The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2018

the season ahead, each wrap of thread around the hook shank carrying me that much closer to spring and sunshine and warm temperatures, and the special reward of standing knee-deep in a stream and casting flies to trout or bass while birds sing from the trees. Eventually, I came to tie a type of fly called a “popper” for the fact that it was designed to float on the water’s surface and be retrieved through short, quick tugs, which would cause the fly to “pop” or gurgle as it moved across the river, thereby enticing the fish to strike. Examining these flies at the store, I realized they could be tied in a variety of materials ranging from deer hair to feathers to cork, and in any color one desired. Most curious to me, however, was the fact that the popper flies I studied in the store always featured a pair of eyes even though the fish they were designed to attract would invariably approach from below and never see them. Then one day, months later, I happened to be casting one of these poppers and after making several catches I retrieved my fly and found that its eyes had fallen off. Not enough glue, I told myself. Use more epoxy next time, I told myself. But the fly had worked so well that I didn’t bother tying on a new one. Instead, I made another cast and promptly caught another fish, and another. And soon, I landed on the realization that with these popper flies, eyes were designed to catch the angler shopping in the store rather than the fish. Though I took a great deal of pride in the flies I used to tie, nothing I ever turned out of my vise meant as much to me as the dozen trout flies my father gave me. They’re pinned inside the same wax-cotton-lined wallet in which he received them forty years ago. Whenever I take them out and look at them they remind me of my childhood, of trailing behind him through a springtime field of wildflowers as we head with fishing rods in hand toward some distant pond, and of the simple pleasures of weekend fish fries with my family, the The Meadow 195