Missing my twin brother

George Richey, holding his former, 2lb. 7oz., Michigan State Record pink salmon.
photo Dave Richey ©2012

It was one of those mid-September days when it felt right to be going through my deer-hunting backpack and sharpening broad-heads. It was something to do while waiting for my next trout fishing trip to arrive.

So I was puttering with my bow quiver of sharpened heads when a memory jolted me as it entered my mind without me thinking. It was of brother George, and he was coming down the Little Manistee River in high water in early April with a rampaging steelhead on his line.

"Try and get a net under this guy," he hollered. "I hooked him a quarter-mile upstream, but he's riding the current broadside. Stick your net in the water, and I'll put him head-first into the net. Ready?"

We'd done this for each other and both knew what to do

My net was pulled from under my belt behind my back, and my rod butt went in underneath the belt. The fish was 10 feet upstream as my net went into the water, and George leaned back on the rod to get the fish up onto the surface, and just at the right time, he dropped the rod tip and the fish dove right into the net. My job was to lift it from the water.

"Good dip," he said, as we waded ashore. The steelhead, a red-sashed male with bright cheeks and gill covers, was 16 pounds of broad-beamed raw power. George worked the No. 4 wiggler fly free, eased the big guy into the river, and with a mighty splash it was gone.

Another time George and I hunted Le Chateau Montebello, a famous resort in Quebec. We were there to hunt deer, and the guide told us we would be lucky to see a deer. If we did, he said, it would be a shooter.

The guy put on one-man drives, and I've been involved in deer drives for most of my life. I can tell good from bad, and this guy was an expert. He walked softly, yipped like a beagle puppy on occasion, and he never hurried the deer. They just moved slowly ahead of him.

We driven deer for years, and this guy was the best I'd seen

Far off, on the third day, I heard him yip softly to let us know he was coming. It was a large area to watch, but 10 minutes later a white-antlered 8-pointer eased from the woods and stood, side-lit by the afternoon sun against a pine, and he was a beautiful sight to behold.
He turned to look the opposite way at George, and I slowly raised the rifle and aimed. He went down at the shot, and George almost beat me to that buck. It was the only deer either of us saw on that hunt, but he wasn't disappointed not to get one. He loved listening to the wolves howl at night, and was happy that one of us shot a good buck.
"Good shot, good buck, and where's the guide?" He asked. "This buck weighs well over 200 pounds, and we will need help to move it far."
The guide showed up, we boiled a kettle to have hot tea with our sandwiches, and then had us a four-mile hike back to his truck and he drove up to the dead animal. It is the only whitetail I've taken in Quebec, but it's important to me because George and I shared the hunt in a unique part of Canada.

Ours was never a competitive thing. We just had fun

Neither of us have ever been truly competitive with each other, but years ago before I wrote the first story about runs of pink salmon in Upper Peninsula streams, George was with me to share what might or might not be an adventure. We didn't know if we'd find the pink salmon.

We would fish pink salmon in the morning and hunt bears in the afternoon, and we found some fish in the Big Huron River. They usually spawned during September on odd-numbered years and we found hordes of them on the first gravel patch above the river-mouth.

We'd been guiding river fishermen for a few years, and started catching pinkies of flies. An orange fly tied on a No 6 hook seemed to produce best, and they were some of George's tried-and-true steelhead and salmon patterns. The fish weren't big but they were aggressive.

"Here's another one," he said. "I'm taking it in to the store to get it weighed. I figure it to be just over two pounds. There's no state record for these fish so one of us should set the record."

Back he came, and it weighed 2 lbs., 3 oz., and so I tried to beat him. Mine weighed 2 lbs., 4 oz. The next day we caught fish of 2 lbs., 5 oz, and then 2 lbs., six oz. It was on the last day that George caught one that weighed 2 lbs., 7 oz., and it became the state record that held up for many years.

I was tickled for him, and he got a Master Angler award, and the mounted fish hung in the DNR offices in Lansing for years before his record was broken. He didn't care. He'd had his "15 minutes of fame."

And that was the neat thing about brother George. He could go with the flow, be happy doing anything outdoors, and greet each new day with a smile on his face. He had the capacity to make people feel good.

He's been gone for nearly nine years, and I miss him greatly. I'd trade many of my tomorrows for a single yesterday, doing something outdoors with him.