My good friend, Chase Howard, writes the blog Dirt Roads and Blue Lines. I love his approach to trout fishing, and he pens some great stories.

In his recent article, Fishing Roots, Chase writes about defining moments between a father and son …

“As we were headed home from a chilly, unproductive morning, traversing the mazes of dirt roads we have up this way, I peered out the window of the truck and shouted “Dad! I just saw a fish!” Thinking back on it, I can just picture the eye roll a kid would get for saying something like that. A trout? In a stream barely the size of a ditch? Luckily for us, my dad pulled over – probably just to keep me happy. Wouldn’t you know it, we caught a handful of brook trout that day. And not just small little parr, genuine nine to ten inch Pennsylvania trophies.

… Whether or not I did or didn’t actually see a brook trout all those years ago is something neither of us can agree on. I do wonder how things could have been different if he hadn’t pulled over to appease a kid with a wild imagination. Perhaps that was the day that an obsession began?”

Find the rest of “Fishing Roots,” over at Dirt Roads and Blue lines.

In my life, many of my closest relationships have been built on the water, and there is nothing more special to me than the bond formed between a father and son just fishing together.

These defining moments, the memories, the building blocks of a person, can come at any time. Who knows what event in life a child will cling to and create part of himself around?

Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com