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Stuart Revercomb

Stuart Revercomb is a marketing consultant and joyously married father of four children. He seems to remember someone once telling him he ought to be a writer. "The Unseen Here and Now" -- Thursdays.

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February 08, 2001

Fish of Grace : Jim's Fish

My first "fish of Grace", must have been the very first one I caught. Dad took us fishing as children as often as he could and some of my fondest memories are with he and my brothers while walking the banks of a nearby stream or plying the waters of some distant lake while camping. They were and are the moments I have been closest to them, and I feel certain, we all to each other.

There is something about being on the water in the common pursuit of such an illusive and beautiful creature that brings men closer. I'm not sure entirely why - there just is. Christ came to his Disciples several times while fishing. To me it is no surprise.

Over the next three weeks I will try to convey something of three separate moments, when in addition to all the glory that nature can provide on any given day, something even more was realized - when more than just a fish was brought in - when God seemed to speak out of what might have been just another ordinary moment in some otherwise relatively ordinary lives.

The first such fish would belong to my brother Jim, who's ability with all manner of fishing gear seems to come as naturally to him as, well - a fish to water. Jim was "born to fish" and one glorious day in Montana, while on a trip with my other brother Randy and my Dad, we were given the honor of witnessing a moment that would forever validate this reality.

The trip had gone famously. We had stayed at a ranch that specialized in feeding its patrons well and providing the kind of guides capable of taking its guests to places where the fish would do the same. We floated "the Snake", fished the Green River and found great success on several nearby creeks and runs that flowed from the Rockies like so many picture post card streams that might be imagined while walking dehydrated through the desert.

You might say that as long overdue fishermen go, our thirsts were well assuaged.

But the highlight of the trip came near the end of the last day as Dad and Jim and Randy and I explored a small stream not more than a mile from the lodge where we were staying.
As usual, we all started out fairly close to each other but far enough away that the long curves of our probing lines would not become entangled. Jim was opposite me on the other side of the stream and down about 50 yards to my left. Dad was just upstream from him on my right and brother Randy was opposite him on my side working his way up river.

With the exception of Jim, our casting styles were more or less the same, varying only in small ways that seemed to reflect our personalities. Dad was steady and methodical and watchful. Not so much full of anticipation as ready and willing when the "moment" came. Brother Randy was deliberate and purposeful and aggressive. If the fish hit, he would do well with the setting of the hook. He was infinitely patient - working the same hole continually until any reasonable chance of success had been exhausted. I was somewhere in-between - focused upon the task at hand but also capable of being distracted by a passing bird or even the unusual shape of a scudding cloud in the deep blue Montana sky.

Brother Jim's casting reflected something else entirely. It was balance and purpose and rhythm and confidence all rolled into one motion, and he offered it with a feather light ease that stood out against our journeyman efforts. There was no work to the motion. The rod and line became a natural extension of his small frame, and the minuscule fly was always presented at the end of the "tippet" with such deftness and touch that rarely a ripple was seen.

It was on just such an easy and graceful display that the fish rose cautiously to meet him.

"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzip", Jim's line sang through his reel as he brought tension to the strike and rocked back in his stance. It was immediately clear this was not one of the run of the mill Cutthroat Trout that we had been catching all week. His rod bent wildly toward the water and Jim was forced to give the powerful fish a great deal of line.

"Uh,...Think I've got something down here...".

It was all he ever said as he began what developed into an epic battle between a devoted fisherman who had patiently waited for an opportunity to test his skills and a fish that seemed determined to confound them all.

For over twenty minutes Jim fought the massive Cutthroat - at one point being cajoled, then guided and then literally pulled beneath a small stone bridge and down across some shallow but fast moving water. He battled the huge "cutty" further through some small rapids and ultimately made his stand along a low swale of gravel about 100 yard from where the journey began. He landed the fish smoothly, netting it cleanly from beneath and with a smile as wide as the western sky paused briefly for a picture before easing the trophy back into the ice cold water. Its emerald green back and speckled silver sides disappeared like a mirage into the bottom of the river and in a flash it was gone.

I swear to you that it was not entirely unlike the scene in "A River Runs Through It" where the younger son catches his glorious prize and is swept down the river.

Like the extraordinary scene in the movie, this must have been an opportunity Jim had longed for over the years. It had eluded him, but now that it had arrived at the perfect moment like a benediction over all his efforts, I couldn't help but remember the endless times as a child he had baited my hook with a muddy worm or coached me along in some other aspect of the sport, and something in my heart wished this fish for him far more than I ever could have for myself.

As I watched him move among a million late afternoon reflections in the fast moving water that day, I knew that what I witnessed was something more than a good fisherman catching a uniquely large and beautiful fish. It was the validation of a lifetime of passion. It was the unexpected and unbound movement of something Holy and true.

It was a gift - finding its way to my own heart and to those I love the most.

It was a fish of Grace.