Like the realization of following a sticky compass toward an errant direction, I changed my plans from planning an early-autumn fishing trip to the Catskills to head up to the Adirondacks to fish the Au Sable River with my buddy, Jerry.
It's been years since I've fished either branch. And since moving back to the Northeast from South Carolina two years ago, I figured why not take the opportunity to get back to the waters in which I had learned to fly fish more than 20 years ago?
Then it hit me: It will have been a year, nearly to the day, since legendary fly tier and fisherman Fran Betters passed.
And when Jerry and I slip quietly into the river amid the pall of toolie fog and scent of fresh balsam and stream-wet rocks, I will fasten the same Au Sable Wulff that Fran tied for me not quite two months before his death.
It's amazing to me all the people I've told this story to, about how Fran tied some of his famous Wulffs for me more than 20 years ago and pointed me in the right direction. You can read that story at http://tippetandleader.blogspot.com/2009/07/for-better-or-for-worse.html, along with some other thoughts.
It's also amazing to me that what I have along with a handful of Wulffs, a hand that still remembers Fran's gentle handshake, and the joy that my oldest boy, Kostyn, got to meet the legend, that this story will nearly complete its full circle in a couple of weeks.
Like the gentle ripple from softly cast fly, so is Fran's legacy.
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