Tom and I met on our first day of grad school back in 1982. We were both broke and stressed, and we both loved the outdoors, so I decided that an affordable way to relieve some of that stress might be to learn how to fly-fish. We had learned to fish with our dads when we were very small, but it was bait fishing, and we wanted to try something new.
After a few casting lessons and some local camping and fishing trips, we both fell in love with the sport—Tom so deeply that it soon became clear we would need to find ways to take it to the next level.
Fast-forward a couple of years. When we finally graduated and started making a little bit of money (though with student loans and everything that comes with starting a new career, we were still mostly broke), I decided to get him a guided fishing trip on the Henry’s Fork for his birthday. He had dreamed of fishing it ever since a trip we took to Yellowstone a few years earlier. Luck paired him with the extraordinary guide Bob Lamm, and he spent the day floating Box Canyon and fishing the Ranch. It was 1987.
At the end of the day, the boat wasn’t the only thing that floated. When Tom returned from that trip, he was about three feet off the ground, waxing about what was obviously one of the best days of his life. On the drive home to Northern California, I suggested that our next trip might be the Bow River in Alberta, which he had also dreamed of fishing. It would be expensive, so I suggested that maybe we should do it right and make it our honeymoon. I’m pretty sure his response was something like, “Yeah, we could do that.” I was also fairly sure that the dreamy look in his eyes as we discussed it was the prospect of another float trip on a great river.
I was reminded of all this when, in early September of 2025, Tom was able to fish with Bob Lamm again. Almost 40 years later and (mostly) retired, he still fishes the Henry’s Fork every chance he gets. These days I still fish too, though I often pursue other interests—like photography or reading—while he’s on the water. But we both still deeply love the river and the surrounding country, and for each of us it will always be one of the most special places on earth.
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I know my last blog post left you on the edge of your seat. Today I’m going to answer the question that has doubtlessly been on everyone’s minds: did I catch a fish? Let me tell you, it was getting down to the wire. I’d been out many times with the incredibly patient Claude, to no avail. Not even a bite. Claude’s patience was really commendable as I stubbornly, astoundingly refused to improve.
As my time here at the foundation wraps up, I have been doing a lot of reflection. As such, I have concluded that the amount you can learn in one summer internship is unrivaled. It can range from scientific technical skills to office interpersonal skills, and anywhere in between. Some things are self-explanatory, and some are learned through trial and error. This range is what makes internships so valuable. I’ve compiled a list of the
Putting in the hours. Credit: Estelle Edwards Fish are omnipresent. Whether Claude’s talking about his latest catch, an angler is asking me what fly to use (I don’t know), or I’m taking Utah suckers out of gillnets, I am drowning in fish… but I have never caught one. I have yet to be blessed with a bite on a Parachute Adams, Zebra Midge, or Montreal Whore, but thanks to fishing-adjacent research experiences, I’ve gotten a
I grew up fishing on the North Carolina coast. From flounder and speckled trout (not actually in the trout family) deep in the creeks to Spanish mackerel and bull redfish right off the beach, all the way out to what feels like the middle of the ocean trolling for king mackerel and cobia, I loved the wide variety of fish. One sunny July morning a few summers back, my dad and I headed offshore in
