it back to the water.

I’ve already started getting it ready. The old System 5 reel has fresh Scientific Anglers line on it. I’ll put a fresh leader on before I go. Then I’ll put the rod together, pull some line from that little reel and step toward the creek carrying something Pap once carried toward water himself.

Old rod. Old reel. Fresh line. New water.

And Spring Creek really will be new water for this rod, at least as far as I know.

Pap never fished it.

That matters to me.

I’m not going back to one of his old fishing spots trying to recreate something he already experienced. I’m taking his rod somewhere new, to one of Pennsylvania’s limestone streams, to chase wild brown trout.

Brown trout are my favorite fish.

Maybe it’s their colors. Maybe it’s the places they live. Maybe it’s the way even a relatively small wild brown can make you stop for a second and admire it before slipping it back into the current.

Whatever the reason, they’ve always been the trout that mean the most to me.

And Pap’s best trout happened to be one too.

So there’s something special about carrying the rod that caught his biggest brown into Spring Creek and asking it to bend for another one.

Not another 25-incher.

I’m not asking Spring Creek for that much.

Just a wild brown.

I won’t even fish the rod exactly the way he did.

I’m left-handed, and I’ll probably use that old reel in a way that looks a little unconventional to some fly fishermen. That’s okay. I’m not trying to recreate Pap on the stream. I’m not trying to hold the rod exactly as he held it, cast exactly as he cast or somehow turn myself into the fisherman he was.

I’m taking something that belonged to him and carrying it into the fisherman I’m becoming.

His fingerprints are already on the story.

Now, slowly, I’ll add mine.

I’ve thought quite a bit about what I want tied onto the end for that first cast.

I think it should be a Muddler Minnow or a Leadwing Coachman.

Maybe neither will be the best fly for Spring Creek that day. Maybe after a few casts I’ll change to something completely different. That’s fine. I’m still going there to learn and to fish. But the first one feels different.

I want to make that first cast with something Pap would recognize.

There’s part of me that naturally wants to catch a trout on his rod. Of course I do. I’d love to feel that old Scientific Anglers bend again and see a wild brown trout flash beneath the surface. I’d love to bring one to hand, remove the hook and watch it disappear back into Spring Creek.

But I’m trying not to ask the stream for too much.

This isn’t about beating Pap’s fish. It’s not about making the rod mine by putting a bigger trout on it. That fish belongs to his story.

I’m beginning mine.

I can’t fix the fact that we never got our fly-fishing trip. That’s one of the hard realities of losing someone. There are conversations you don’t get to finish and plans you don’t get to reschedule.

Eventually, “someday” runs out of days.

As a Christian, though, grief has never meant believing that death gets the final word.

My hope isn’t that Pap somehow lives on through an old fly rod. My hope is in Christ and in the promise of resurrection. The rod matters to me because it belonged to someone I loved, but cork, an old reel and a length of fishing line aren’t where I place my hope.

And while I don’t know exactly what those who have gone before us can see of the lives we’re living here, I like to think about what Pap would say if he could see me standing in Spring Creek with that rod in my left hand.

He’d probably have something to say about my casting.

And if I managed to hook a good brown, I have a feeling I’d still hear about that 25-incher.

That thought makes me smile.

Faith doesn’t erase the disappointment that we never got our fly-fishing trip. It doesn’t make me wish any less that I could have had one afternoon standing in the water beside him. What it does give me is the confidence that the story of someone who belongs to Christ doesn’t simply end at a graveside.

So I don’t have to make this fishing trip carry more weight than it should.

I’m not going to Spring Creek to find Pap.

I’m going fishing.

And I’m taking his rod.

Maybe that’s what I’ve misunderstood about inheritance. We often think honoring something means preserving it exactly as we received it. Put it somewhere safe. Keep it clean. Don’t risk losing it.

But maybe certain things are honored differently.

Maybe a fly rod is honored by letting it cast.

Every new scratch can sit beside the old ones. Every new stream can join the streams that came before it. Fresh line can run through old guides. A Muddler Minnow can hang from the same rod again.

And maybe someday there will be another story attached to it.

Maybe mine will be twelve inches.

Maybe six.

Maybe I’ll get skunked.

It really doesn’t matter.

Because if I do bring a wild Spring Creek brown to hand, I don’t think I’ll care much about putting a tape measure beside it.

It’ll be my favorite fish, caught from water Pap never fished, on the only fly rod he ever owned.

That will be enough.

For about 16 months, I’ve been the keeper of Pap’s fly rod.

Now I get to become its next fisherman.

I’ll walk into Spring Creek carrying a rod that once bent beneath the biggest brown trout my grandfather ever caught. I’ll hold it in my left hand, pull fresh Scientific Anglers line through the guides, and tie on one of the flies he loved.

Then I’ll make the cast we never got to make standing beside each other.

I don’t know whether Pap will see it.

But I know the God who gave me Pap does.

I’ll have his rod in my hand, his story behind me, and new water in front of me.

And when that fresh fly line finally rolls out over Spring Creek, I think I’ll smile.

Because the trip we never took still mattered.

And by God’s grace, so does the one I’m about to take.