River Report: In Motion

In a previous post I talked about the reasons I hadn't gotten to the river yet. But I was becoming more and more aware of another factor working its influence: inertia. "A body at rest tends to stay at rest; a body in motion tends to stay in motion."

So this evening I sucked it up, made the necessary switches, and hit the river. I worked the Bridge Run thoroughly, using a sink tip and weighted flies. I was definitely getting the flies deep; I lost two of them on snags.

I didn't turn any Steelhead, but I caught two nice trout. This is the best one. The smaller one hit when I had maybe 60 yards of line out and made one lovely jump way downstream. It felt good to have a trout in hand again.

On the wade out against the current I did that little dance you do as your foot slips off a rock and the current plays hell with your feet, doing its best to keep you from finding purchase. I was turned completely around when I finally got my footing, but I was still up. My hands are finally thawed out, but my feet have a ways to go yet. I'll let you know if my chest cold turns into pneumonia.

But I'm in motion again.

The Reward of a Job Well Done

Like my father before me, and maybe like fathers everywhere, I sometimes worry that my sons aren't learning a strong work ethic. So I was a little surprised when Jeremiah and his friend Ian went out Friday afternoon on a day off from school and split and stacked our first load of wood. I had gotten a good start on it, but there was still plenty left to be done.

Isaiah and his two friends were inside playing Oblivion--Kim had taken them in that morning to finally pick it up. It wasn't long before Tim and Marshall came outside and wanted to help. I asked Jeremiah later if he had read Tom Sawyer. He hasn't; that's a pleasure still ahead of him. So I explained how Tom makes whitewashing the fence--a job he hates--look like so much fun that he gets his friends to pay him for the privilege of doing it for him. Jeremiah liked that.

Tim and Marshall finished off the last of the wood, except for one final piece. There was a bit of a contest to see who would get the honor of the last lick.

Soon that piece, too, was split and stacked. And just in the nick of time. That night it rained and snowed.

I thanked Jeremiah for his hard work, and for his excellent timing in getting the work done just before the rain. Jeremiah, who never misses an opportunity, asked, "So how much are you going to pay me?"

So I gave him what my father often tried to give me: wisdom. I said, "The reward of a job well done is to have done it."

He loved that.

But he hasn't bugged me about money since. I think he learned Friday--though he'd never admit it to me--that there might be something in that old saying after all.

Thanks again, J. Good work.

Speaking of Rivers...

This is superb.

Voice of the River from Maks Roslovtsev on Vimeo.

"The White," by Patricia Hampl

These are the moments
before snow, whole weeks before.
The rehearsals of milky November,
cloud constructions
when a warm day
lowers a drift of light
through the leafless angles
of the trees lining the streets.
Green is gone,
gold is gone.
The blue sky is
the clairvoyance of snow.
There is night
and a moon
but these facts
force the hand of the season:
from that black sky
the real and cold white
will begin to emerge.

"The White" by Patricia Hampl, from Resort. © Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1983.

"You Just Keep Thinkin', Butch..."

Fishing certainly helps me get through the tough times, but so does thinking about fishing.

This is an awkward time of year for me as I make the transition from lake to river. There's certainly nothing complicated about it logistically. Just take a few fly boxes out of the vest, add a few, pick up a different rod, and go. There's not even a float tube to mess with.

The awkwardness comes with the emotional adjustment. I always miss the lake for awhile; the lake itself, and the Lake Experience. It's the "Where did the Summer go?" problem. You get home at 5 PM, it's November for crying out loud, it's dark and cold, and you still wonder how you got here. The better the Summer, the more you miss it; and this was a very good Summer at the lake.

Eventually though, your thinking starts its Fall migration, and you think less about the lake and what was, and more about the river and what's to come. So you suck it up, layer up, and hit the water.

I've been thinking more about the river, and especially the changes I discovered when I checked it out a few weeks ago. The high water in May and June left a tree in the bridge run, and shelved away a whole section of bank there. The result is a deeper, bigger run tailing into a deeper, bigger pool and backwater.

That has to be good, from a fish perspective. The problem the last time I was there was getting flies down into those mysterious depths. I had come without a sink tip, or weighted flies, or even weights.

So I've already put the sink tip in the vest, and I've been playing at the vise. I got some big tungsten beads, about a pound and a half each, and tied up a few deep divers.

And I wrapped a ton of lead wire on a few more.

I think I can get those down where they need to be. And I'm starting to think about what it feels like when you hit pay dirt. But I'm also thinking about how I'll play a good Steelhead there if I hook one. I used to lead it into the backwater, which is too deep to reach now, and tail it, or beach it on the bank that's no longer there. Now I think I'll have to work it through the strongest current to get it close enough to have a chance to tail it.

That's something to think about.

The main thing is, I'm thinking. Soon now, I'll actually get to the river. With recent events I decided to stay close to home for awhile for Jeremiah. Then I caught a chest cold from Isaiah. But all that is working itself out. It's almost time.

Meanwhile, I'll keep following Robert Redford's advice to Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:  "You just keep thinkin', Butch. That's what you're good at."

"Dulce Et Decorum Est," by Wilfred Owen, 1893-1918

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." --from an ode by Horace

("It is sweet and proper to die for your country.") 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime. -
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

A Lesson Learned

The full moon holds sway over the earth, and strange things happen. The dog barks incessantly at everything that moves in the luminescent landscape. And Isaiah convinces me to go to the midnight release of the latest Oblivion game.

It's pre-ordered; he paid in full with his own money. All he needs is an adult to pick it up for him because of the M rating. Two friends come along with Isaiah; they meet another friend there. The two will be staying overnight with us. No school tomorrow! The plan is to play the new game until they drop from exhaustion. Life is good.

The store is crowded but not jam-packed. There are plenty of people there who don't need a parent along.

The game plays on monitors around the store. The boys stand in front of one, but none of them want to risk looking foolish. They avoid the controller. Someone older comes over and takes the controller and marches into the mountains with a big sword and a left hand capable of shooting fire at enemies.

The boys watch, and anticipate; this will be so good!

Our turn comes. I flash my ID. No good. The computer says Kim, not Jim. Yeah, that's my wife; she's home fast asleep. But I'm here. No, it has to be Kim. It's a liability issue. We can only release it to Kim. Yeah, but look: same address, same last name.... No. So, you got a release form I could sign? Anything? Nope.

We leave. Gameless. At first Isaiah is angry at me. Then at Kim. Then, as the truck speeds down the highway through the moonlight, he begins making disparaging comments about all the "adult nerds" who didn't have anything better to do with their lives than play video games. Starting tonight ahead of him. Finally his anger focuses: it's Gamestop and their stupid rules.

So now Isaiah is angry at giant corporations who put their bottom line ahead of the little guy they say they're serving.

So the trip wasn't a complete waste of time.

Read This

Singlebarbed gets to the heart of something that has been nagging at me for a long while. Sure we're all disgusted, but why the hell aren't more of us doing something about it?

Calendar

There are calendars printed on paper stock that you hang on your wall. Then there are calendars that stand majestically in the distance recording--minute by minute, day by day--every nuanced change of the passing year on their stony face.

I have neglected to photograph this calendar for awhile, to my detriment. But I have checked it every day. I don't look for a number. I seek the more important distinctions of the day: how the sky and earth, the light and shadows, are configured in this present moment, and what that says about the season of the year, the season of my life, and the season of the cosmos.

This calendar tells me inerrantly that time passes. But it also tells me undoubtedly that change is but a fleeting shadow on the face of the infinite.

June 13, 2011

November 8, 2011

"Into the Woods," by David Budbill

Long-johns top and bottom, heavy socks, flannel shirt, overalls,
steel-toed work boots, sweater, canvas coat, toque, mittens: on.

Out past grape arbor and garden shed, into the woods.
Sun just coming through the trees. There really is such a thing

as Homer's rosy-fingered dawn. And here it is, this morning.
Down hill, across brook, up hill, and into the stand of white pine

and red maple where I'm cutting firewood. Open up workbox,
take out chain saw, gas, bar oil, kneel down, gas up saw, add

bar oil to the reservoir, stand up, mittens off, strap on and buckle
chaps from waist to toe, hard hat helmet: on. Ear protectors: down,

face screen: down, push in compression release, pull out choke,
pull on starter cord, once, twice, go. Stall. Pull out choke, pull on

starter cord, once, twice, go. Push in choke. Mittens: back on.
Cloud of two-cycle exhaust smoke wafting into the morning air

and I, looking like a medieval Japanese warrior, wade through
blue smoke, knee-deep snow, revving the chain saw as I go,

headed for that doomed, unknowing maple tree.

"Into the Winter Woods" by David Budbill, from Happy Life. © Copper Canyon Press, 2011.

Grand: The Ronde

Grand: Steel in the Oregon Outback from Outside Bend Productions on Vimeo.

Remembering Nathaniel

I debated whether to share this on the blog. For many of us, fishing is an escape from the harsher realities of life, and that goes for the time we spend checking out fishing blogs. But sometimes the hard truths won't be denied. That's when we realize the deeper significance of fishing: it helps us get through the harsher realities of life.

This is Nathaniel. He was Jeremiah's friend. Last week he took his own life. He was 15 years old.

He was a gawky kid, unpopular, often bullied; his Dad had died a few years ago, and he was dealing with an unstable home life. I was proud that Jeremiah went against popular opinion and became his friend. Nathaniel came to our house several times for long weekends.

Last June he went with us to the Bass lake. He and Jeremiah had a plan: they were going to catch Bluegill and use them as bait for the monster Catfish rumored to be prowling the warm depths. They never caught a Catfish, but they had a good time trying.

Jeremiah is doing OK. He's working to make sense of it all. I suggested he might feel angry at Nathaniel for doing this. He said, "It never occurred to me to be angry at Nathaniel. I'm angry at his decision." I think Jeremiah knows more than I do what Nathaniel had to cope with, and is working to make sense of all of that as much as of what Nathaniel did.

That's something all of us should be working at, for all the kids out there still living on the edge.

Of course, I wish I had been able to do or say something that would have made the difference. It's what we do. But we did what we did, and he did what he did. That's the truth of it.

But there's another truth. For a long afternoon and evening he was at the lake with us, safe, happy, and having fun. Maybe it was a brief escape for him. Maybe it helped get him through a little longer. I don't know.

What I do know is that it was one of those "perfect moments on the water and in life" that I want this blog to be about. I wish it could have made a difference. But then again, I believe it did.

"I Want My Money!!"

OK, this has nothing to do with fly fishing. Except maybe that the best fishing trips, when you aren't by yourself, are the ones where you laugh the most. Or maybe that the worst ones include some guy who's exactly like Pearl. You decide.

The Landlord from Will Ferrell      

It's River Time

October in Styria from Michal Potoczek on Vimeo.

Trout Lake Report: So Long, Lake--For Now

All things run their course, and so the long lake season, begun in the time of shoots and buds, comes to its end in the time of fruit and seeds.

A rancher on horseback was bringing his cattle down from the high country, a Fall ritual as old as the first time ranchers came into these mountains.

The tamaracks were yellow ghosts in the forest, preparing to drop their needles until the next growing season.

The lake shimmered under a pale sun and a fitful breeze out of the south. The sun was but a shadow of its former self, and the breeze a thin version of the warm, sweet, south winds of summer.

I launched the faithful float tube for the last time this year. I paddled out into the channel; to my left: the north end, and memories; to my right: the south end, and memories. All around me: one more memory to make.

I had a nymph and indicator on in case trout were tailing again, reaping the harvest of lowering lake levels and withering weeds.

There were no tailing fish this time, but a trout came up near me with a splashy rise, and when I dropped the nymph into its window it took hungrily.

I had a swirl at the indicator on one of my retrieves, so I succumbed to the inevitable and tied on a stimulator.

I worked my way down the shoreline, inducing a few swirls but no takes. But once again, as I have so many times before--and as I will so many times again--I was fishing.

I had slipped far down the shoreline when the south breeze fluttered and died. Fish began to rise and it seemed that things were going my way. All treat on this Halloween day.

Then the pines began to moan up on the mountainside, a breeze picked up and swirled round and round, and suddenly a strong wind came roaring down out of the north and hit like an avalanche. The lake had one more trick up its sleeve.

I gave up searching for fish along the shoreline and began the long, hard paddle against the wind back toward the channel and the truck. I was dragging the stimulator behind me, and two small fish, holding the promise of seasons to come, refused to let it pass.

I reached sheltered water, dried out the stimulator, and went back to working the shoreline. One last time: the stimulator rides high on the dark water, making little ripples as I strip, pause, strip. Then the water boils under it and it disappears in the center of a rapidly expanding ring. I raise the rod and the vibrancy of another life, wild and free, shoots up my arm and into my soul. One last time, and the last trout of the season.

It was a good time for an ending. So for the last time this season I packed up the truck.

And for the last time this season I climbed the ridge out of the high valley.

And so, like all things, the season has run its course. But even as it comes to an end it is sowing the seeds of the next season.

So long, lake--for now.