Tonight, after my youngest daughter's t-ball game, I had an hour or two to kill. My wife graciously suggested I go fishing. I started to reach for my
favorite rod tube, but the plain green bag in the corner caught my eye. It held a rod I've owned over a year, but never fished. I thought briefly,
grabbed the green bag, and left.
The bag holds an 8 and a half foot, pre- 1925 Chubb / Montague. I planned to swing wet flies, and thought this would fit this rod. On the third or fourth cast, I hooked, played, and landed a fiesty 8" brown. As I released him, I thought "I wonder when the last time this grip was wet with stream water..... I wonder when the last time this rod flexed with the energy of a healthy trout".
I daydreamed a little as I watched the pink and purple dusk reflected in the ripple of the stream.
I could see old Eben, finished a little early with his evening chores, deciding to try out his new rod, a rod made in Montague City, Massachusetts, just a few miles from his hillside farm. Old Eben daydreamed a little, pleased and humbled at the pink and purple reflections of dusk in the ripples of the brook that ran at the back of his lower fourty. Jolted back by the strike of a good fish, he quickly creeled the 14 inch brook trout, followed shortly by another. Reluctantly, he figured he better head back - he'd have to be up early.
Eben cut across the meadow - freshly cut this morning by his own hands and sickle - and placed his brace of fat trout in the springhouse, where they would wait for the cast iron pan and his morning meal before chores.....
I reeled in, and walked back the path through the woods. As I reached the end of the path, I bemusedly looked around for a few moments, till I remembered that my ride home was my own truck parked by the edge of the woods, not the horse and buckboard I had been searching for a few seconds ago.
The bag holds an 8 and a half foot, pre- 1925 Chubb / Montague. I planned to swing wet flies, and thought this would fit this rod. On the third or fourth cast, I hooked, played, and landed a fiesty 8" brown. As I released him, I thought "I wonder when the last time this grip was wet with stream water..... I wonder when the last time this rod flexed with the energy of a healthy trout".
I daydreamed a little as I watched the pink and purple dusk reflected in the ripple of the stream.
I could see old Eben, finished a little early with his evening chores, deciding to try out his new rod, a rod made in Montague City, Massachusetts, just a few miles from his hillside farm. Old Eben daydreamed a little, pleased and humbled at the pink and purple reflections of dusk in the ripples of the brook that ran at the back of his lower fourty. Jolted back by the strike of a good fish, he quickly creeled the 14 inch brook trout, followed shortly by another. Reluctantly, he figured he better head back - he'd have to be up early.
Eben cut across the meadow - freshly cut this morning by his own hands and sickle - and placed his brace of fat trout in the springhouse, where they would wait for the cast iron pan and his morning meal before chores.....
I reeled in, and walked back the path through the woods. As I reached the end of the path, I bemusedly looked around for a few moments, till I remembered that my ride home was my own truck parked by the edge of the woods, not the horse and buckboard I had been searching for a few seconds ago.
