By my second year of college football, I was questioning my decision, ready to drop out, quit playing, and move back home. But I didn’t say goodbye, and it all stems from one simple fly fishing trip the year prior.
Where we fished wasn’t glorious or famous, not one of those Montana rivers you read about in books or watch in movies. We didn’t cast a line into the Missouri for fat rainbow trout by Craig, float the Madison outside Bozeman stripping barbless streamers, or wade the banks of the Blackfoot shadow-casting like Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It. We went somewhere far more charming.
It was a blue-skied, partly cloudy fall afternoon, nothing grand. But it’s become one of those days you climb into bed, flick off the light, close your eyes, and reminisce about as you drift off.
At first, I took on the challenge of fly fishing in Montana alone. If I was going to live in trout country, I had to learn, no exceptions. A few lost dry flies and zero fish later, I realized I was in over my head.
On Oct. 11, 2020, my friend and teammate, Ben, a linebacker, Montana local, and future doctor, took me on my first real fly fishing trip.
We drove to a shallow, meandering stream outside of Helena. It was maybe 5 yards wide, 10 if you were lucky, and lined with dark brown stones, crowded by yellow and green willows and water birch.
It was like stepping into a portal: on one side, Ben’s old Subaru, the black asphalt road, fading yellow traffic lines, the occasional rumbling Ford truck ripping down the highway well over the speed limit. The other side was what I imagined Montana to be, not the Instagram-worthy, grip-and-grin version, but the rugged, sometimes dusty adventure, hidden, waiting to be explored.
I had picked up a fly rod before, but I was green. My casting? Stiff and slow. Hatch knowledge? Nonexistent.
That day was also my introduction to Montana cold, or what I thought was cold. The thin, crisp, cool air smelled like sagebrush and dirt with whiffs of diesel from the road. Tips of my fingers frozen, nose runny, cheeks a little rosy, the infamous Helena wind sucker-punching me in the face, blowing through my clothes, sending a shiver across my whole body.
Ben rigged my fly rod, tying on a microscopic red fly and another unfamiliar pattern above it with a yellow indicator, a simple setup. “We’ll put on an indicator with a dropper below our main fly,” said Ben.
At the time, I was mind-blown. Two flies? “How are we going to fish with such small flies? Is he tying another one below it? Why’s he calling it an indicator?” I thought to myself. Looking back, I laugh. My top fly was a Copper John (now my favorite pattern), and the dropper was a ruby-red bloodworm pattern. Absolute trout candy. Nothing out of the ordinary. But back then, it felt revolutionary. Now it’s just a regular Saturday morning.
After tying on, we hit the water, a 20-yard walk through dried golden grass and rabbitbrush that whisked across my jeans. By the creek, we found some small boulders and patches of gravel to stand on.
I looked out of place. I wore a black hoodie, classic blue jeans, and a navy Hurley hat. No nippers, no tippet, no fly box. I’d never even worn a pair of waders. A true beginner.
Nowadays, I slip into sleek Simms waders, my fly boxes look like a teenager’s bedroom, and I own more rods than I would care to admit. Back then, I owned a 4-weight Redington rod, a graduation gift from my parents, and a couple of dry flies I couldn’t name. When I watched Ben, his casting was surgical. He flicked his line back and forth, carefully avoiding the brush, delivering a perfect cast into the stream. No splash, no tangles, no lost flies wrapped around a bush.
“What have I gotten myself into?” I thought to myself.
When Ben told me a seam to fish, I cast. When he said mend, I mended. When he said “stand here,” I stood where he pointed. He was the professor, and I was his student. My student debt was for this exact moment.
After a while, my tiny yellow indicator suddenly vanished.
I set the hook, frantically stripped my line, and Ben calmly netted an alien. There was no line peeling, hooting and hollering, or crazy acrobatics, just a 5-second fight. But I could feel everything: the line going tight, the slight current dragging its body, all of the fish’s weight. For something so small, it felt heavy. The fish was tan, fading to bright yellow with a light gray belly, small orange spots across the midsection, and even more coal-black ones on the top of its body. Nothing like the silver rainbow trout and green largemouth bass I grew up chasing.
I held that 8-inch trout with two hands, close to my chest like a championship trophy, for a few quick photos before watching it splash off.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“A brown trout,” Ben said, laughing. “Have you never caught one?” Short answer: no.
As freshman year progressed, my fire for football was dwindling. College football had become a job I clocked into every day, and I hated it. Hitting the small streams of Montana and the occasional weekend beer kept me sane. If it weren’t for the fishing, I probably would have left sooner. At the same time, I met a brown-eyed Montana girl through a Zoom screen in an adventure writing class.
Sophomore year went off the rails, and fast. I sat in my small dorm room, a coffin with bright yellow walls, only leaving for football, classes, and to visit the Zoom girl who became my girlfriend. Fishing shrank to occasional Sunday afternoons and bye weeks, a 40-minute drive with buddies to a stream outside Helena.
One night, I shut my door, sat on my twin-sized bed in the dim light, and called my parents to tell them I had made up my mind; I was done playing. My dad didn’t take it well, but it was the nudge I needed to remember what I’d be leaving behind. I was at a crossroads. If I quit football, I would lose my scholarship, leave Carroll, go home, lose Montana, the water, and my girlfriend. Or I could push through.
On Jan. 11, 2022, I decided to stay.
On May 11, 2024, my girlfriend and I graduated from Carroll together.
On Aug. 8, 2026, we got married.
Turns out, the weight of my whole future fit in two hands: one 8-inch brown trout.