Placid. Serene. Tranquil. All of these adjectives and countless others can be used to describe a body of water being fished upon. For most everybody who find themselves out on the water with a rod and a tackle box, the experience is just as relaxing and calm as the body of water itself. For Blanchet Dean of Students and English teacher Chris Bilanko, there’s nothing quite better than being out on the water with his brother for the day.

“It’s pretty cool just to be out there and floating in the river and throwing your line in,” said Bilanko. “It’s something I really enjoy.”

Although free time is rare to come by for Mr. Bilanko in the midst of all his current responsibilities, when it does present itself Mr. Bilanko enjoys the recreational hobby of fly-fishing with his older brother.

One experience that captivated Mr. Bilanko and instilled an abiding interest in fishing within him was a fishing trip to Alaska. Six years ago, Mr. Bilanko and his brother ventured up to Alaska to fortify their interest in fishing.

“I went on a fishing trip up in Alaska like five, six years ago” said Bilanko. “My brother and I caught a bunch of fish and that was an awesome experience.”

The two enjoyed their trip and had immense success day-in and day-out. The trip established a precedent that made the two of them know that they wanted to make fishing trips a regular endeavor in their lives.

Ever since his brother first introduced him to the recreational activity about 10+ years ago, Mr. Bilanko and his older brother have been avid fly-fishermen. An ideal Saturday for them includes a trek up the Yakima river early in the morning and a full day spent behind the rod until dusk, enjoying both the ever-elusive task of bringing in the catch of the day as well as their beautiful surroundings.  Although the two haven’t had the time as of late to get out for fishing trips as regularly as they’d like, it makes them enjoy their days all the more when they do have the time.

“We always love it when we can get out for a fishing trip, although we’ve found that we don’t get out as consistently as we should to really get good at it.”

At one point in time, early into his fishing interest, Mr. Bilanko and his brother were making trips out to the Yakima River nearly every Saturday. “We were really starting to get consistent with it,” said Bilanko “saying to one another ‘okay every Saturday, or at least every other Saturday, we’re gonna go’.”

On top of growing closer to one another as siblings, the two were really beginning to make strides in their fishing outputs from the regularity of their trips. “I had gotten fairly decent at tying the fly and reeling in fish,” said Bilanko. “But it really is one of those things where you’ve gotta keep doing it to get good at it.”

As alluded to, their regular trips eventually subsided and the two have been struggling to find the time to make regular trips as of late. As the two of them both got married, had children, and family life took up nearly all of their time outside of work. The two willingly gave up their Saturday fishing trips to make time for their families, although the fishing trips have gone missed.

Now holding a bigger role in the school than ever before in his position as Dean of Students, continuing to serve as the head of operations for the school basketball program, on top of raising two kids of his own, the time to dedicate an entire day of the week to fishing simply doesn’t come around all to often.

“My life is very much about this school and then about our basketball program and those two things take up a lot of time,” said Bilanko. “If I’m not doing one of those two things the odds are that I’m at home with my kids. That’s really it, we’re doing whatever they want to be doing or whatever they’re into.”

Although life holds a tremendous amount of responsibility right now for Mr. Bilanko, he knows that in continuing to work hard now, in due time, readily available free-time will begin present itself. And when this free-time comes around, Mr. Bilanko has a resounding sense that fly-fishing would be something he’d love invest time into.

“Fishing is something that I know love doing,” said Bilanko. “Although I haven’t gotten to do it as much as I’d like to, the desire is still there to pursue it as a regular hobby moving into the future.”

“Slowly but surely,” said  Bilanko, “I see myself becoming a decent fly-fisherman as a serious hobby down the road.”