My first grandchild was born last week. What better way to celebrate the birth of Eleanor Jean than to go fishing. Actually, our trip to the upper Big Hole is an annual event and this year's trip was planned long before we knew little Elly would be in such a hurry to check out her new home.

Now I know a grandpa has an important role in a new baby's life. I also know that the first week is best reserved for the new mom and dad to get acquainted with the baby with maybe some time reserved for Grandma. So Steve and I decided to go ahead and set up camp at Mussigbrod Lake for a long weekend of grayling and brook trout fishing.

This year, for the first time, Steve's two boys were coming with us. We hauled two rafts with us and our plan was for each of us to take one of the boys when we were fishing. As a new grandpa, I figured I needed a refresher course in fishing with a kid, so I volunteered to row Steve's youngest boy, Bryce, around the lake.

Bryce isn't new to fishing and my role as a teacher was mostly limited to reminding him not to cast over my line and helping with the release of occasional deep hooked fish. The fishing was pretty good and we all had fun catching and releasing a fair number of 8- to 11-inch grayling.

Saturday afternoon we took a little time off from casting to do some small stream fly fishing for brook trout. The open section of the creek we chose to fish is only about 2 miles long. It seems like every nice reach already had a fisherman or two in residence, but I finally found a little stretch to call my own.

I found one corner of the stream that was occupied by a pugnacious ";trophy class" 6-inch brook trout hiding under a low hanging willow branch. This gutsy little guy would pounce on my red backed humpy each time.

I was able to slip a cast under the branch, but I just could not set the hook. Finally, after about 10 minutes of sidearm casting and trying to place my fly just so, I decided to try some easier water.

As I turned to leave, I saw a young man of 20 or so, sitting against a tree about 15 yards away. I started to apologize for hogging the hole, but he stopped me and told me as a boy he used to fish this stream with his grandpa.

When he saw me he was reminded of his grandpa so he sat down to watch. As he watched me try to slide my fly under the tree, he remembered his grandpa spending more time trying to catch a particular fish.

Now as a young man watching me, he finally understood why his grandpa did that. For some reason his story really got to me. I quickly said something inane and headed up stream before he could notice the tears welling in my eyes.

A few months ago, my daughter asked me if I had given any thoughts as to how I wanted my grandkids to refer to me. I remember when my son was 8 or 9, after one of Karen's parents' trips to Montana, he told her that Grandpa Royce was his game grandpa because he liked to play card and table games with him.

Karen asked him what kind of grandpa my Dad was and he answered that Grandpa Bill was his fun grandpa because he was always telling jokes and funny stories. I suppose in my case there are far worse things to be called than the ";Fishing Grandpa."