Steven:

What a beautiful poem! And so very appropos.

Always wanted a little setter, but wound up with six pointers instead. But have five beautiful setters for granddaughters that more than make up for having none of my own. When the youngest was just past five, my late wife and I took her along one evening to a small metropolitan pond that had a nice population of bass for me to give a new bug or two a try. As I approached them at the end of my excursion, she popped up and said: "I do it, Opa." I put the 9ft 9wt rod in her hands and I nearly fell over when she executed a pretty darned good cast. A few weeks later, I took her back with me and outfitted her with a lighter and shorter rod and tied on a small Adams dry fly for her. She caught her very first fish ever by herself that afternoon, and on a dry fly to boot! "Opa" was just as proud of her and her three inch bluegill as he would have been if it had been a 10# largemouth. I subsequently had a picture of her with her fish and the fly she caught it on shadow-boxed for her. Can't believe she is now a teenager!

aged sage