Home      Water      Wing      Afield     Campfire      Paddling      The Rest      Submit      Reading List      About Us      Contact

 "He found what he was looking for; I was awash with joy, beaming the approval that I knew would spark his love for things living under the surface."

In Search of Water
By Larry L. Littrell

There is a calming stillness that hovers over the water and envelopes me with a warmth nothing else can provide. I have honed my craft for decades, yet it doesn't feel close to complete. This craft, a journey rather, has taken me across the North American continent, from sea to shining sea, yet I continue to search for a destination. The desires of my heart are basic, yet within them there are complex issues I cannot explain.

The earliest memory I can resurrect is around the age of four. Summers were spent scrambling around a series of rocky points along the shores of where Boone Lake and Beaver Creek meet. The walk to the lake, depending upon where I aimed to fish, required me to scale or slip through barbed wire fencing. An early angling lesson: obstacles were meant to be overcome. That early wisdom in my angling career was the catalyst for a lifelong journey.

Often times the trail was clearly marked; but I simply ignored it and blazed my own, a Meriwether Lewis spirit of exploration. There is an inherent feeling of accomplishment that comes with such a diversion; the fishing was merely the enabler to the process.

Now, years later, I find that poling around the corner to have a look where I've never been or never seen others brings with it that same sense of mysterious adventure. The ancillary reward of a hooked and landed fish remains a post script to the journey.

I guess it really gets back to the journey and how it is taking place in the comforting environment of water.

Whenever life conjurs such a scattering of thoughts and manifests itself in that all encompassing term we call stress, I run for the water. I seek the comforts only it can provide.

My son, just a smidge past his second birthday, stood watching me cast a line from the end of our dock along Lost Lake. His blonde hair flipped in the breeze as he stood mesmerized. All three feet of his stature was poised to watch the spectacle of line and lure that repeatedly unfurled before him. He and I often walk the short distance to the lake's edge in the afternoon so we can soak up the positive energy the water provides. The walk of just over a couple of hundred feet typically takes a while as his interest in his surroundings tugs him from one side to the other, exploring, looking for the next pine cone or bug that catches his eye. He often pauses beneath the lone camphor tree standing at the midpoint of the course to point, and he wants to be lifted into its branches to swing while giggling "unkeee", which of course is, in the dialect of a two year old, monkey. Once we make it to the dock his focus always shifts to the water and what lies below. This day was a bit different, for the first time he began to ramble as two year old boys are inclined to do about "daddy fishing."

It was the first verbalization I had heard from him on the subject. Instantly I swelled with pride, feeling the instant connection with him that the water brings to my soul. To me, it signaled a beginning of something exciting. I chuckled and replied, "Yep, Daddy is fishing."

When I asked him if he would like to go fishing, he immediately said, "Yes!" We ambled back up to high ground and selected a Zebco 202 from the shed. The whole way back to the dock was set to a soundtrack of "Fish, fish, fish…"

The small dough ball splashed into the water and gently danced a wobbling jig as it sank to the end of the line below the neon-colored float. Almost immediately there was a sharp tug as the float dunked below the surface. The fight was on. I helped my son position his hand on the rod and gamely coached him to crank the handle. It was at that moment as my hand cupped his and placed it under the grip and steadied the rod that we became one with the water and the small fish at the end of our line. We were sharing the energy that fuels life's journey of repeated returns to the water. His squeals of delight floated along on the breeze, and I enjoyed every instant of every moment. After a brief battle, the firecracker kind only a bream can deliver, the fish emerged from the tannic stained water and spun in the bright sun, glistening and flashing.

As soon as he saw the copper-browed panfish break the surface, he was instantly fixated on the prize that hung beneath the float. He uttered the word "Fishhhh!" through his toothy grin as he looked at me for approval. He found what he was looking for; I was awash with joy, beaming the approval that I knew would spark his love for things living under the surface.

It was a seed that would germinate and grow over the years, teaching him all the good that water brings. I know that moment etched a desire into the fabric that makes up his soul. Even though it has only been a month or two ago that he hoisted his first catch ashore, he has become obsessed with the boat that sits alongside the dock and asks to go see the fish and from time to time asks for his own rod to try to catch again.

His mother sat a short distance away and smiled as she captured the images, for posterity; the moment my son's journey began. I could see the joy it brought her as well. Her approval was apparent in the smile she wore. She knows the journey that I expand every chance I get and saw for the first time, a beginning of the one that will take our son across life with a place he can always retreat to when he needs his soul nourished. The water's calming stillness enveloped me like nothing else can.

Born in Ft. Walton Beach in 1971, he moved to Taiwan and Texas for a few years before settling in the mountains of East Tennessee. Growing up with a father that was retired afforded him the opportunity to travel and camp across the United States and Canada. Whether in a Canadian Rockies alpine lake or from atop a bridge in the Florida Keys, a fishing pole was his constant companion.

College days were spent at Tennessee State University and The University of Tennessee. An internship at Walt Disney World lead to his move to Florida in 1991.

A varied life's experience working as a Lifeguard, VIP Concierge / Driver, and Law Enforcement Officer ensure there is never a lack of stories to be told.

The lure of saltwater he had tasted as an adolescent was rekindled when he began making the trek to the Indian River & Mosquito Lagoon in the mid 1990's fishing out of a beat up old aluminum skiff with a 10 hp kicker. So began the addiction that has grown to what it is today. Primarily an inshore fly angler these days, he does not pass up opportunities to fish offshore or in the lake in his back yard.

He won the Mosquito Lagoon Redbone as the Champion Fly Angler in 2006.

Since establishing a weekend residence alongside the Mosquito Lagoon in 2006 he has established an annual invitational tournament there, The Oak cHill'n Invitational. The participant of which exemplify the shallow water angling lifestyle.