Father & Son fishing Tails

My Dad

My dad was diagnosed with type 4 lung cancer. I don’t know a lot about type 4 cancer except that it is advanced enough that you hear people don’t survive it. In fact it doesn’t seem like they make it very long at all. I think it’s important to go with my parents to see the cancer specialist to hear what he says. I think I can stay calm, and hear what he is saying.

I meet them at the hospital early in the afternoon, and they both seem fine. My dad was calm and in a really good state of mind. We sit in the office and wait for the doctor to come in to talk to us. I sort of know what he’s going to say. My older brother Pete and I have talked a little on the phone and neither one of us feels that great about stage 4. But I am hoping he will tell us some good news, maybe some silver lining in the dark cloud so to speak.  He doesn’t give us any silver lining. He is a nice guy, and he is direct and respectful. I can tell this isn’t his first time giving this type of news, because he so smoothly lets us know he probably has less than a year. My mom starts crying. I don’t want to feel anything, especially in front of someone I don’t know, and especially when I see how bravely my dad is taking it.

My dad thanks him for being honest with him; but I feel like he has taken out a timer, and pushed the start button then attached the timer to him. No, it’s more like the Wicked Witch of the West pulled out her hour glass, the big one with the red sand in it and said, “This is how much time you have dearie.”

Driving home I have to think about what to say to Melis and the girls. I’m not really sure how I should tell them. I have sort of hinted around the idea that he may have cancer, but nothing really. My cousins and friends will take it really hard too. My dad is friends with everyone, you can't go out in public with him with out him running into a friend. Or if he doesn't see a friend, he makes friends with a complete stranger. People simple take to him period.

I keep thinking about what else the doctor said; he said everyone responds to the treatment differently, and that you can never put a time on anyone, they can only look at statistics. Statistics don’t lie, but they do have range. Some people go way under what the numbers say, and some people go a lot longer. I can't help thinking that this may be his last fall—dad and I both love fall.

Every fall I do one big out of state fishing trip. I find a river, actually a couple rivers that I really want to see, and I sort of plan around that. This year a buddy I work with has suggested going to the Frying Pan and The Roaring Fork near Aspen Colorado. Johnny is also planning on going, and he is all over going to Colorado. I hate to exclude them, but that red sand hour glass has all my attention, and it’s not really fair to them to jump into that scene. He may be sick and his back is really hurting him as well; I don’t want to get half way out there and have to come back with them. They’re both cool guys though and I know they will both understand.

The plan was to hit the Frying Pan, the Gunnison, the Taylor and the Roaring Fork. Now I think it’s still about those rivers but who really knows about the fishing. Is it ever really about the fishing? Yes and no, but it’s always about new rivers and the fun in between.

I don’t want to think this is my last fall with my dad.  But what if it is? What if this is the last time he gets to experience the absolute splendor of autumn?  At this point I’m supposed to write something to the effect of living every moment as if it was your last—live like you are dying. You can’t argue with that, but the truth is that no one lives like that--not even Tim McGraw. Whether its dad’s last month or his tenth to last, I know I’d like to travel to those rivers with him anyhow.

I don’t have anything to say to my dad that hasn’t been said, I don’t have any fences to mend with him, no guild trips to lay on him—none of that. We have had our disagreements, but I think we can both safely say that there are no issues to be resolved between us. I’m happy about that.


Great news, his scan revealed that he does not have stage 4, and has been upgraded to stage 3-A (delayed silver lining). The improvement is because they previously thought it had traveled to his liver, which after further tests indicate that it’s just a spot on his liver. So this means his treatment will be a lot different. The specialist said that at stage 4, the treatment is mostly to keep you comfortable until you die. They are going to treat his stage 3 a lot more aggressively. That sounds really encouraging to me. They start in about a week and a half. So were going to strike while the iron’s hot, and the chemo’s not. We will leave on the night of my birthday, the 19^th and come back on Monday.

We headed out of Dodge on my birthday, about 5:00 and we got as far as Green River, I thought it was best to not push it to Glenwood Springs--my original plan. We had a good talk on the way out there. It wasn’t gloom and doom, but we did cover some things that needed to be discussed. The mood with him feels really good, very positive and optimistic.

I really have nothing to say about Green River. Wait I do—it’s a kind of a dump.  We slept in the next morning and got started fairly late. I made a conscious decision to slow down and move more at my dad’s pace. Over that last 5 years or so he has been noticeably slowing down, but now that his back flared up, he moves really slowly. At any rate it will be good for me, to slow down and smell the fall leaves. I get so driven and focused on these fishing trips; and I have to remind myself it’s not just about fishing.

For at least 10 year my fly fishing addiction has caused me to be late to  important events, I’ve neglect work and family life, and  honestly I’ve miss entire activities. I don’t blame the fish, the river or anything else—it’s on me. I hope my wife and girls don’t hold any of that against me, and that they realize they are far more important to me that any day on the river. But I can see why they feel shafted. When your dad doesn’t come home because he’s “gone fishing” it just sends the wrong message. Is it acceptable to say I have an addiction problem?  I don’t want this trip to be about feeding the addiction, but about spending time with my dad. Maybe I can accomplish both.

The guys at Roaring Fork Anglers told me a place to start off with on the Roaring Fork. The directions were simple, I was headed for a place they called “The Boat Ramp.” I turned off the highway at a spot they said, and saw a guy loading some stuff on a truck. He said we were on the right road, but that if we wanted we could fish at his place. “This is my property; you guys are welcome to fish here if you want.” He even brought out a beer for each one of us.

The Roaring Fork is no wimpy river, I reminds me a lot of the Provo, but a little bigger. I fished up river for about a half hour, caught a small one, and missed a few. I went back to the spot my dad was sitting to see if he was good. “Keep fishing buddy, I’m fine,” he replied. I thought I would swing soft hackle down river for about an hour or so and just sit with him and chill out.

I hooked into a nice fish; I could feel it had a lot of weight. You can feel the difference between an active middle weight and a beefy heavy weight. This guy was big. He ran into the middle of the river on me, and sort of hunkered in on the bottom—pop off he came. I wish I could have seen him, but honestly I was happy just the have the action.

I kept working down river for a while. Up ahead I see what looks like a sweet hole. I’ll work it for 15 min then head back up river to my dad. He’s about a hundred yards or so relaxing on a bench. Bump I hook up again. To be completely honest I didn’t think I could get a bite on this section--its rougher water than I thought would hold fish. He immediately takes off with my line. I have the drag set pretty hard. He just keeps going, I have been down to my backing with fish plenty of times, but this guy is deep into it, and he’s not slowing down even a touch. For one second I think of pinching my line; I’m afraid he may just keep going and take everything. But I did that once on the Duchene—biggest regret I have fishing. I panicked and didn’t give the fish a chance to finish his initial run. Think about it what do you value more the chance to catch the fish of a life time, or your fly line?

Seriously in a few seconds there will be no line left, but he slows down, so I take advantage and put it back to him. I hold the tip down and to the side, and I manage to get him back down to me. He wants to go deep—no way, I use the rod to push him lower. I feel as though even a touch more pressure and he will break off. But I lost the last one that way. I decided a few years back, it’s better to break off than let them go down to branches and wrap and break.

He breaks water—actually he came up and tail danced. I have to be honest here—it scared me. This thing didn’t look like a trout. I was thinking maybe I have a salmon on the line—I don’t know this river, I’m not sure really what I have on. He broke water again, thrashing his head like an angry bull. That’s right I said like an angry bull. I stayed hooked on, and he decided that was about all he had.

The biggest fish I have ever caught on a river is about a 25 inch brown—no that’s the biggest fish I have ever caught. Not any more, this guy’s tail was at the butt of my rod and his head was about 2 or 3 inches short of the first eyelet. He was at least 26 to 28 inches; let’s split the difference and call it 27 inches. This guy was a football head; hook jawed, gnarly bad mamma-jamma fish. I am in a bit of a state of shock. I yelled toward my dad and held it up. I think he can see it, but I’ not sure. Then he waves, so I know he saw it. Just then he flips out of my hand and hits his head smack on a big rock. I nurse him for a while in good flowing water, to give him lots of oxygen—all is good he shown no sign of damage. I just can’t believe I just caught that fish!

I pretty much run back to where my dad was—God I hope he saw it, really saw how big he was. It was just another fish to him, “well yeah it looked big, I guess, as far as I could tell.” Three hours pass and I can’t stop talking about it. I am still trying to tell myself that it really was that big.

“Do you have a pic?” was the first thing the guy at the fly shop asks when I told my tale the next morning. That’s a legit question, and I can’t blame them for calling bull shit on me when I don’t have picture proof of my epic victory. “They sometimes get to 25 inches in that river, but I’ve never heard of anyone catching one just under than 30 inches.” I wouldn’t believe it either. I just caught it and I don’t believe it. I keep questioning it myself, but I laid my rod next to it to get a measurement, and I saw what I saw. There was a customer in there who believed me. In fact he believed me so much he pulled out a map and asked for specific directions. Why not it’s not my home water. I explained the private land issue, and the guy who gave us permission. I hope he goes to the spot and hooks up on the monster, and I even hope he lands my fish—well sort of.

The quirky thing about fishing is that it’s a lot like life. Correlation: I have worked some rivers for hours, days with everything I have, and every fly imaginable, and not a bite. I have fished some sections of river like a warrior poet doing all the right things and nothing. And at the same time, I have caught so many fish on accident—especially nymphing where you set the hook when in reality you had no idea a fish was on, you were just getting ready to re-cast. There is no rhyme or reason to it all. Who deserves what? Who said fishing or was fair? Well, no one, but we all still think it should be. We think if we work hard at things that it should work out just the way we want. Well it does, just not on the schedule we think it should. Sometimes we get more than we deserve, but we never complain about that. The truth is that I didn’t deserve this fish—especially a personal record breaker. It was my first time ever on the Roaring Fork, I have not put my time in, and even worse I was really just letting my line swing down until I could walk down a bit. Where’s the justice? We’ll I say its pay off for all those days of working rivers with all I have and not even get a strike. Maybe it was payment from God for bringing my dad along…who knows?

My Buddy Chris has been talking about the Frying Pan for months, and how much he wants to go back to see it. He lived there for about ten years or so, and although he isn’t really much of a fisherman he really wants to go on the trip with me. I hope it can work out another time. He was right about The Frying Pan, it is eye candy for sure; what a beautiful river. It’s almost halfway between Glenwood Springs and Aspen, both the Pan and Roaring Fork feed the Colorado.

I hate to pick between rivers, but of the two I like the way the Roaring Fork fished, and the size and overall appearance of the Frying Pan. I caught the biggest fish I have ever caught in my life, how can I rate The Pan above the Fork?  If you are in that area, and even if you have only one day you can easily hit them both.

We spent the whole day on The Pan, and we mostly drove around, and sat and talked and drank beer. Food and coffee are the big issues with my dad, if he has both; he’s a “happy camper” to use one of his terms. That night was a bit rough on him though, I think he twisted his back a bit or something. That night he was in pain and was frustrated. This is where I learned a lot. It’s strange seeing your dad go from being a total locomotive to the caboose trailing along. When I was a kid he worked two jobs and was always moving. There were years that I don’t think he even went to bed. As time went on he did gradually slow down, so it shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is. I guess it’s like when parents still see their kids as little guys; there is always this image of a baby you see in them. You always see your father as an oak tree. You never think he will falter.

I realize I have been impatient with him, and not really understanding of the changes he’s going through. In a way I think I have kind of been pissed off at him for getting older, or at least pissed that he’s slowing down. Does it really matter; I mean how fast you move? Do you really have to get everything in the world done in one day? I rush at such a fast pace and for what? This trip with my dad also makes me wonder if my kids will be nice to me when I’m like him. Will they be gentle and kind or will they yell at me, and treat me like a fool? I have a strategy; I will show them how I want to be treated, by modeling it for them with my father.

We took the 133 from Carbon Dale to Hodgkiss which did not suck. If you’re a Utahan, you have to tip your hat to Colorado’s peaks. I’m not one to throw our mountains under the bus, but we don’t have any peaks over 14,000 feet and Colorado has 53 of them or maybe it’s 54. We have other gems that they don’t but they really are the rocks in the Rocky Mountains.

Our destination was Pleasure Park, a section of the Gunnison where the north fork meets with the main section of the river. I am drawn into the name Pleasure Park, but I’m thinking it doesn’t sound that good with my dad, and more like a place I would like to go with my wife. I have a book at home called 50 places to fly fish before you die, I think every fisherman has some version of that book. The one river they mention from Colorado is… yes you guessed it the Gunnison. In particular people talk about the Black Canyon section—especially when the Salmon Fly is hatching. But that section is out of the question with dad. A guy we talked to at the fly shop mentioned Pleasure Park—sick bastard.

In this same book I mentioned, they list only one river from Utah that is worth fishing before you die—The Green. It’s considered our big dog, and if you have ever fished it, you’ll know why --it is spectacular. The Gunnison reminds me a lot of The Green.

To start with they are roughly the same size. I think the Green is a bit larger, it’s both deeper and wider, but I am on the Gunnison during a really low water season. I can imagine on a year with a lot of snow fall this river would have greater flow. Both rivers have very clear water, but I think the water just out of the damn on the Green at the A and B section is more clear than the Gunnison. But then again I was many miles below the damn on the Gunnison. I think the fish are very similar on both rivers; you can latch into some mighty fish on both rivers. But I didn’t catch anything over 14 inches, and a lot of the local guys said you can catch 20 inchers on the Gunnie. You can catch well over 20 inch fish on the Green and sometimes 25 inchers. The desert terrain surrounding the section of the Gunnison I fished is very similar to the area around Vernal, and really reminds me of the Basin area. But then again the red rock canyons that surround you on The Green are mind blowing.  But I didn’t get to see the Black Canyon section.

I guess it sounds like I prefer the Green over the Gunnison, but I can’t wait to fish the Gunnie again. It was amazing, and yes it’s a bit like the Green, but it’s also nothing like it at all, not better or worse. I always have a hard time starting off on big rivers like the Gunnison and the Green. I don’t know where to start, because I am looking for a bend, or some structure, either large or small. But with these rivers, I have to get in, and start working it for a while to know what is going on. Once I start feeling out the fish and what they are doing, I absolutely love fishing water like this. Fish were feeding all around me, and laughing at what I had to offer. But I got into the flow, and have some real luck with stuff on the top. They mostly went for Green Drakes, Elk Hare Caddis, and some hopper patterns. I dropped soft hackle and only little guys would take them. I only fished this river a day and a half, even with such limited exposure I see why it’s rated so high. I really want to go back.

I fished most this day, and I hope I didn’t leave dad too long. He seemed cool with it. We pulled the truck to the edge of the river, set up our chairs and watching the sun set. Yes it was one of those moments, how can it not be when you’re on a river like that in September. Not to mention I could see the Old Man was pretty happy with the trip. The fish were jumping all over the place, which was driving him mad—not me. I had had my fill, but seriously he forced me to fish. Once I started fishing, I really wanted to catch one, especially off the top—to sort of show off. I knew he would be tickled pink with that. As fate would have it, I didn’t get even one fish to flash at my fly, let alone take it. Once again who said you deserve anything, or that it’s going to work to your schedule?

We stayed that night in Delta in a smoking room. I am not a finicky person, but I don’t like staying in smoking rooms—obvious reasons. But we were both too tired to give a damn and go anywhere else. Plus I cut my arm and it kept bleeding and he wanted to get a bandage and Neosporin on it. I survived the night in the room and we got up fairly early the next morning. He lost his phone and we couldn’t find it. The last place we both could think of seeing him with it was on the banks of the Gunnison. We weren’t planning on fishing that morning, but instead going home. “If I see that river I have to get in it at least for an hour or so,” I commented. I have spent a life time pushing everything to the limit, and I didn’t want to do that today. But what would an hour hurt right?

We didn’t find his phone, and I did fish again for about an hour. I am proud of myself; I showed some real discipline and kept it under an hour—more or less. We had a nice leisurely drive home, and got back well before dinner. I’m glad that he could have a relaxing time before he gets stated with his treatment.