I worry about my son. We all know someone like him—maybe we are him. He’s the person who sees a fish in each body of water he passes, whether it be puddle or Pacific. He practices his cast with everything from alder branches to his dinner fork. He sees fly patterns in the dryer lint. Right now he’s standing in the driveway talking about where the fish might live; each rock, every bit of sage, the depressions in the gravel are all potential ambush points. Without exception, he would almost always rather be fishing. 

I’d let it go, let him move through his life as a fishing bum, become a trout guide in the Rockies, row drift boats on the Olympic Peninsula, or maybe pole a flats boat in the Keys, but I can’t. George, my son who has taken on the name “Gus” after the fishing-obsessed main character in David James Duncan’s The River Why, is not quite 2 years old, and all of this—this obsession with water, the casting practice, the ability to name all the fish in our freshwater almanac—is our fault…

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above Before a flats trip out of Long Key, FL, George “Gus” Eaton – already a gear head – makes it a habit to check the drag on every reel.

Photo: Aimee Eaton