Coming of Age
“Were it not for rainbow trout, I would have to fish for bass. Were it not for the season’s change, I would never see time pass.”
—Bill Morrissey
It seemed an appropriate comeuppance, to be waiting in the dark for my old friend Alex Lafkas. Twenty-five years ago, on our earliest fishing trips together, I blindfolded him before driving us to the hidden bass ponds and secluded stretches of smallmouth streams in industrial southern Michigan. It was a childish prank that I wrote off in the name of secrecy, and that he allowed because he lacked even a learner’s permit. A quarter-century later, with a morning to kill in Traverse City and a serious brook trout jones to boot, I was half expecting Alex — who has evolved into one of the country’s most innovative and successful streamer anglers, as well as the best big brown trout guide in Michigan — to lash a handkerchief around my eyes before we embarked.
I sat in the rental in his driveway with the windows down, relishing the early September humidity and the crescendo of the tree frogs’ chorus until the porch light flicked on. The screen door cracked open, and a hand waved me inside the modest ranch, where the scent of fried sausage lured me to the kitchen.
