Dad's Rod by Rick Fielder

Dad's Rod

It's been a year and a half since my dad passed away and I was lucky enough to inherit his steelhead fly rod: a beautiful 9 foot 3 inch Orvis Advantage 7 wt. with a walnut reel seat spacer.  He paired it with a Hardy Zenith and a Scientific Angler's 8 weight steelhead taper line.  The rod casts like a dream and the one weight heavier line helps the rod load perfectly and turn over bushy steelhead dries that my dad loved to fish.  At his death, I brought the rod home and placed it, in its tube, on pegs over my fly tying bench.  The reel was placed in its leather pouch in an open cubby just in front of my tying vice. These two cherished objects haunt me in both a wonderful and bitter-sweet way.

Each time I sit down to tie I see the rod and reel and am immediately flooded with memories. Steelhead on the Umpqua, warm summer days swinging small wets on the Roque River in Southern Oregon, casting in the wind on Deschutes riffles with the August sun pounding down on us. What great times we shared.  The camp food, the lazy days, the beauty of it all were made better as we shared the fellowship of a cold beer and talked of our dreams and the events of the world.  We spoke of baseball, of philosophy and art, of teaching children, and of our mutual love for fly fishing. The world didn't seem so harsh when I was with him and we were on the river. These events are forever etched in my mind.

Sometimes, when I see dad's rod I flash back to my boyhood and my dad teaching me to drift Velveeta cheese baited gold treble hooks on hand cut willow rods with 10 foot of 4 pound leader in small streams.  I remember crouching down and putting the "sneak" on a 20 foot long current seam as it split a boulder.  Dad showed me how to drop my offering in at the head of the current, dead drift it around the rock into the middle of the run, and lift it toward the surface at the tail out. It was a sure fire method in those mountain creeks of Northern California in Humboldt County back in the 1960's. The native rainbows were feisty fighters and willing to "take the bait" enough to keep an 8 year old "Huck Finn in the making" looking to fish-up a big one.

Those simpler "willow rod" days, and listening to dad as he taught me life lessons while sunning on a remote stream bank taught me to love "river time" and nature and I've held fast to these guide posts throughout my lifetime. These experiences have influenced my existence and have been the foundation from what I've built my fly fishing life and have forged my values. Clean water, fresh air, honesty and truth, along with quiet reflective times are what I'm all about.

That Orvis rod has a life of fishing memories within it and those memories live in my mind and guide me each day. They live as I hope the man who lived them does in some alternate place- in the spiritual world. Dad's rod is a spiritual totem from which I draw energy to face life's challenges. It guides me to excitement, exploration, pursuit of beauty, and happiness. It emanates pleasure, security, and fun. I am blessed to have it resting above me as I tie flies. It transports me to a place so innocent and wonderful that I'm brought to tears of eternal gratitude.

Thanks Dad, thanks for sharing the spirituality and grace one receives when fishing. You may be gone, but your rod is here. It and the memories it holds within its cork and slender graphite help me live. Dad, I remember, and since I do- you will always live. Your rod is my hope and your reel is my song. I only hope I can pay your gifts forward. I look to the day we can talk and exist together in the alternate space-the spiritual place-I have so much to say and share.

Rod Fielder's Inspiration Was Zane Grey