I Fly Fish Now

For Approximately A Day Every Year.

You may be looking at these photos and thinking, “Wow, I didn’t know Tim became a professional fly fisherman.”

You would be wrong.

I don’t own a fly rod.

I don’t know the names of the flies.

I couldn’t tell you the difference between a dry fly and a wet fly, though I assume one of them has something to do with water.

I did, however, fly fish on vacation.

Vacation Me also goes whitewater rafting.

He wakes up early without complaining that one of his kids spent the entire night sleeping sideways in the bed with their feet at his head.

He willingly gets on boats.

He wears enough SPF clothing to survive a solar flare.

He even fly fishes.

He is, frankly, exhausting.

Regular Me would never.

As a kid, fishing wasn’t a hobby.

It was a gastrointestinal event.

When I was growing up in Florida, my dad would take my brothers and me fishing. They’d grab their rods while I’d spend the first ten minutes convincing myself I wasn’t seasick.

Then I’d throw up.

Every. Single. Time.

I’d retreat below deck and wait for my stomach to settle by filling a notebook with drawings of Air Jordans, Nike logos, basketball jerseys, and whatever professional sport I was obsessed with that week.

My brothers caught fish.

I perfected the Seattle Supersonics logo.

Fast forward forty years, and somehow I’m back on a boat.

This time I didn’t throw up.

Progress.

Vacation Me was having a career year.

The funny thing is, these pictures make me look like I know exactly what I’m doing (let me have this one).

I assure you, I do not.

Every evening, someone at the hotel bar would ask, “How’d you do?”

The answers around me sounded like baseball box scores.

“Ten.”

“Seven.”

“Fourteen.”

Then it would get to me.

“One.”

Not one before lunch.

Not one in the morning.

One all day.

To make matters worse, I couldn’t even hold it.

Apparently the fish was still more comfortable with someone who knew what they were doing.

There was never a follow-up question.

Honestly, I was okay with that.

To be fair, that one fish represented roughly a 100% increase over my childhood fishing statistics.

I’ll take the win.