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.

"Passage," by John Brehm

In all the woods that day I was
the only living thing
fretful, exhausted, or unsure.
Giant fir and spruce and cedar trees
that had stood their ground
three hundred years
stretched in sunlight calmly
unimpressed by whatever
it was that held me
hunched and tense above the stream,
biting my nails, calculating all
my impossibilities.
Nor did the water pause
to reflect or enter into
my considerations.
It found its way
over and around a crowd
of rocks in easy flourishes,
in laughing evasions and
shifts in direction.
Nothing could slow it down for long.
It even made a little song
out of all the things
that got in its way,
a music against the hard edges
of whatever might interrupt its going.

"Passage" by John Brehm, from Help is on the Way. © The University of Wisconsin Press, 2012.

Trout Lake Report: Doing Just Fine

You fly the coop. Life is getting complicated, and you need a lake break. You get there early because you know you'll need to leave early. You tie on your big orange muddler. Time to break it in; time to get it blooded.  

Fronts are colliding all over the place, and the wind is roaring. It's out of the south, but it's cold. You bob through the channel to its north end and fish the foam lines, and between the foam lines. You remember good fish in the past just waiting for something big and juicy to blow down the channel. But there's nothing there today willing to take a big orange muddler.

So you kick over to the shoreline and fish the open water between tangled weed mats. You get a chase, and another one, and finally a hookup. All is well.

You aren't the only fisherman on the lake. There are three boats on the north lake and four on the south. But your current favorite shoreline is open so you kick back through the channel to the south lake, lean back on the wind, and work your way down.

Nobody home today. So you round out into open water and slowly drift the muddler behind you as you let the wind push you back to the channel.

The wind calms a little as you go, and fish begin to show themselves. You get some big swirls and misses on the muddler. Then a fat rainbow nails it.

You're cold and you need to leave soon, but you wonder if anything brown might be stirring now along the rocky point where they have stirred before. You give it a shot, but everything stays blue.

You kick across the channel and reel in. You'll leave it to the boys in the boats. You wish them luck.

Nice job, Big Orange Muddler. You did just fine.

You head for home and the complications of life. But you're doing just fine, too.

Fly Tying: For Old Times' Sake

The weather is turning. There is talk of the first snow on the mountain passes. Our own low temperatures will dip below freezing on the next few nights, and daytime temperatures will struggle to reach fifty. And yes, there's rain forecast, which means we, too, could wake up some morning soon to find that snow has progressed from talk to reality.

All this means taking advantage of the remaining relatively warm days while they last. And that means a few more flies for the occasion. Funny how in October orange and black flies seem to be just the thing. But I also couldn't resist a sweet little peacock stimulator, just in case some discriminating fish prefer something less garish.

Steelhead fishing opened on Columbia tribs on the 16th. That's my river. And the lake season closes on Halloween. So soon I will be tying up a few more steelhead flies and braving the icy flows once again. But for now, a few more lake flies. Just for old times' sake.

Trout Lake Report: A Tinge of Desperation

It's a beautiful October day. The sun is warm and the breeze is cool. The water is cold and clear.

The road is busy. Hunters drive slowly up and down scanning the meadows and ridges. The short season is half over and they still haven't gotten their deer. There's a tinge of desperation in the air.

You have your old muddler on. It has been well-used on recent trips. The tail has been chewed off, but it still floats, and you like it. It is, as one of your commenters once said so well, like a favorite old pair of jeans.

You start up the shoreline and a good fish takes right off the rocks.

A ghostly brown, hard and cold and strong.

He was on the fly in a heartbeat, and he takes no reviving before he muscles out of your hand and goes back to his hunting. You wonder if there is a tinge of desperation in the fish as they seek sustenance and strength against the coming lean times.

Then a nice rainbow, also quick to go.

You work on around the shoreline.

A baby brown goes for broke and takes a chance on what looks like a lot of meat for the money.

It's getting colder, and you zip your jacket up higher.

You're laying the fly into skinny water between the shoreline and weed beds when you get another take. The fish thrashes and yellow flashes. A good brown. You try to keep his head up but he gets into the weeds. The weeds have turned over on themselves in the low water, and wrapped around themselves in tight tangles. The brown is all knotted up. You try finesse, then brute force. The knot of weeds is too much for the knot on your 4X, and fish and fly are gone. You're going to miss that muddler.

You have more, and tie one on. There's a rainbow on the outside edge of the weeds and he takes in a blue flash. He's a jumper; three times he comes straight up out of the water, three, maybe four feet high. He hangs in the air in the soft evening light.

The day is going, and cold is settling down. You start the kick back and drift the muddler behind you. You hook up three times, and all three fish leap off the hook. No time for imitations.

You find yourself shivering as you stow your gear, and you fire up the truck and crank up the heater. And as you drive down the road past the hunters' camps, and think about the precious few days left in the season, and wonder how soon you'll be able to get back to the lake, you feel it. Just a tinge of desperation.

Montana Fly Fishing, Fall 2012

Around here we refer to Montana as "back east," but you have to admit it provides some pretty nice Western fly fishing.

Some beautiful stuff in this issue. Click here.

Trout Lake Report: Hunters and Prey

It's an overcast, blustery Friday, the perfect October day. The river is beautiful now, and full of salmon, but you need the lake. You know the days of the lake are dwindling.

The campgrounds are full. The dusty gravel road is choked with traffic. You eat dust behind five other vehicles on the way in. Deer hunters. Rifle season opens in the morning. Some, like you, are taking in some trout fishing tonight. They are in high spirits, talking and laughing loudly as they troll around the lake. Others have apparently brought more ammo than the one bullet they will theoretically need to bring down their deer, and are shooting off their big rifles. The mountains reverberate with high caliber echoes. It seems unlikely that any deer will be left in the valley after all this ruckus.

You know you're a hunter, too, and you know where your prey is. You load up with a muddler and kick across the channel to a productive shoreline. You start your stalk.

And you get your buck. A girthy buck brown comes up off the rocks and ambushes the muddler.

If it was a deer your hunt would be over. But it's a trout; you're just getting started. You release the brown and kick on down the shoreline.

A golden rainbow slants up out of the dying weeds and takes the fly with deadly intent.

You release the rainbow and continue to hunt the shoreline. You are comforted by the ritual. You remember again that you hunt for the hunting as much as the prey. That what you're seeking in the hunt, and what you find if you're fortunate, is yourself.

You come to the end of the willows. The breeze is sharper now and you feel it in your toes. There's a swirl on the muddler.

It's a weighty rainbow, a scarred veteran of the war against his kind. His right pectoral is a shriveled nub. You wonder what hunter he eluded on that occasion. And how many through his lifetime. Eagle, osprey, loon, great blue heron, otter, even other trout. He's had to live--had to struggle to live--with them all. And now you.

But his luck has held. The hunter who holds him is one whose life does not depend on the taking of his life. You gladly release him, and wish him long life as he sinks into safety.

The shooting has stopped. The breeze has calmed and there are rises out in open water. You swing out and another good fish takes the muddler. Beautiful, unscarred, perhaps wiser now and more likely to survive to old age.

The light dies behind the mountain. You begin a slow kick back to the truck, letting the muddler drift behind you.

You lose two fish, and net the third. Your hunt is over.

But the hunt goes on. You can hear it all around you. You think about your prey, swimming out there in the dark lake. Every one of them was caught by taking what they took to be prey. Every one of them is still out there, hunting.

There's the truth of it. We're all hunters. And we're all prey.