The Fishing Gene

I'm thoroughly convinced that some people have a fishing gene. Some things are passed down from parent to child, tutor to pupil, but fishing seems to come from somewhere else entirely. It wells up from the deepest darkest parts of the soul flooding through your whole body until you cannot resist it. Do you know someone with this gene? They can’t drive by a river or lake without staring off into the distance a little too long. And yes, they are imagining what type of fish is lurking there waiting to be caught. They will often make some type of comment if they see someone else fishing it. “Oh look, someone’s out there fishing, huh” or “wow, fishing on a Thursday, must be nice”. What they are really saying is “hey, if he’s fishing there, shouldn’t I be? What does he know that I don’t? What the heck am I doing in this car, driving to my kids soccer practice when people are fishing, look, they are right there, they are going to catch all the fish, oh why don’t I have my pole!”

Of course there are some more obvious clues that someone is addicted to fishing such as having the same fishing lures in different colors, or having more than 5 poles in the house or getting really excited about the Cabellas opening in Lacey. However, these things are just material compared to clues like having anything to do with fishing on your Tivo, making decisions about where to live based on the quality of fishing and thinking about fishing to help you fall asleep at night. These are the mark of a true gene enhanced fisherman.

It turns out that two of my brothers and I have this gene. Over the years, since we haven’t lived close enough to fish together regularly, we’ve started a tradition we like to call The Man Trip. We even have a theme song; fishin, fishin, fishin (sing it to the tune of the Batman theme song). The original Man Trip was invented by Dustin Olsen and myself as a “don’t-tell-the-wives-where-we-are-going-fish-for-4-days-without-
food-water-or-sleep” trip. It has grown to include my brothers Zack and Mike. This year was Man Trip IV and we traveled to the Rocky Mountains of Utah to assault the rivers of the Provo valley. The cold clear waters of the Rockies are perfect for our favorite type of fishing, catch and release fly fishing. In November the Brown trout go into spawning mode and become even more aggressive than usual.

We hit a secret river that I dare not tell you it’s name. We caught fish in this river bigger and meatier than any I have ever seen before. All of us landed the biggest fish of our lifetime on a fly rod. It was truly amazing. Here are the pictures to prove it because, as someone once said, “I wouldn’t believe you if you were telling me you caught fish like this…”

This was the biggest fish of the day. Zack caught it on a bead that imitates a fish egg. It measured a little over 24 inches. You can see that it doesn't fit in his net.

Mike and I thoroughly worn out from fishing.

This fish is so old that the hook on it's lower jaw is starting to split his upper.

Three Brothers