"Larry L" wrote in message
...

"Tom Nakashima" wrote

I remember one recent
trip I gave a fly to a stranger, about 15 min. later he hooked up as I
had not a single strike. Later he came by and offered me the fish. I
just smiled and told him to keep it and commented on his great
presentation skills.

One of last season's greatest highlights for me occurred on the Henry's
Fork just above the log jam.

It was late in what had been a slow day, and there was only one fish to be
found rising. I found him first and was sneaking into casting position
when a group of four or five anglers from Japan arrived. One of them had
seen the fish from afar and was visibly disappointed to see me slip into
the water near it. Their group split up, looking forlorn and
discouraged, and searched the area for rising heads, the angler that had
seen "my" fish sat on the bank near me and eyed each rise with clear envy.

I put a few casts over the fish and got him to rise, a take I missed. I
figured he would be put down, but, no, he continued to feed.

My Japanese friend was still watching and it occurred to me that I had
been given my chance and didn't deserve to land that fish, so I said
pointing with my rod at the rise, "Here, you try him, he's too smart for
me." The language barrier made this difficult and one of his friends
with better English joined in to help. Soon I was backing out carefully
and the Japanese angler was approaching the prey. About 1/2 hour later
he hooked that fish, a nice one about 18 inches. As he netted it I gave
him a "thumbs up" sign hoping it was universal and didn't mean something
nasty in Japang. What little English he knew came out then, over and
over, "Thank You, thank you, thank you."

The next day I ran into one of the group who recognized me ( it's easy I'm
whale sized and ugly ) and went out of his way to come thank me again, for
his friend. That fish was the only one caught by their group that slow
day ( they did better the next day :-) and it had made the whole group
much more enthusiast as their 'dream trip" looked like a nightmare until
then. I was given a few very lovely flies tied with artificial winging
material available only in Japan.

In reality, if we're honest, the major reason for generosity is because it
makes US feel better ... this case certainly worked that way ... it was
hard to "give up" that fish and get skunked that evening, but those "thank
yous" were far worth more than yet another landed fish.

Oh, and I always give flies to anyone that asks me what to use, if I have
any left to give ...... again, really for myself ..... my 6 decades have
made me a firm believer in 'Karma' .... what goes around comes around, not
always immediately or from the same person, but often enough to justify
the $0.30 a homebuilt fly costs, as investment.


It's amazing how life always seems to balances out. Great story btw.
My parents were put in the Japanese-American Internment camps when they grew
up here in the states. Unfortunately for us, the last thing they wanted
their kids to be was Japanese. So we lost a lot of our culture in not
speaking the language, and not eating the foods. Growing up in Naval town
San Diego, CA didn't help much either as my Dad was in the Navy and worked
for Convair. We were kids, so we didn't know better.

I got a lot of the culture back when I had to room with two Japanese boys
who's family from Japan sent them down for college. All I had to do was be
a good host, not teach them any bad American words, and make sure they
didn't get into any trouble. For all that, I paid $50.oo for room in a very
nice house. I learned a lot about the Japanese culture and found out how
round-eyes I really was as their Aunt used to call me.

So my first job was to take my new roomates from Japan sight-seeing. I asked
them if they wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge, or Alcatraz Island,
perhaps an American baseball game. Blushing the two said in their broken
English, they wanted to see Carol Doda and all of her 44d's at the Condor
Strip Club. I dare not tell Auntie May.
-tom