Running Wild

After meeting at the local gas station the 2 older guys and one younger man (mid 20’s I think) followed me to the fishing spot in their truck.

We eventually parked and started gearing up. The one older guy was a local and had his friend with his nephew in town from the east coast.

Once everyone had their waders on and the fly rods were ready John (not his real name) was amazed that he wouldn’t get wet with these weird pants on. Selfishly, I immediately thought that this was going to be a long day. 

After a brief tutorial on how to safely cross a river on foot we started to wade across. About half way across John said how cool it was to be in the water and not get wet. We all made it across safely and we put John’s Uncle on the first hole since he had fly fished before and didn’t need much attention.

Within the first 5 minutes he hooked and landed a beautiful 20’’ rainbow trout, his first Alaskan fish on a fly! He was ecstatic and the monkey was off the back! While we were walking down river together John was up ahead enjoying his cotton candy flavored vape pen. His uncle explained to me that John had lost both of his parents to drug overdose and had not had much of a childhood.

He lived an average lifestyle of a city kid. Not much exposure to the outdoors and worked odd jobs between school. His uncle said that he tried to get him out as much as possible but this was definitely the biggest adventure he has ever had. John’s Uncle and friend told me to just focus all my attention on John that day and I gladly obliged. It was after that story that I prayed that God would bless John with an amazing day, one that he would never forget.

God did just that.

Not ten minutes later after giving John a basic casting lesson he hooked into a nice fish that liked to run. John was in full panic mode and gripped that rod like he was riding a bull in a rodeo! I’m not sure how but we landed that fish and the stoke ran high.

John proceeded to catch not only the most fish of the day but the biggest as well. As we hiked back up river to the trucks something had changed in John. Something was set free and alive. He was running up ahead, side-hilling the river bank and he had a lightness to him that reminded me of a carefree child. He was crossing the river on his own with a confidence that he didn’t have before. For a moment I thought he would glance back at us to see if we were watching how good he was doing on his own like a child would look back at his dad asking, “did you see that?”

I learned a lot that day. I learned that God can use His creation in so many ways when it comes to the heart of a man.

The wild can challenge us as a way to show us that we have more strength that we realize. He can also use the wild to heal that child-like heart in a man.

To show him fun and wonder and awe.

To set him free to run wild.

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