Years ago, between high school and eventually going back to college, I was staunchly against the idea of getting married. Why would I want to be tied down? Why would I want to hitch myself to that much responsibility? Getting married would seriously impact my fishing time, and not in a good way.
As a bachelor, I definitely fished as much as possible. I kept fishing journals back then, and I’d regularly crack 200 days a year on the water. I spent a month on Kodiak Island, bumming a room from a friend. My grandma let me live in her basement, which meant I could spent what should’ve been rent money on gas for my ’97 Chevy, and later, my 2000 Camaro, as I traversed the West in search of the next great hatch.
It was a wonderful time, and I thought it’d never end. I didn’t want it to end, and even when I grudgingly decided to go to college, I scheduled all my classes to maximize fishing time. There was a tailwater about 20 minutes from campus, and I strategically planned my sick days from class to coincide with the best blue-winged olive hatches.
Then, I grew up. It didn’t happen in one fell swoop—it rarely does—but I started experiencing more of what life has to offer beyond fishing. Sure, most of it’s not worth the time and energy (taxes, most family get-togethers, and musicals come immediately to mind) but I thoroughly enjoyed writing, and the time I spent covering NBA basketball in Salt Lake City.
It’s not that I ever fell out of love with fly fishing, but that I found other things I loved almost as much. When I met my wife, I finally found something I loved more than fishing. So, the guy who refused to go to weddings if they were scheduled on a college football Saturday, or during the caddis hatch (yes, I was that insufferable) was sending out invitations for a late-August ceremony.
My wife knew what she signed up for. When we got married, I was in the last year of my teaching degree, but I fished as much as possible. We lived with her parents in a Salt Lake City suburb, so I wasn’t too far away from decent trout fishing. I spent our first New Year’s Eve as a couple out at Pyramid Lake, where I caught my first Lahontan cutthroat after three years of trying.
We honeymooned in Alaska, where I took a detour and fished the Chatanika, Chena, and Brushkana Rivers. My wife had the good sense to stay in the rental car (which wasn’t allowed on the Denali Highway) while I got soaked through in an early fall storm.
All this is to say, I never thought I’d have a year like I’ve had in 2025. Between our daughter coming six weeks early, my wife coming perilously close to serious complications thanks to preeclampsia, and all the related health problems our daughter has had since being born, I’ve spent less time on the water this year than any since I was probably 12 or 13.
I’m not angry or bitter about it. Instead, there’s a delightful irony in the fact that I was so staunchly against marriage and family, and those are the two reasons I’ve spent so little time on the water this year. To cap it all off, I’m repeating a lot of the same phrases my married friends used to tell me when I’d spout off about how I’d never get hitched: “Eventually you’ll find something more important than throwing flies to trout.”
It’s early December, and as I look through pictures and reminisce on the fishing trips this year, I’ve realized I haven’t caught a single trout over 20 inches, either. We moved to Wyoming for my teaching job (which I’ve since quit), and we picked this corner of the state for its excellent fly fishing opportunities. Within two hours of my driveway are two tailwaters with average trout pushing 18 inches, a handful of freestones with more cutthroat than I’ve ever seen, and an obscene amount of high country to explore. You’d have to essentially not fish at all to not catch at least a few trout every year that hit the 20-inch mark. Even my friend’s nine-year-old kid caught a 19-inch cutthroat earlier this summer—on a fly he tied, no less.
If you’d told me a decade ago that I’d be content to look back on a year where I “only” fished 50 days, and never caught a big trout, I’d have called you a liar. Time has a funny way of making liars out of all of us, though, and I’m certainly eating my fair share of crow these days.
And just like my married friends used to tell me, I wouldn’t trade this time with my wife and kid for anything in the world.