Big fish, little river

I was talking with Matt, a good friend of mine, and he had this observation about his father, who had a career as a school principal. "My Dad was great with kids, with the exception of me and my sister."

My biological father flew the coop when I was four and mom remarried and that guy was rarely home. Which was well enough because we never really got along until later in life, and just when that was beginning to happen, he had a heart attack and died at the age of 47.

He did, however, take me fishing. Exactly once. I was eight years old.

I still remember it. We caught a few fish. Enough to hook an eight-year-old on fishing for life.

We never went fishing together again after that, but my parents did allow me to go alone, which was good of them because the creek I fished in was over my head in some places, and I didn't learn how to swim until I was 12.

For four years, I was damn careful about where I stepped in that creek.

Which brings us to small streams and their value. For this summer, Boy Wonder and I have been slowly, but surely, hitting every small stream we can find, poking around in the hope that:

A) The fish are abundant.

B) There's occasionally a "big" one. "Big" is defined by a fish that is 10 to 12 inches.

So far, so good. Every stream we've tried has been full of fish. And we even got a few bonus points on the last one, where we caught a couple of fat 10, maybe even 11, inchers.

That stream surprised me because where it crosses the road, and it only crosses a road once, it looks like a dud. Straight. Narrow. No pools.

In dry years it goes down to a trickle. But this year we got a nice shot of rain in August, and once it had a chance to shake off the chocolate browns of runoff, I figured we'd give it a shot anyway.

That shot came Saturday night about four. It was a perfect day to fish. Kind of cloudy, but no rain, cool but not cold.

We busted through a little brush and worked our way downstream. All of these streams are in bear country, so there is the possibility of startling something with teeth.

Even so, this sort of a fishing is a simple affair. You wade wet. Carry some flies in a film canister and, of course, stick the bear spray in your back pocket.

The fish are mostly dumb. Mostly small. You cast, set the hook when the fish bites (usually two or three will come after the fly immediately) and then hand the rod over to Boy Wonder. He reels them in. At the age of 6, he's just not ready to learn to fly fish. At least not the whole nine yards—the back casts and watching the fly and setting the hook and all of that. Sprinkle his autism into the equation and it's pretty cool that he's out here at all.

The kid loves to fish. Some things are genetic.

Like I said, most of the fish are small, but Saturday we came to spot where the stream split and then came back together again and made a deep dark pool.

Boy Wonder caught two 10-inchers out of it. Certifiably big fish for a stream you could step over in two big steps.

Even so, that pool was deep and Boy Wonder can't swim real well. Like his father at that age, he's learned to watch where he steps.