Rocky Ford Creek Report: July in April

Life is busy, but you get a chance to make that trip to Rocky Ford. On the way, balsam root covers the hillsides, weeks early.

The day is hot and bright. The 80 degree barrier goes by the boards. It's like July in April.

The trout are busy sipping mays on top and just under. There are callibaetis...and others. You have those new ties, and a handful of old flies, but when it comes right down to it nothing you have seems to match the hatch. At least the hatch those fish are working.

It takes a long time to find the right combination of fly and presentation. When you do, a fish slams the fly instantly. Or it could have been blind luck.

It works on one more fish. It slashes at the fly but ends up foul-hooked. Live and learn, little fish.

There's another long stretch where nothing works. It's hot. You wish you'd brought more water. You're well-prepared for an April day, but for July, not so much.

You go to some of the old standby flies. The Lady McConnell is consistently spurned. A good fish grabs the new black Humpy and runs away with it, tippet and all. You have some more of what worked before, so you go back to it. It works again.

It slows again, though the fish are still active. You take the opportunity to notice new life all around you.

There is a city of pelicans here now, and you watch them while away the afternoon. A fisherman upstream suddenly shouts like a fool. You realize he's trying to scare the pelicans away from "his" water. There follow accounts of pelicans eradicating trout from entire river systems. One would think that he believes humans were here first, and pelicans were the ignorant and destructive interlopers.

A scattering of sandhill cranes passes overhead. They must be outliers of the great flocks taking refuge in the open fields farther south.

The sun settles down, and clouds of mosquitoes rise up.

You fish through it all, but your flies seem to be invisible. The pelicans call it a day, and you decide it's time you did the same.

You hike out while the sunset flares and fades.

You pack up as quickly as possible and rush straight to the first convenience store and a tall, cold drink. Ahhhhh. That feels good.

 In fact, it all felt good.

"What's Found" by Sheila Packa

in the tangle of trees

in twigs

from branches

and trunks and roots

in the ephemeral

tenderness of green

leaves that last a season

in the trembling and wind

the blue of sky and lake

in clouds resounding

from a place of emptiness

a chamber that answers

in vibration, string and wind

a trembling, brimming and falling

in the place opposite of grief

the place opposite of dark

in the body of lost

in water and air

a star whose light

has ended but travels

toward us

rising and falling

in a cascade of notes

which is not endless

but aching and sweet

like iridescent feathers

of wings that rise and fall

in the circle of migration

in each flight

music that we breathe

"What's Found" by Sheila Packa from Echo & Lighting. © Wildwood River Press, 2010.

Cutthroat Lake Report: Three Best Things Not Fish

I did get over to Cutthroat Lake the other day. It was windy, and stayed windy. I took a long circuit around the lake trolling several gaudy flies deep, shallow, and deeper. I even threw a muddler up against a formerly productive stretch of shoreline. Caught nothing, saw nothing.

The three best things to come out of the trip were 1. Some much-needed exercise; 2. Seeing and hearing a high string of Sandhill cranes; and 3. Having a handful of swallows swoop around me for a short time, surely one of the last contingents of migrators, and the last sighting of swallows until Spring returns.

"Watching Sandhill Cranes" by William Stafford

Spirits among us have departed--friends,

relatives, neighbors: we can't find them.

If we search and call, the sky merely waits.

Then some day here come the cranes

planing in from cloud or mist--sharp,

lonely spears, awkwardly graceful.

They reach for the land; they stalk

the ploughed fields, not letting us near,

not quite our own, not quite the world's.

People go by and pull over to watch. They

peer and point and wonder. It is because

these travelers, these far wanderers,

plane down and yearn in a reaching

flight. They extend our life,

piercing through space to reappear

quietly, undeniably, where we are.

"Watching Sandhill Cranes" by William Stafford, from Even In Quiet Places. © Confluence Press, 1996.

Sandhills: A Brief Stop On the Journey

I always look forward to the migration of the Sandhill Cranes each Spring and Fall. I have seen impossible numbers of birds in long twisting skeins etched across a grey sky almost out of eyesight. And I love to hear the mystical clattery notes of their calls drifting faintly down from great flocks of them, invisible in the night sky somewhere between me and the stars, moving on, always moving on.

This Fall people were telling about seeing and hearing them, but I hadn't seen or heard a peep. Then this past Wednesday evening I got home and started to open the back door when I heard the unmistakable call of Sandhills. They were close. Looking up I saw a flock coming in over the trees for a landing on the island behind our house. I ran inside, grabbed my camera, and got these shots before they finally took one last turn to the south and never came back.

Fall Notes: Harbingers

A taste of what's coming. On the ridge tops a dusting of white from the leaden clouds.

Overhead, exactly twenty sandhills flap by, calling out, according to Peterson's Field Guide to Western Birds,  their shrill rolling garoooo-a-a-a's, and tuk-tuk -- tuk-tuk -- tuk-tuk's, and even a gooselike onk.

They fly determinedly into the distance--heading north.

But they'll figure it out. And so will we.