Epic

It happened last night. I was fishing the same stream, the same stretch even, as we fished in the video I posted last week. Fishing was good the whole way through, and water that Brian and I found to be "dead" when we fished it last time seemed to be holding trout this time. I caught a lot of fish.

The numbers weren't what made it epic, though. I came out to the meadow-the meadow I showed in my video where I said you could really see the spring creek influence of the stream-and that's where the epicness began. I had very little light left, as it was going on 8:30pm by this point. The meadow was alive with bugs though. Midges, sulphurs, caddis, and the water was popping. It was a full on "boil". Trout everywhere, pounding whatever came near them. I stood for a few minutes and watched. This is Lancaster County? I've seen things like this before, but never on my home waters. I grew up 20 minutes from this stream, and spent most of my early fly fishing days chasing the big pellet head stockers on Lititz Run. How did I overlook this stream for so long? I always knew it was there and I always heard the rumors of wild fish, but I admit, my priorities were on size back in those days, not on quality. I sat in that meadow last night and thought, "this is how God designed it." Native fish eating native bugs, no trucks, no buckets, no pellets involved. This is the essence of fly fishing. Finally I started making my casts. I started at the back end of the meadow and worked my way upstream. Every cast brought a trout to hand. They were fighting hard and putting on a good show, jumping out of the water, thrashing around, it was beautiful. In the 10 minutes I fished that stretch, I brought more than a dozen brook trout to hand.

The oncoming night forced me to leave the stretch. I cut across the meadow and out to the dirt road. As I walked the mile or so back to my car, my mind still reflected on what I just witnessed. It's not that what I saw was particularly rare, but when it happens on your home water, especially when you live in an area of the state not known for its wild trout waters, its something special.

The dirt road cuts through the forest, and I felt like I wasn't in Lancaster. My mind focused on the Creator who, by His own design, created all of this. I thanked the Lord for His creation and allowing me to enjoy it. I wondered at His imagination and thought how grand of a mind it must be to create out of nothing this world, to imagine and create streams and mayflies and springs and caddis and brook trout who rise. I thought how foolish we are to take it for granted, to see it all day in and day out and not be stunned by it all. Worse yet, I thought about how when we do stop to wonder at it, we turn the creation into an idol and worship the creation rather than the Creator.

I got home last night just in time to help put my daughters to bed. I asked my oldest daughter, who will be four years old next month, to lead us in prayer. She asked me, "what are you thankful for, dada?" I told her I was thankful for my children, for my wife, etc., and she kept asking me, "What else are you thankful for?"I told her how I was thankful for the creation and how I was thankful that I was able to enjoy it tonight by seeing the flies and the trout, the stream and the woods. As she prayed, she said, "...and we thank you Father, for your beautiful creation and for the trout." Amen.