My dad remained a salesman throughout my boyhood. His returns home became less frequent, but somewhat predictable. He liked to show up when the mayfly hatches arrived. In late April, he’d appear for the Hendricksons. In mid-May he liked to come home for the March Browns, and he never seemed to miss trips home later in the month or early June for the Green Drake Hatch.

In the fall, he liked to fish when the Caddis flies were heavy in the air and the trees assumed their autumnal splendor. The old man, for all his faults, was a romantic at heart, I think.

“There really is something special about this place,” he said one soft spring night when I was seventeen and we were sitting on the porch stringing up our fly rods. By now, I’d grown old enough, in his mind, to accompany him on his fishing journeys.

And, I was catching fish, learning some of the old man’s methods for fooling trout. But there were other more important things I was learning. One night I recall particularly.

We had just arrived at a spot my old man called The Ledge. It was here where the stream turned into a high wall of rocks, the roiling waters carving a deep gorge into the creek bottom. The Ledge was always teeming with the creek’s share of big stream-bred brown trout, some of them eager to devour Green Drakes.

To reach The Ledge was tricky, not for the lame or aging angler. One had to wade slowly across the creek and negotiate a series of boulders and churning white water that could easily knock an angler off his feet.

“That’s why this place is one of my favorite spots,” he said. “No one fishes it.”

The air was filled with Green Drakes that night, a spinner fall that rivaled some of the famous ones occurring on Penns Creek or the Henry’s Fork in Idaho. Rings appeared across the surface, the trout making splashing rises to grab the insects.

Early on, as darkness began to fall, we each caught one trout. My old man landed a nice fifteen-inch brown while I caught a smaller one.

It looked like it might turn out to be one of those rare almost miraculous fishing outings, when trout would grab our flies on every other cast. But it wasn’t to be. The trout continued rising and slurping down the Green Drakes, but not our artificial offerings.  

“This spot is usually good for giving up a few fish during the Green Drake Hatch,” my old man said.

“Maybe we should go to some other fly,” I said.

My old man reeled in his line and studied his fly. “Just one of those nights, I guess.” He peered out on the surface of the stream. It had become harder to see the rings on the water, but I could hear the splashy rises of the fish. My old man slumped down on one of the long slate rocks that fed into the stream.

I made another cast and watched my fly float until I lost sight of it as it continued into the dark waters near the overhanging rocks. The hard tug on the line and the splash came unexpectedly. I had a fish and a big one, but I no sooner yanked back the rod when the trout was off.

“Damnit,” I said, reeling in my line only to discover that the fish had torn away my fly.

“Must have been a big son of a bitch,” my old man said.

Up till that point, I’d lost interest in fishing, but now I was eager for more action. Almost desperately, I asked my dad for another Green Drake. My old man always brought flies he had tied himself.

He patted his vest. “Shit. I don’t have any more.”

“Really? Damn.”

“Sorry Billy. I left my one box of flies back in the car.”

“Goddamn it,” I said.

It was a small disappointment among a parade of much bigger disappointments in my life of late, one angst-ridden adolescent misery after another.

I had blossomed that senior year of high school. The rail-thin, shy kid with the acne had made a few friends. The kid who had never been much good at sports found out he had a talent for jumping over a high bar, but a leg injury cut short a promising track season.

I grinded my way through calculus and advanced chemistry, but when the top schools showed little interest, I resigned myself to attending one of the less selective colleges in the coming fall to study engineering, a practical career.

And then, perhaps the biggest disappointment of all–unrequited love.  A girl I dated a few times, her sporadic attentions toward me I naively misread as something else.

In another week, I would graduate from that high school, starting my journey to a new life.

“I think I’m through for the night anyway,” my old man said.

“I guess we could fish tomorrow night?” I said hopefully.

“I’m leaving in the morning,” he said.

There was a loud splash in the middle of the stream and then the strange call of a bird. 

“Why do you always have to leave?” I said.

We were both gazing out at the stream.

It was a question I had never dared to ask him, but one I had asked of my mother more than once over the years. Of course, I had never received a response to my satisfaction.

“Life’s complicated son,” he said. He had lit up one of his cheap cigars as he sat there on the long slate rock, peering out at the water.

“C’mon,” I said sharply. “What’s the deal?”

He turned to look up at me. There was hardly any light left in the sky now, and it was just the two of us there along the dark stream. His cigar glowed, like the last ember from a campfire. I hoped he might finally talk to me, like a real father.

“The dying light,” he said. “Always the best time to go fishing for trout.”

“Except for tonight,” I said trudging off.

I left him there—streamside, puffing on his stogie and staring out into the dark stream.

That night, from my bedroom, I heard my mother and him from their bedroom laughing, and later in the night, quarreling. When I woke up the next morning, he was gone. It would be years before I would see him again.

From The Dying Light, a short story by MIke Reuther. His books can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Mike-Reuther/e/B009M5GVUW%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share