Deborah has a good story up about the opening of the Chinook fishery in Central Puget Sound.

I’m excited for the many people who will venture out to try and fill their ice chests. If the weather stays nice and the fish bite, it could be an angler’s paradise.

But the news for me is tinged with a sense of deep regret.

If life were fair, I would be out there with my brother, Chris, poles in the water, drinking some cold beers and shooting the breeze about the little things in our lives. I always meant to make the time for this kind of outing with Chris, a chance to learn how to fish from a guy who knew a lot about fishing.

Unfortunately, that chance has passed me by. Chris, who was just 44 years old, died on July 3 from cancer.

Chris has always been a part of my life. Four years older than me, he was close enough to my age that we shared a great deal growing up, but distant enough that he always had the upper hand. My oldest brother, Dennis, had eight years on me.

All three of us grew up on and around boats. My dad scrimped and saved his government salary to make sure that we had a sailboat, which managed to grow over the years, just as we did. We started with a 17-foot daysailer, then had a series of Catalinas. including the 22, 27 and finally, a 30.

Each of my father’s sons found a way to stay engaged on the water as adults. For Dennis, it was racing. For me, it was cruising. And for Chris, it was fishing. He loved it.

Fishing was an important escape for Chris. He was a lieutenant with the Bellevue Police Department, a job with stresses that most of us thankfully never have to face. Chris loved his work and he was good at it. Judging from the huge number of law enforcement officers who showed up for his memorial service last week, a lot of other people thought so too.

But even more than his job, Chris loved his family, his wife Karla and his three children, Brendan, Britta and Karl. When Chris went hunting in the fall, it was with the friends. But fishing, he could do with his children. Those hours on the water in his boat with his kids were probably some of the best in his life. I know that is how it sounded to me when he talked about what they caught and where.

I will miss so many things about my brother. His smile, his outrageously funny stories and the long, passionate debates we had about politics or other such nonsense. And I will miss his smoked salmon, which was in truth the best I’ve ever tasted.

What hurts most right now is thinking of all the hours we might have spent together in the years ahead, the stories he might have told, the beers we might have drank and the fish we might have caught.

Poles in the water, passing a few good hours. Now that’s what I would consider paradise.

Me and Chris in happier times.

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