My brother and I didn’t always get along. As with a lot of siblings I imagine when we were growing up we didn’t always see eye to eye on things. We would argue about who was sitting in the front seat of the car, which one of us got which toy, who was player 1 on the Nintendo; I am sure you get the point. I’ll be brutally honest as well and admit I was a pretty crappy brother back then.
My brother went away for college so we didn’t really see each other for around 4 years, the odd holiday here or there when we were making mom happy and showing up for dinner. I was off living my life and he was off living his life. Fast forward around 5 or 6 years and we were now only 3 hours apart and he was living in the Mecca of trout streams and rivers.
I fly fish completely alone a vast majority of the season. I enjoy the solitude on the river where I can just clear my mind of every day thoughts and really melt into that moment on the river. I will admit that there are times when I am out there that I really miss the joy of sharing the thrill of landing a fish with someone, and mainly my brother. My brother and I have been known to get a little overly excited when we get a good fish on. Fairly certain we annoyed the heck out of some old timers last year on the Elk River In British Columbia. We just can’t seem to contain ourselves when we fish together.
I now make the trek over the hill to see my brother as much as life will allow. We are constantly dreaming up trips we want to make deep into the bush to check out a stream we have never seen before and maybe find the best looking pool of our lives. I think at this point we will both have to live well past 100 to be able to complete even half of what we have planned. In the end it doesn’t matter if we are 100km in the bush or just down the road on the local river I am always having fun when I am fishing with my brother.