Ghosts of anglers past

Many men have trodden upon these creekside paths long before I. They've kicked the very same sand on the beaches I've surf-cast from. They've waded the very same waters, ate from the same blackberry bushes and looked up over the very same mountains to see where the wet balsam-soaked breeze was coming from.

Did they use a blue winged olive or a was it the light Cahill? Did they cast right off that eddy, or did they let their line float gently through it? I wonder if they sat on this bank, watching the beauty and grace of a 12-inch brown between the flecks of light shining through breeze-blown maple leaves.

Sometimes I'm there with them. They are casting perfectly above me, and I'm OK with that. The water doesn't move around them. They are unnoticed by everyone. Sometimes it's an old man with a split-cane rod propped upon a rock. Or a young boy with a creel full of rainbows for his mama to make for supper. Sometimes it's my father, who's looking deep into the riffle to see what's stone and what's flesh, and who's face he sees in the reflection.

I talk with them, I do. I write notes to them with my cast. "It's amazing, isn't it?" They never answer, but they smile back, proud like the father of a boy who's learned and is carrying on tradition, if not his legacy.