Richard Formato

Richard Formato is an avid catch-and-release fly-fisherman from Wytheville, Va. When not on the water, he operates a small business there. Formato loves to fly-fish in his native Southwest Virginia because of the great water and wonderful people. He also loves to fish the flats and shallows of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic whenever work and weather permit. He is on the Department of Conservation and Recreation's board of directors and is a trustee of the Shenandoah National Forest and Skyline Drive.

Recent columns

• What about Bob?
• Notes from the Charlotte Fly Show
• A chance meeting
• A wish for Jack

• Column archive
• Talk fly-fishing

Last week was one of the toughest weeks of my life.

Some people I worked with in my day job really let me down.

All week, I was feeling brain-dead, lonely, betrayed and very tired.

It was a relentless week, and after all this professional mayhem, it was Friday at 5:45 p.m. when the phone in my office phone rang.

It was Mom. My Uncle Fred had died Thursday night and the funeral was Saturday morning just outside Stuart, Va.

Just when you are feeling sorry for yourself, the one thing that will snap you out of it is a good funeral.

Another thing you can say about a funeral: It’s not about you.

My Uncle Fred was a big man.

Not just in stature, but in the way he lived his life. My late father said that Uncle Fred lived life on his own terms, and it wasn’t until I was a grown man until I knew what Dad had meant.

My Uncle Fred was a respected man, not only in his church and in his community, but in his family. As one of the eldest boys in a brood of 10, Fred Ray went off to fight the Nazis as a young man and came home a part of America’s greatest generation.

My Uncle Fred had gigantic hands.

It was those big hands that I can remember on my back when he laughed that big laugh and handed me a stick to “carry the bag” on a hunt on our farm almost 40 years ago.

For hours that day, I trundled behind the men carrying the dead squirrels and rabbits to be skinned and eaten that night. I can still hear the dynamite loud blast from the shot gun and trying not to be scared.

At Peter’s Creek Baptist Church on Saturday, it were those moments I was thinking about as an almost endless number of VFW honor guards walked up to aisle and slowly saluted my Uncle Fred’s casket on Saturday morning. Rightly so, he was buried with full military honors.

It was moving to watch these time-worn men of honor in white gloves and festooned berets saying goodbye to a fellow soldier.

Thinking of his life, the war, and all Uncle Fred had done in his 85 years, made my petty complaints meaningless.

Right then, I saw a small deer figurine immersed between the blooms

I was moved to tears.

My Uncle Fred was a true outdoorsmen, and being outside was as important to him as it is to me.

On the casket, camouflaged in the finery of flowers, that deer was invisible to the quick glance but unmistakable once you found it.

It was a lot of like God.

Once you see him, you don’t lose focus too easily, but like anything that is unseen, you have to trust that is there.

It was has been trust that has kept me going, even when I was tired, and didn’t want to go on.

On the drive back from Stuart, my day fading fast, I started looking for trout streams to fish.

I drove past the Dan River, the Mayo, Rush Fork, and settled for the small headwaters on Little Indian Creek in Indian Valley.

Up where I fish it, this creek is a three-weight or lower water. You can jump across it in many locations, but it runs clear and fast, and supports wild brookies and rainbows in its upper reaches.

Saturday was a glorious day. Warm for the first weekend in February, the days already hinting of an approaching spring.

Still thinking of the lessons of this morning, I rigged up my Sage 3 weight, and tied on some Scientific Anglers Mastery Series 4 weight leader.

With iron weed, thorns and sedge on the banks, I have learned that it is better to give up some line size so you can have a leader that you can yank out of the brush.

Walking the creek line and following bobcat tracks fossilized in the hardened snow in the shadows, I looked for a place where I could lay down line, not be seen, or betrayed by my shadow.

I threw some small stone fly nymphs to no avail.

This creek is so tight, and I was having a hard time seeing distinguishing between shadows and glare.

Starting to feel that this was just an exercise in casting, I tied on an orange egg pattern, just so I could see it in the purple light of dusk.

A few last casts, and I felt a wiggle on my fly.

I cast again, and thrashing in a 3-foot-wide mountain stream, in a place I had never caught a fish before, was a nice wild rainbow.

I was thinking: about trust, about luck, and Uncle Fred.

Rest in peace, Fred Ray.

And thank you for taking me outside -- and for taking a chance on me a long time ago.