Most years I manage to take a weeklong fishing trip somewhere in the wilds, and for those years I have failed, I vow to repent. What an abundant collection of friends and memories this habit has generated! This year’s adventure into Idaho and Wyoming were no exception. We fished little waters and big waters, waters in woods and waters by meadows. All were chock-full of aquatic life, providing a feast for both eagle and angler.

Speaking as a fisherman who has cast into the hallowed waters of four countries, I was asking myself (after experiencing the Henry’s Fork) why I would want to fish anywhere else. The fishing was unsurpassed, and the fellowship with my son Daniel was precious. But there was something more going on. With each cast I was conscious of a question taking shape, even beckoning me: “Rob, what accounts for your deep pleasure here?” And while they were good indeed, I knew the answer was more than just fishing and fellowship.

As one who credits God for creation, it was only natural to consider the beauty of all I was taking in as the source of my deep pleasure; but even then, there was something escaping me. As I often do, I let the question meander through my thoughts.

Questions are no strangers to my mind. In fact, I am concerned they accumulate faster than answers. I typically let a question simmer; then I stir it, modestly at first, and if warranted (as in this case), more deliberately… Where was my deep joy coming from?

Was it the music? Maybe. Admittedly, Daniel’s playlist provided a rich atmosphere on our drives from one wild place to another. It seems appropriate here to just pause and say I too am “Missing Ol’ Johnny Cash.” (and for that matter, Buck Owens).

Each evening I read about John Coulter; his forced marches through this landscape became prominent in my imagination. But if you have ever driven with a millennial you will know what a forced listen is. This is where conversation (even thought?) is suspended, and one is prevailed upon by the customized audioscape of the twenty-something’s playlist.

I would categorize Daniel’s music as “Americana Glorifico,” and I 90% love it. The scant 10% is best represented by the cool-sounding Darius Rucker and Brad Paisley’s “I Don’t Care”. (Daniel tells me he only appreciates it for its irony; given it’s catchiness, though—it’s now stuck in my head—I have my doubts.) I’m just sure there will soon be a movie produced called Millennial Cowboy with this musical declaration as its title song.

So, to contend with the 10% of the forced listen, I had to keep reminding myself, “I do too care, and I darn sure want to know!” In particular, I still wanted to know what this visceral, almost palpable pleasure was that was haunting me. My answer came together as I watched Daniel on the Yellowstone River. Here is my diary entry from that day:

We drove for an hour to get from Little Firehole Creek to the Yellowstone River where I set up with a hopper and Daniel with a golden stone fly imitation. This section of the river (just a few miles below Yellowstone Lake) looks like you could wade across it. This is an illusion. We waded as far as we dared, which was just above the waist (go farther and you become a bobber moving downstream at roughly 5 mph). From here, our best casts might reach mid-stream. We learned the formula quickly though: In big waters, big casts + big dry flies + big mends = big rewards!

Within two hours I hooked four big trout (20” or better) and landed half. So did Daniel, but he hooked and landed a monster. Our guide, Matt Murphy (Murph) had worked in Yellowstone and fished the river extensively. When he first saw Daniel’s fish coming at him and his net, he convulsed, “Oh my &*@, that’s the biggest cutthroat I’ve ever seen in here!” The fish measured 25” and had a huge girth. A true elder of these waters, Mike Lawson confirmed: “25 inches is about as big as a cutthroat will get on the Yellowstone River.”

It is impossible to put into words the magic of what I witnessed. Lot’s of people try to fish the Yellowstone. Most leave empty handed. The smaller, easier-to-catch cutties have mostly all been eaten by the lake trout upstream.

The Yellowstone is “big” water and it’s just flat-out tough to fish. Daniel’s conquest began after a beautiful long cast and at the end of a long 50 to 60 foot drift. It was a solo hook set, meaning no guide yelling, “Hit him!” (If you’ve fished with guides much, you know this is a savory moment since “Hit him!” eventually feels like the end of a whip—especially if you happen to have missed some hook sets.)

There are so many things that can go wrong in fly-fishing. Daniel’s 25” cutthroat didn’t voluntarily attach itself to his hook. It required some mastery of casting to have even delivered the fly to the place this fish was feeding. It then took mending skills to keep the fly drifting with the current so that it would appear a legitimate meal to the trout. The hook had to be set very quickly with that much line out. The line then had to be kept taught: any slack at all at any time would release the trout. The fish had to be reeled in at a pace that honored both the fish’s efforts to escape and the strength of the 5x tippet connecting the fly to the fly line. If just one of those things went south, the fish would not be joining the fishermen in the shallows for high fives and holy $#!+s. But on this occasion, Daniel and the stars were in perfect alignment. It was a privilege to witness this communion of skill, circumstance, and creation merge into something sacred.

Nature had become his pulpit, and my son my teacher. His sermon on this bright Wyoming afternoon provided the answer as to why joy was crowding in on my thoughts. It was communion. What I had been experiencing and was now watching was communion, not the Christian ceremony where bread and wine are consecrated and shared, but communion in which God shares himself with man.

It was to no mute stone Daniel’s fly had beckoned, “Rise!” The eldest cutthroat in the Yellowstone River took his fly, and after seeing its desperate protest, it was a joy to release him back to his tribe. What we experienced was, in its way, overlaid with gold and silver. Everything we beheld burst with breath, and for certain—the Lord was in His holy temple. And, with the exceptions of the Yellowstone’s murmurs (and our own gasps of delight), “the earth was silent before Him.”

With ospreys and eagles patrolling overhead, with buffalo and bears over the next hill, with geothermal power pulsating beneath us, and the Yellowstone River itself coursing with life, I saw a dance. Created things were being drawn together into the deeper rhythms of God. What I beheld was deep calling unto deep. Communion was the backstory to my joy.

Father, may we apply the lessons learned in the Yellowstone Sanctuary to the daily affairs of our own wild places. Even where we do not perfectly hear your symphony, or have not yet mastered our step, teach us to risk the dance into which you’ve invited us. Amen.