One Person to fish with for One Day
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Chuck Yaeger would be pretty interesting too.
Morsie
I spent a day interviewing Chuck Yaeger in the early 1990s while I was in the USAF.
Roderick Haig-Brown. I stayed in his home on the Campbell River on Vancouver Island – now a historic B&B. He must have been a truly great man in addition to being one of the greatest writers of our time.
If I could turn back time, it would be John Voelker (aka Robert Traver), “a man possessed of a fourteen-carat legal education who has gaily neglected it to follow the siren call of trout.”
If I could spend a day fishing with one person and it could be with somebody that is no longer with us, I would choose my Aunt Patricia.
I have been fishing my entire life. I remember catching my first fish and age 3 1/2. I know that sounds impossible, but I remember the day and I asked my dad about it once and he told me that there was no way I remembered that day because “you were not even 4 yet” This topic is for another thread.
My aunt Trish was an accomplished angler in her own right. This woman was a fly fisher during a time when men were far less accepting of women on the stream. She had a very nice, very old Orvis rod that she would take to Northern Michigan and fish the Ausable, most times, by herself. This was back in the 70’s and very early 80’s.
Although I was a pretty good angler at the time, I had not yet been fully bitten by the fly fishing bug. Trish had tried to show me the finer point of fly fishing once, but I really had no interest. I found it less productive than my spinning gear.
Unfortunately, I lived 6 hours away from my Aunt and not too long after she tried to show me the light on of all the places, the banks of the Maumee river, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. We never did fish together after that day on the Maumee and I sure would like to have that day back.
I was young and really didn’t have my priorities in order in 1985, early 20’s have a tendency to do that to a man. I really thought  my aunt was invincible, I thought she would be with me forever and I didn’t realize I was squandering an opportunity to share something special with someone special.
My aunt lost her battle with cancer and i have always felt that I blew it when it came to doing the right thing by her. She wasn’t married at the time and she never had kids, but she loved them. I wish I would have been wise enough to realize what one more day on your favorite river with somebody you love would have meant to Trish. She never asked to go, but if I would asked, she would have went even if she had to drag an I.V. pole with her. That I am sure of.
A day on the river with my Aunt casting a rod that I built with flies I tied for her using the skills I have acquired spending thousands of hours on the water would be the fitting end for a person who truly loved her family and the outdoors.
My aunt was an adventurous soul. She was a great angler, photographer, athlete and aunt. I believe I have inherited her adventurous  spirit as both of us would go places and do things that no other family members would ever consider. Nobody else in my family would ever grab a longbow or flyrod and a pack and take off into the wilderness to see what the day has in store for me, other than Trish.
My Aunt Patricia is who I would like to spend a day on the river with, I owe her one.
It would have to be my grandfather — he was the one who first taught me how to fish (using an old baitcast setup) and also the first to show me how to to fly fish  — I watched him catch pretty fish I found out were called “trout” using fur and feathers on hooks — trout weren’t all he “hooked” using a fly rod — so was an eight year old boy
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