Sometimes he would take me out with him, too. I’d be in the front of some 12-foot wooden rowboat, he (or later I) would row to a likely spot (motors would scare the fish, you see) at twilight. You could see the rainbow trout swirling the surface as they fed. He typically used a dry fly (he tied many himself). He would often try to see a pattern in the swirls and cast to the spot where it would next swirl. And he’d pull in the line often by hand rather than cranking the reel, so that he could feel the play better, thinking it better to let the fish run than break the extremely light leader that he used. Catching a 10 pound fish on a 5-lb leader was a ideal for him. And yes, that’s internal martial arts right there. It’s the same thing as 4 ounces moves a thousand pounds.

The difference is, if they were big enough, we’d keep them, cook them and eat them. Limits were high, the stock was plentiful. This was the 1960′s though.