Trout 2017: Another Season in the Books

Just like that, another trout fishing season has come and gone. This was only my second season of serious trout pursuit, but I find this closing day even more bittersweet than the last. I’ve been incredibly blessed to spend most of the 2017 season exploring the mountain streams of the west, but yet nothing feels more like home than the trout streams of central Wisconsin. I was lucky enough to get quite a few of these trips in as well. Personal highlights include completing the Utah Cutthroat Slam and getting my friend, Dean, hooked on the sport. Next season has a lot to live up to.

One of my favorite authors on the topic of fly fishing is a man named John D. Voelker (went by the pen name of Robert Traver). He wrote a number of books, inspired largely by the scenery and wild brook trout of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I often find myself revisiting his poem titled ‘The Testament of a Fisherman‘. It beautifully captures the essence of the sport and, in some ways, is a defense as to why one fly fishes. The following is the poem along with a collection of photographs from this past season.

Here’s to the 2017 season that was and to the 2018 season to be; thanks for coming along for the ride.

I fish because I love to;

Because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly;

Because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape;

Because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion;

Because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience;

Because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don’t want to waste the trip;

Because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness;

Because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there;

And, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant – and not nearly so much fun.