Simply put, I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday than with family on a beautiful central Pennsylvania flowing water. My son joined me for an early morning Spring Creek trip to catch some birthday browns. I live only five minutes from this wonderful trout factory so we’ve fished it many times. That being said, I never grow tired of wading it’s cool spring waters and the trout rarely disappoint.

I landed the first fish of the day reveling in the fight with the feisty brown. There is nothing sweeter than a wild trout putting forth its best effort against the butter smooth bend of a 3 wt glass fly rod. My more than half a century on earth has taught me that this  experience is among the finer things in life. As the fish slipped out of my hand into the ice cold water, I felt a ting of pity for those among us who have never had such an experience.

My son nabbed this metalic wild brown in some pocket water that I had already worked over thoroughly. So I thought. It was definitely one of those proud father moments when I heard him call out from just down stream of me as he fought the fish. There are points in an “old” anglers career when he realizes that the student has begun the transformation into a teacher. This was one of those defining moments.

I’ve always believed in keeping things simple. My fly box selections are limited to just a  handful of time tested bugs. On this cold winter day, we fished an old school red Zebra Midge in tandem with a beaded Pheasant Tail under a small float. A great combo on almost any water in central PA during February.

The new fallen snow reflecting the early morning sun filled the woods with a golden light much like the Rembrandt paintings I studied as a freshmen in an art history course. Admittedly it is one of the few things that this country boy remembers from his art history professor who’s apparent primary goal was to elevate my “culture”.  My son and I sat creek side taking it all in. I joked a bit about how age was making climbing the steep creek banks a little tougher these days. My son just smiled and shook his head knowing that I would never stop fishing.. no matter what. We went back to slinging our flies, caught a few more wild browns then headed home with memories of another great day on the water together.