It was my great-grandfather and none other who taught me to sew buttons. I’m not sure how he could do it, because he shook like an old, old man from whenever I can remember him. He was very big, German, with white hairs and his fingers were very, very big. I watched and listened while he shook like a willow tree and whistled an airy tune, which never existed, but by his own lips. As he did or re-did all the buttons up the front of one of his shirts.
It was the same with our sunfish poles. He re-spooled the reel while I held the pencil in the new spool. He cranked it in, and in this part, it was all perfection. Then the terminal tackle: one #10 Aberdeen hook (that’s the day I learned the Fisherman’s Knot), a lead split-shot sinker up ten inches (that’s when I learned “inch” and ten inches), and the red-and-white bobber. This is how I began to nub my front teeth biting split-shot and monofilament fishing line.
All this he did with me watching intently, and his shaking and whistling god-only-knows-what. It was deft work with the small components and his big fingers.
I have no idea whether the button I just sewed on was done correctly. I have no metric. The only metric I have is whether or not it holds, and my buttons, honestly, seem to outperform the factory ones. The measure of a button is its ability to hold and to match the fabric and other buttons.
I cannot compare one-to-one my fishing rigs to my great-grandfather’s sunfish poles because I have not tried a red-and-white bobber, lead split-shot and hooked worm in, say, forty years. The measure of a fishing setup is only its ability to hook and hold fish.
A middle-aged mother younger than me and her grown son hired me to take them fly-fishing for trout. He was the trout fisherman. She was facilitating. She went along. I set her up with too-big waders and boots and strapped her in tight. I told her to keep the camera safe and ready.
Their dynamic was strange. He may have been special. Maybe late teens, but not maturing, not functional socially. I got along swimmingly with him.
Everyone needs a little success, my buddies and I – losers – used to say. So to start successfully, we got to know each other at a well-known spot on the Cascade River. I was still trying to piece together their family dynamic. I’m very curious about people’s stories. I’m very curious about families. Maybe she was a single mother who was trying to fulfill her son’s passion. Maybe she was divorced with limited parental time and trying to compete with the father.
I didn’t get any answers.
Boy, that dude could cast. We got our one nice brook trout there on a size 12 Prince Nymph and a photo.
Then I said, “You’re my kind of fisherman. Let’s try a challenge or two.”
So I took them through the early summer jungle on Elbow Creek and once I made some suggestions on his fly selection (#14 Pheasant Tail) and on close-quarter casting (the Roll, the Slingshot) he was getting attacked by brookies.
Then we went to one of my favorite spots on earth along the Kadunce. A challenging spot in an old beaver bog with the creek riffling through the bog tea and moose willow. And I gave him the challenge of one perfect cast upcreek between the brush far but quietly, and Splash! He did it! I turned to the mother prouder than heck – me, not her, maybe, standing in the bog silt and tussock grass. And it turned out to be a 6” brookie if you stretched its tail out.
I don’t know what the legacy is, but jeez, hopefully, it was like sewing on buttons successfully.
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