By Jim Parks
Regardless of where you fish, how you fish, or the number of years you’ve fished, it’s good to occasionally take a moment to reflect. If you’re a newbie, consider where you started and contemplate your future. Will there be 100 fish days? Or maybe ponder for a moment those individuals you’ve yet to meet in your future. Your dream trips you’d like to take. Ask yourself, “Why am I here?” There’s really no wrong answer if you’re honest with yourself.
I’ve been fishing nearly 50 years now, most of my days in the Great Smoky Mountains. I am now at a point where I realize there are more days behind me now than ahead. I’ve had many great moments, a few injuries and painful emotional losses of huge trout, so I see my situation as one who’s blessed to have seen and experienced what I have. In his novel, A River Runs Through It, Norman MacLean said, “I am haunted by waters.” I remember watching the movie in 1992 thinking, “What the heck does that mean?” Ever the wordsmith, I looked up the definition of “haunted” in Webster’s dictionary. I found one pertinent entry that defines it as “to visit often”.
Whether good or bad (I’m still not sure) I have an incredible long-term memory where I can remember with such detail it is as though I’m actually there. I can remember the sights, smells, and emotions of the moments. My earliest memory is as an 18 month old and being in a canoe on a pond with family members as it flipped over. I mostly remember bobbing up and down in the water. It’s a good thing “baby fat” floats! I thought for years it was a dream until I asked my mom, who confirmed the incident actually happened. My wife swears I can remember being in the womb. Personally, when trying to remember that far back, all I get is darkness!
I noticed, about ten years ago, while walking up the trail along Little River above Elkmont Campground, that I began having flashbacks of trips past. I remember taking my wife’s eighty-five year old grandfather, Pop, on our first trip together. Pop got snagged and in an attempt to retrieve his lure, he nearly slid into a deep pool! Needless to say, I immediately jumped to his rescue. As I walked further upstream, I remember hooking and landing what was then my largest trout in the Smokies, a nice 24” brown, from beneath a rock on the far side of the stream. Still further upstream, while crossing a bridge, I remember fishing with a 16 year old I was teaching. We were sitting on the bridge changing into our hiking boots to walk back to the car when we saw three college-aged girls clad in bikinis walking up the trail, each with dead campfire wood balanced on their shoulders. Needless to say, he was speechless. My only comment was, “Well, you don’t see that every day!”
“A Man’s real possession is his memory.
In nothing else is he rich,
In nothing else is he poor.”
–Alexander Smith
Many of my most fond memories are of my earliest trips with my now deceased mentors. One particular moment that haunts me is of my first trip across Fontana Lake to fish Eagle Creek in a cold, early spring downpour. As a thirteen year old, I was boating across the lake toward the creek with my dad and his coworker, Sanford Williams. My dad and I were “hunkered down” in the front of the john boat with our backs to the pouring rain, having given up on staying dry, but still striving to retain what precious warmth we possessed. Peering toward the back of the boat beneath my cheap Big-K poncho, I see Sanford steering the outboard. To my surprise and amazement, he was facing directly into the sheets of cold, driving rain as it rolled off his face all the while singing at the top of his lungs in his best Elvis impersonation…
“Well, since my baby left me,
I found a new place to dwell,
It’s down at the end of Lonely Street,
At Heartbreak Hotel”
I have learned over the years, that these “hauntings” are more often than not, wonderful reminders of why I’m out there. I look back to where I came from, what I’ve learned, and with whom I’ve shared those special times. Sanford has long since passed from this world, but he, as with others with whom I have shared an unforgettable moment, make me realize it is the people more than the places that make me smile.
Jim Parks is a frequent contributor of Costal Angler Magazine. He has fished the Smoky Mountains forty-four years and has written the book Tails of the Smokies, available on Amazon and in Kindle and iTunes formats. Instagram Page: TailsOfTheSmokies