It’s funny how different things can spark a memory. For me, it is usually a song or a smell. I don’t know why specifically those two things. Probably based off of how I learn things. The other day when I was finished with work I had an hour or two to kill before the sun set. This is a busy time of year and I haven’t felt like I’ve had the play time I usually enjoy. I decided to take a quick trip up a small canyon by the job site. I stopped at the gas station for a drink, and while I was waiting to check out I noticed the rack of cigarettes behind the counter. I see them every day and normally don’t even notice, but today was different. Near the bottom was a small selection of Swisher Sweet cigars. Suddenly I was taken back fifteen years into a time I had almost forgotten.
My brother and I used to go fishing on a more regular basis when life was a little simpler. One of us would always grab a couple cigars for the trip. I didn’t smoke but on occasion, one of them being when my brother and I would fish. Before setting out into the water we each stashed a cigar somewhere in the fly vest until the appropriate time. I don’t know how the tradition started, or even why. But the cigar was symbolic of our day on the water. Symbolic in the way that you weren’t allowed to light up until you had hooked and landed your first fish. We fished in all conditions year round. This meant there were times when we got to light up within a few casts. Other times it could be an hour before we would get a fish.
Since we always fished together, moving up the river taking turns casting to the runs and eddies, or fishing the edges and meeting in the middle, it meant we were both aware of who and when the fish was caught. Some of my favorite memories are of leaning against lay-down logs or boulders while the river flowed around us, unwrapping a cigar and puffing it to life in celebration of a job well done. I never thought about it at the time but looking back now I can see it was some small rite of passage. We had set out that day with a purpose, and the ceremonial cigar was our reward for being successful.
Now that we rarely fish the rivers together anymore, the idea of buying a cigar that day didn’t seem to hold the same appeal as it once did. Perhaps the meaning wouldn’t be the same. Or maybe it was life’s way of telling me it was time for a new tradition. Either way, I left the convenience store cigarless, but I did not walk away empty handed. I had half a lifetimes worth of freshly stirred memories to keep me company during my solo journey on the river that day. They say that a river is ever-changing, and never stays the same. Each time you set foot into the depths is the first step on a new journey. If I have learned anything in 43 years, it’s that life never stays the same, and it will never be like it once was. That doesn’t mean you’ll never fish the same stream, you’re just fishing in new water.
This post is dedicated to my big brother Kelly.
The Spirit of Fishing 