Most anglers can trace the earliest days of their fly fishing journey back to one single outing, and often times that outing was made possible by none other than dear old Dad. Dads tend to be the primary reason why most fishermen and women take a liking to and ultimately develop a passion for the sport of fishing. But that’s not always the case.
This time last year, the outdoor brand YETI, turned this assumption on its head with a moving video series titled “My Old Man”. The series follows several prominent outdoorsmen and women, and highlights the role—or lack thereof— that their respective fathers played in bringing the joy of the outdoors into their lives, as well the way in which they choose to share the power of the outdoors with their own children.
One of the videos profiles Hilary Hutcheson, who I interviewed for an article on women in fly fishing just last year. Hutcheson, who grew up in Glacier, Montana where her father worked as a ranger for the National Park Service, had a unique story to tell.
Though her father’s family lineage was heavily steeped in fly fishing culture and tradition, he himself had never taken it up as a passion, instead opting for the thrills of mountain climbing and other pursuits more closely associated with his high stakes job as a search and rescue ranger for NPS. The video below, titled “The Last Best Man”, follows Hilary and her father Dave as they embark on his very first fly fishing adventure on home waters in stunning Northwest Montana.
It’s a touching short video that shows a rare role reversal where a fishing obsessed daughter gets to teach the art of fly fishing to her novice father, instead of the other way around. It gets particularly exciting when Dave hooks his first trout the fly somewhere around the five minute mark.
To check out the rest of the videos in the YETI “My Old Man” series, including a great short film on the fishing guide son of legendary songwriter Townes Van Zandt, J.T. Van Zandt and a video profiling big wave surfer and avid hunter Shane Dorian, click here.
