I'm 26 (1999), fly fish like crazy, tie when I have to or I'm bored, travel all over, write, take pictures, speak and am truly a fly fishing bum. 

Lived in Florida most of my life where I fished the flats all along the Indian River Lagoon, some on the west coast, the Keys, the backcountry, the freshwater lakes and rivers, the surf...  and started traveling around the US to fish for trout.  Then I ended up on Vancouver Island during a quest for salmon, steelhead and sea run cutts.  From here it is on to Costa Rica where I'll spend some time working.  Don't know how long I will be there yet.  Tammy.

Not only is Tammy an excellent tier and angler but she has an exceptional writing talent.   Below given is an enlightening story.   Ed

The Young and the Old

Written By:  Tammy DiGristine

I think back to the first time I tied with a 3 year old in my lap. My fly tying suffered severely. The flies that came off of my vise then will never make it into a pattern book, or even my flybox for that matter, but they certainly made my way into my heart and my memories.

I think back to the first time I took my young nephew Ian out to where I fish. I think I had forgotten just how beautiful and wild that place really was. It had been a long time since the bright pink feathers of the roseate spoonbills struck me with anything but beauty that I expected to be around.

Because of the youngster, and the innocence that he still possesses, I once again realized how unbelievably odd and wondrous they were. Although I am used to seeing the alligators and the hogs and other wildlife, and appreciating them, I guess I had just forgotten to do more than appreciate them. I forgot to really SEE them.

I also remember the last time I went down to Inlet with my pals, for some baitfishing. Being as how I just can't get into the baitfishing thing anymore, I didn't go along to fish, I knew that I could always find a few good stories out there. That is why I went.

The differences in the people out there never fail to blow my mind. The diversity of the kind of people that gather at the inlet is unlike any found anywhere else I have seen. Doctors and laborers stand side by side, neither any better than the other. People of all different races look at each other and through the outer layer of skin, seeing each other as fellow fishermen only, and not as someone who is a different nationality or race.

I sat in the darkness at the end of the jetty. The almost full moon provided an eerie glow and perfect lighting for the great blue heron that danced delicately in the surf. The waves crashed upon the jetty, showering us with salt spray. I was fascinated by the waves. I was also fascinated with an old guy sitting alone on the edge of the inlet, looking like he was a million miles away. I couldn't resist. I walked over to where he was, abandoning my friends, but knowing they were used to it and didn't mind. They knew it was just me being me and never took offense.

He looked up at me and I introduced myself and asked him what he was doing. He said he was just reminiscing, and trying to make sense of things. The man was about 80 or so. It was midnight on a weekday and I was curious about what he was doing out there. He obviously was not there to fish.

Despite every fiber of my being telling me to start asking him questions, I did the one thing that is hardest for me to do. I kept my mouth shut. I pulled up a piece of dirt next to him and just sat there in silence for about 5 minutes, watching the surf pound the edges of the jetty. When he spoke, I knew I had made the right decision.

He said, "Look there, Missy, did you see that wave?" I answered him that indeed I did. He said, "The one over there, on the other side of the inlet, you saw that?" I answered him again, "Yes, I saw that wave." Then he asked me a tough question... "Did you actually see the wave, or did you just see the white foam from it breaking on the rocks?" I admitted to him that he was right and he said, "So then you just saw what was left of the wave, what was left behind, and took it on faith that the wave was there, didn't you? No need to answer. I know I am right. I have been sitting here all night thinking that very thing."

I sat in silence. The man needed to talk and I let him. He went on to teach me much. He told me that he was too old to fish anymore, and that the pounding surf and big fish and long battles were just too much for him these days. He told me how he was like those waves we watched... full of life and energy, trudging towards somewhere they did not know, but going nonetheless, because that is where they were supposed to go, where all waves went... and how it was just the course of nature they were running. He told me how when he looked in the mirror sometimes, he would see those waves in himself. All he could see what was what was left behind, and that is all anyone else could see, but that he was just waiting for someone to come along and take it on faith that the part of the wave still going was there too.

When I left, he thanked me. I told him that I was the one who should be doing the thanking, and he just smiled and told me that I was going to turnout just right, whatever that meant.

I walked back over to join my friends, who asked nothing of my conversation with the old man. They were too busy cutting up and joking around and being the people that they were, the friends that I knew and loved.

It seemed awkward at that point in time, to be someone who was no longer considered a kid, and who was not yet old enough to be considered old, even by the kids. I was an in-betweener. I was perhaps one of the most clueless people on the face of the earth.

I learned that week, between the kids and the old man, that it is the in-betweeners, the very ones who think they know it all, that know so little. The old have been there and know, the young can see without the blinders that the in-betweeners wear. The innocence of the young, the fact that they know not yet how to judge is the very thing that lets them see clearly, where the in-betweeners, me, for example, could not.

The wisdom of the old, so often thought of by us know-it-all in-betweeners as just the senseless ramblings of the old, once caught and thought about, makes so much sense. Its true, that to see into the future, one must look into the past. That makes the young and the old very important, and says nothing about the present, which is us, the in-betweeners, the all important. It is amazing what one can learn from the young and from the old.