We have all thrown a rock into a pond and watched the ripples and rings flow outward from the center. After some time, they simply fade away. 

Fly fishing in a Montana Lake is the same. The evening hatch invites hundreds of fat trout to dimple the surface, when chasing a bug. The ring starts off big and gradually flows away. You can follow a trout’s path by watching the direction from Ripple Ring to Ripple Ring. If you cast, and lead in front of the trout’s direction, they will take your fly. If you are Locked, Cocked, and Ready to Rock, you might set the hook. 

In our fishing lives, we can still see and remember the many Ripples and memories of places fished and fish caught. Aging and a busy/hectic life take up a lot of our brain storage and memory, but we can still remember many of the fish that we caught.

The strongest memories are often about the fish we lost. The Fish Gods are spiteful, knots fail, lines break, and “shit” happens. There are more lessons to learn from missed and lost fish than the ones we caught. Analyzing why we lost the fish helps to catch the next ones. The loss is only overcome by the next cast and the next fish.

Every angler has a box load of photographs or a cellphone full of pictures of fish. To most people it’s a boring picture of a fish. To the owner it’s the beginning of a story. Every detail comes back into our minds. The next Ripple is always the best.

WE used to take pictures with Old School cameras. The compact ones would fit into a tackle box or vest. Better cameras were bigger. Dropping them into the water never helped. Once you had the roll of film developed, you got what you got. No reframing, enhancing, adding, or losing light. It was often a fair picture at best. Once in awhile you lucked out and got a keeper. 

Modern cameras/ cellphones make memories so much better and nicer. No more paying for developing. You can send, transfer, enhance, manipulate, and play with your pictures. No matter how good or bad they come out, the stories are still perfect, sharp, and clear. A cellphone picture also radiates outward like a technological Ripple. 

They say old memories, and our hearing, are some of the last things in our minds before we cross the Rainbow Bridge. I hope that I can still hear the ripples of streams, rivers, beaches, or rising trout. 

Hopefully the heavenly pond will share even more ripples!

Montana Grant