By Hayden Sampson
Every family has someone who they look up to, someone who tells stories and gives lessons, someone who helps everyone remember what family is about. Well, Tempe Prep is our family, and Humane Letters teacher Dr. Evans is that guy. We couldn’t be more thankful to have him, and he has been a staple at Tempe Prep. I felt that we might be missing out on some stories from Dr. Evans, so I decided to see what I could find.
At last year’s family picnic, Dr. Evans taught us how to fly fish. I decided to learn more, and this is what he told me: “I started fly fishing one evening when I was eight years old, watching my dad flycast to rising rainbow trout in the Merced River in Tuolumne Meadows, California. There were lots of fish rising, that is, sipping bugs on the surface, and my dad was trying to catch them. Sometimes fish rise to only one kind of bug, though, and they won’t take anything that doesn’t look exactly like it. That was happening that evening, and my dad didn’t catch any, but I thought how amazing it would be to cast out and catch some of those rising fish. I didn’t fish at all that evening, but I mentally started fly fishing right then.” All heroes need an origin story. This is Dr. Evans’s.
Fly fishing eventually did happen for Dr. Evans, leaving him with many more stories to tell. “Fast forward to about 2008, and I am wading the San Juan River, a large river in northern New Mexico that flows out of Navajo Lake between big red sandstone cliffs. There are big rainbow trout rising this morning, 16 to 20 inches, and by luck I tie on an ‘Adams’’ fly that looks like the flying black ant that the fish are feeding on. I cast and hook one, that runs all the way across the river – big, strong fish. It’s a catch and release river, so I bring it in and let it go, then cast, and get another one – repeat! I caught 17 fish that morning, and no one else that I saw caught anything. Just lucky, I guess!”
Luck had nothing to do with it. Having tried fly fishing myself, it takes some serious skill, not easily gained by a few tries. As the expert, when asked what his favorite places to fish are, Dr. Evans says, “Some of my favorite places for fly fishing have been High Sierra lakes and streams, the North Umpqua River in Oregon, and in the Wind River mountain range in Wyoming. When Gov. Ducey postponed school last August, I went back to the Wind River for a six-day backpack, which included fly fishing, of course.”
Adventure is always out there, and Dr. Evans has had his fair share of it. It’s safe to assume that there are more stories where that came from, and that we will hopefully hear them soon. Until then, we can appreciate everything Dr. Evans does for us.