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Working with 12 – 18 year old males and having two teenage daughters who are also athletes I experience competition and youthful exuberance all day every day. When I put my rod in the truck, there are very few people I am privileged enough to fish with or who are privileged enough to fish with me. I don’t want people to know where I’m going and I don’t want people there when I arrive and if either happens, I often relocate. It is not a competition, rather an experience. I still remember some 35 years ago when I got my first South Bend fiberglass rod and Perinne automatic fly reel. They belonged to my grandfather and were gently used. When he died, my grandmother gave them to me. I casted for hours on the side of my house in the grass just waiting for a weekend when my dad (he’s still in the category of “I am privileged enough to fish with”) would take me up to the Little North Fork of the Feather, Cold Water Creek or Lost Creek. It was a crowd of two and I was the crowd. I’ve never lost that. Even when I am with someone else, most often I am alone. It is special, it is Spiritual. On occasion over the years, I have prostituted, but most often I’ve held the privilege in high regard, where it belongs.
There was a time, George, when I was your age that I played high school and college sports. I crossed paths with major leaguers and consider myself wildly competitive. Nevertheless, fly fishing has always been taboo in my competitive arena. I still rib my dad at times when I am lucky enough to have an obviously better day than he, but it has more to do with mutual respect and admiration and the ability to deeply share something you both olve with each other.
I disagree young prodigy; tournaments have no place in my paradise on earth.
As for everything else, like Toby Keith says, "I aint as good as I once was, but I'm as good once, as I ever was . . . "
My 2 cents for ya there, Skirt Junior :O)
Jeff
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