"As If the Sky and High Plateaus...," by Gary Young

I heard from my sister that the "Albright post-rock" that used to reside at my parents' home in Kansas has been relocated. My parents are now in Assisted Living, so there was no suitable place for it with them anymore. So my sister and her husband planted it on some land they have in New Mexico. It's nice to think of it there, at 7,321 feet,  marking another family outpost in the West.

The same day I heard about the post-rock this poem appeared on The Writer's Almanac. It seemed appropriate for the occasion.

Photos by Mary Nell Hoover

As if the sky and the high plateaus were not enough, here is a canyon
colored like a child's box of crayons. There are strata of purple,
scarlet, yellow, and beige. Small buttes that look like wedding cakes
rise up out of the gorge, each layer distinct and otherworldly. There
is a shade of green in the small hills surrounding these outcrops
I have not seen anywhere else: there are traces of sage, olive, turquoise,
the sea, but also sulfur, graphite, and blood. A huge portion of the
mountain has fallen away from the side of a cliff creating a natural
amphitheater. Echoes are amplified and return resonant and strong.
I sit and listen to the split-tailed swifts that nest in the cliff. They
whistle, and the echo makes them seem larger, and stronger, and
nearer than they really are.

"As if the sky and high plateaus..." by Gary Young, from Even So: New and Selected Poems. © White Pine Press, 2012.

Trout Lake Report: Check, and Checkmate

It's 6 PM before you get on the water. The breeze is just dying. It has been a warm day, but there's a cool edge to the air at the lake. A jacket feels good.

You're in a muddler mood again. You start up the shoreline.

A fish finally takes on the strip. There are other fish around; you've seen them come up. But this is the only one willing to come to the fly.

The evening is lovely. You let its calm beauty fill you.

Fish begin to rise. You see a lone callibaetis on the water. A couple of caddis flutter by. You tie on a caddis imitation and manage a missed take, and then a hookup.

More fish are rising, multiple times. You see some big tails waggling, dorsals cutting the smooth surface. But they ignore your caddis. They're on the countless tiny midges.

You tie on the smallest midge fly you have and give it a go. But to no avail. You ask yourself that age old question: would my chances increase if I move constantly, or if I stay in one place? You try both, but are seldom able to reach the rising fish, and when you do they veer off away from the fly.

This is fishing, as absorbing as a chess game. When you can't see the fly anymore you tip over your king and give the game to the fish.

It's deep dusk, and you tie on a woolly bugger with the aid of your light. You begin the troll back to the truck.

You get some bumps, but they're bats hitting your floating line. When you get near the take out you stop for a moment trying to discern the opening in the dark shoreline trees. You're reaching for the light when a good fish grabs the motionless bugger and runs with it, taking out line. You're late to respond. You feel the weight, then hear a splash and know the fish has jumped. You reel in line frantically until you realize the fish is gone.

Check, and checkmate.

Full Moon (Big Dipper)

Trout Lake Report: Rowdy and Uncooperative

You make another evening of it. You drive past the south campground, as you have every time you've come, then hit the brakes. The Rv's and tents that have been there for two months are gone. Not a soul is there. You turn around and launch at the south end for the first time this season. All evening long it's just you and the fish.

You work the far shoreline with a stimulator and get no action. You keep hearing big splashes out in the main lake. So you kick out. The wind has picked up, and you let it scoot the stimulator through the ripples.

Against all odds you get a take. The fish is a good one. It rips line off the reel, and your knuckles get a good whacking from the reel handle. You keep tightening up the drag, and the fish keeps taking out line. He jumps, and lands with a big whack. You work him in close. You're reaching back to get the net when he's suddenly gone. You figure he broke you off, and when you pull in the line you discover he did. But he didn't break off the fly, he broke off the hook. Kudos to you, fish.

You hope lightning will strike twice, but it doesn't. The lake gradually calms, and you tie on a little dry and begin chasing rises.

The sun breaks through for a few minutes, and you soak in the beauty. You love this south end.

You find a fish rising multiple times in one area. You drop the little fly in his circle and wait. He takes it and you finally have a fish in the net. He fights hard, too. He won't hold still. You get one shot, then he flips off your lap and off the hook and is gone.

More fish are coming up. They head off purposefully in one direction, chain rising. Usually that direction is away from you. You see some good fish porpoising, but you can't get close before they're gone. You're loving it.

Sometimes you can intercept them with a long cast, and watch as they get nearer and nearer and then suck in your fly. You catch a handful of small fish. They're small, but they're strong and fight with persistence. They want nothing to do with you and the net.

They're rowdy and uncooperative, too. They thrash in the net, splashing you and the camera lense, and they don't want to pose for pictures.

You love them for it. You want them to grow up and have a chance to see if they can break your hook off.

Reflections on June, Blogging, and The Slam

June was a busy month. It was busy with work and family activities, and it was busy with fishing trips. I fished a lot. Fourteen times over the month I was at one lake or another for an average, I suppose, of five hours each time. That's more than usual. At least by a little bit.

The event that increased my number of trips in June was the Brown Drake hatch. (I've been calling them "Hex," a bow to the local common name. But they're Brown Drakes. Big, beautiful Brown Drakes.) This year we hit the high end of the cycle, and the hatch was, as I've noted on this blog several times, spectacular.

Some people don't understand this, but in the same way I wouldn't think of missing an important event like Christmas, for example, I also wouldn't think of missing a natural event like this hatch. It's the same reason I want to go outside when there's a thunderstorm, or a full moon, or a flight of Sandhills passing by high overhead. These are special moments in life, and I am enriched when I can observe and celebrate them. I would go further to say that with man-made events like holidays it can be a struggle to escape their commercialization and cheapening, and to discover and experience their true meaning. But the natural events all around us come to us pure and unadulterated. Our spirits hunger for what they provide so abundantly: reality and authenticity.

So I went several days in a row, not just to be there for the hatch, but to be a part of the hatch. That was awesome in itself, but the hatch also coincided with another awesome natural phenomenon, the lengthening of days leading up to the summer solstice. For me, that was a life-changing experience. I lost myself in an endless hatch on an eternal evening. It was wonderful.

It also meant I got home late after those trips, and got behind in my posts. And, with the other things I was busy with, I failed to respond to many of your comments. I really appreciate your comments, and I apologize for my lack of response. I'll try to do better.

Mark has raised a good question several times. He wonders how I manage to fish all those lakes all alone. First, I avoid the lakes that are really crowded. Second, the truth is that I am seldom the only one at the lakes I fish, although that does happen occasionally. When Trout Lake is "crowded," for example, there may be seven or eight other boats and watercraft out. But it's a big lake, and there's plenty of room for everybody. And, I confess, when I frame my photos I leave out the other boats, and the RV's stacked up in the campgrounds. At Cutthroat Lake there are three homes along the waterside, but you'll seldom if ever see them in my shots. I prefer--the photographer's prerogative--to focus on the wild and scenic aspects of the places I fish. That is the true essence of those places, and that's what I seek when I go there.

I'm fortunate to be where I am with the fishing opportunities I have. When we moved here I knew there would be good fishing, but it has turned out even better than I expected. I'm also fortunate that I have been able to make fishing not just a hobby or a pastime but a way of life. It wasn't always that way, especially during my sojourn in Chicago before we came here. I was lucky to fish five or six times a year. I remember sitting in the apartment surfing the web looking at all the beautiful places I wished I could fish, and all the beautiful trout I wished I could catch. And now I'm here, and I'm catching them.

That is what I want to show on this blog. I don't want to sell anything, or compete with anybody. I simply want to celebrate fly fishing, the natural world, the beauty of trout, and the joy of connecting with them through skill and experience. I hope this blog depicts in a simple and straightforward way what I was hungering for back in my Chicago days, and what I am so grateful for now.

Finally, June provided me with the opportunity to try for that Grand Slam again: four species of trout caught in a month. I missed it in May, but this time I got it done. It says little about me or my skills, but it speaks volumes about my wonderful home waters.

June Goes Over the Rainbow