I have kept my word. I have got out trout fishing more this year than last. That brings the grand total up to three times. Not every trip is noteworthy, but third-times-a-charm as they say.

As my roots have slowly tapped into my new home in VA, I have started making friends and not least of all is my neighbor. He is a father of two with a demanding job and not much time. But he enjoys being on the water when he can and is pleasant company. Which made it all the better when I heard from him that he had never caught a trout before. Even after having lived a stone’s throw from some of the best trout waters in Western Mass in a former stage of life. It just wasn’t on his radar.

And it’s moments like that that are a good gut check that I am an addict. Apparently, and this is news to me, not everyone has a low-grade urge to constantly find our finned friends and catch using a feather and bent piece of sharp steel on the end of a ridiculous contraption because it’s sporting or whatever lie it is we tell ourselves when we buy that expensive piece of graphite we plan on breaking the first moment it’s inconvenient.

Apparently, my brain functions differently than the general public’s brain. My guess, yours too? Maybe I am in then in good company; do you do the following? Swerving to look over the edge of the bridge to see if the bridge beast lurking in the tail of the pool can be spotted? Searching your favorite map app (or gasp, a physical map like my recalcitrant self more often than not) for the next thin-blue line or underappreciated stretch of skinny water?

What about talking about preferring to chase wild natives while hitting the refresh button on the stocking schedule website?  Trying to meld the fashion sense of a rave to the proportions of a microscopic invertebrate to find that next secret junk fly that is certain to make that darned fish in that one hole actually look at your beautiful creation.

Finding yourself on a tailwater in the middle of summer from midnight to 6 am before going to work and repeating the next night? Diverting to a remote mountain stream halfway across the country when your driving back on a work trip?

If any of these completely random and absolutely made up and not real examples apply to you, you too may be on the path to piscine addiction (if not already neck deep with flooded waders).

So when I had a moral obligation to help a fellow fisherman get their first trout, the voices of the Salvelinus  fontinalis began to expand from a shallow whisper to a roaring cascade. Weekend plans were cancelled. Dates pushed back. Babysitters hired. This was my excuse to get those hits.

The tug is the drug they say, and it is never sweeter than when shared with someone brand new to the cause. Their innocence makes our fish-based depravity that much more rewarding. The anticipation  is almost as delectable as the experience itself. So as the planned date approached after weeks of shifting back and forth and sick kids and rescheduling, the heaven’s opened up and dumped a metric-f-ton of rain on every square inch of the watershed I was going to take him into. My spirits sank nearly as fast as the river level rose.

But here is where the addictive behavior has its uses, I pulled from the list of spots I have been ogling from behind the computer screen and wrinkled map after putting my baby to bed and before I pass out from exhaustion. I found a few spots that I knew had at least a couple fish that could be dragged out of several holes in a singular watershed just out of the path of worst of the storm (mostly secondhand intel, but some of my own for a change here too).

So when the morning came, I updated his expectations based on the rain level. We both knew there would be no rescheduling either, this was it. Our confluence would have to work even if the river’s confluence was brown and muddy from the farm field runoff.

We thankfully were headed to one of a few spring-fed creeks in the SW corner of the state. It’s well provisioned by the game and fish folks and when we crossed a couple of stretches as we approached the public stretch, our hearts were lifted. While kind of high, and kind of murky, we could see the bottom. And when we pulled into the lot. Not a soul. Now I was really excited. A prime stretch of water with some naïve ‘bows to boot.

We stumbled into the river and we worked our way down a stretch. I couldn’t stop trying to impart as much advice and fishy wisdom as was needed to find that first hit for this helpless soul. Yet to no avail all morning. We hit pool after stretch after pocket and nothin’. I was slowly losing faith, I couldn’t believe it. I started going through the phases of grief: denial, anger, etc… But it seemed that my neighbor had beat me to acceptance and was just enjoying casting.

And then, then we found them. Behind a small boulder in a small bend far down the stretch, I got that small tap-tap on the end of the line and then the water exploded. We both connected on either side of that boulder. And it was all I could do to keep the euphoria at bay to help get him his first trout. But before we could land what appeared to be a nice 12” rainbow, it jumped and threw the hook, and it meant that I had to land my fish before consoling him. But before I could even get mine in, he had got another fish on with the follow-up cast.

And for about 20 minutes, we were living high on life. The fishing was so good we didn’t even stop to think about getting a picture of him with his first trout.

I am sure you could imagine the excited woops and yeahs and all that, the expletives and even a few worthwhile suggestions. Eventually the adrenaline wore down enough to let us remember to take a picture with his “first” trout. Technically accurate as it was his first brown trout!

And then a few moments later we got him a pic with a consolation ‘bow too. Either way though, anyone could see the signs. This was a man with incipient signs of addiction. Brought about by one-part wild brown and a half dozen parts rainbow stockies. He almost hat tricked with a tiny brookie, but that he got some practice performing a distance release with.

All-in-all, we had a fantastic day on the river. A few sparkling moments to be sure, but after the rainy lead up, it was hard to imagine we would have had any success. On the drive back, we recounted moments and I answered question after question and I could already hear the waiver in his voice, the slight tell we in the trout world are all too familiar with. The need to get back out on the river, to pursue that amazing sportfish. The tug is the drug they say. And it appears that my neighbor is now addicted to trout, hook, line, and sinker. And I couldn’t be happier for him.