The Good, the Bad & the Beautiful

Heyyyy, Vick-tore!
I say the name of my friend, whose full blooded Italian heritage means culinary expertise and mood disorder on a white table cloth, making my voice gravelly over the phone, an end to end connection that used to run fifteen miles but now numbers in the thousands.  His Uncle Jimmy, from the North End of Boston, perhaps a made man, perhaps not, but apparently always evincing immediate attention by the impressionable child Victor at the other end, made for a good story.  Victor is always good for a story it seems and more.

One day I made the mistake of fishing a beautiful pool on the upper Presumpscot River outside Falmouth Maine on the only stretch reserved for catch and release.  I had just moved back to Maine and begun making friends with the local fly tribe.  I had been fishing trout on Oregon's Deschutes and felt these small eastern fish less than worthy but still entertaining.  On this day I felt completely in the zone.  Fishing nymphs I slammed rainbows,  brookies and even a small landlocked salmon before the pool quieted. Alone, I had only the satisfaction of my own smile to keep me company.  As I exited the water, I happened to glance upstream from a new vantage point and felt an involuntary shudder.  "No fishing within 100 feet of the Dam" read the sign.  I didn't need a tape measure to know I was way too close and that my pool was probably home to those resident salmonids smart enough to seek shelter beyond an invisible regulatory fence. I could have kept this to myself, but hubris combined with stupidity reaps its own reward. I told Victor.

A day or so later, I noticed the light flashing on my answering machine.
The message started.  "This is Hom-ah Jahn-son and I am looking for Mr. Barry Woods.  I am a game warden out of the Gray Fish & Wildlife office.  I tried to stop you on Tuesday when I saw you fishing illegally below the dam on the Presumpscot Riv-ah.  I got yawr license plate from yawr vee-hicle and and I would like to ask you a few questions.  I am not in the office now but I will caul you back shortly."

I knew immediately it had to be Victor.  But, the sound of noise from my circulatory system in my ear drums being what it was, I listened to it again. And again. And again.  I listened to the pronunciation of each syllable of the Maine accent for some Massachusett's giveaway, the hesitations, the tone, the inflections.  I listened to each word for the slightest whiff of betrayal.  I listened to it an hour later, after my reasoning returned and my ears refreshed. Again, not a hint of bluff or skulduggery.  It laid out straight and true like the cast from a Sage RPL 8 weight.   Try as I might I did not hear Victor.  YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SHITTIN ME, I get busted the very first time I fish the Presumpscot? My happy daze over a dozen trout dissolved into a fresh reality involving a fine and public humiliation.

Since I was raised with the innate paradox of hubris and conscience,  I had always believed it worth the effort to cleanse character of sinful behavior (and, no, I was not raised Catholic, but by a single mother and practicing Christian Scientist, a story I will NOT get into here) I sought refuge again in the truth.  I called the Gray barracks and asked for Warden Homer Johnson.  The voice on the other end paused thoughtfully and said, "Well, we do have a Warden Johnson but he is not currently stationed here. I can give you his number.  Can I ask what it's about?" To which, being dumb but not stupid, I replied, "Well, I got a call from him and expect him to call me back.  Thanks for your help."

I called Victor.  I started to explain the story of the phone message and my effort to call the barracks but he broke in to reassure me. "Barry, it was an honest mistake.  There's no way they are going to bother with you.  The wardens up here are really good guys and will cut you slack.  I just hope you didn't get a call from a warden named Homer Johnson, he's an incredible hard ass." His voice broke ever so slightly.

Tears burned down my cheeks in disgrace, and I had to hold the phone arms length from my mouth. I began laughing.  Even at that distance I could easily hear chortles of contentment from the earpiece.

Thus began a beautiful friendship, based on ball busting and splashy striped bass takes.  Once while fishing the Cape,  I begged him to leave me on a flat in Nauset Inlet so I could fish a seam that had a good rip starting to dump water into a hole, ignoring his concern over the rising tide.  After dropping me, he pulled his 18 ' Parker back into the main channel and started to get it back on plane, when two guys anchored nearby in a skiff, having observed this, called to him and asked him what was he thinking?   He replied that as the tide starts to rise, and I start to wave my arms, just ignore me.  A half hour later, I knew I had a big problem, but then, miraculously came Victor's boat into view from around the next bend at full throttle.  He pulled me aboard breathlessly, even before I could thank him, saying he had found the fish in a quiet cove up the inlet and that we would have the place to ourselves.

I sat there, ashamed, and said, "Vic, that's the difference between you and me.  I would never have left the fish."

From Oregon to Oregon Beach

How often does life present intersections of meaning whereby we find ourselves immersed in a moment that we find vivid and real, only to find that it connects to other realities?  Does that make sense? Have I told you that I majored in English and Religion?  If not, perhaps you could tell, inasmuch the neural network has now been in place for some thirty years.  I speak of course of fish, not some abstruse theologian.
This collection of moments occurred on a certain beach on a spit of land, known as Cape Cod, a vast glacial moraine, the terminus of an ice age glacier  whose foot receded and dropped the ground down contents of mother earth's best and hardest rock, igneous and metamorphic (I presume), leaving a vast ecosystem based upon sand and scrub pine.  I love this place as it is in my veins, for we now that saltwater is the same ph as our blood, and that many of us are destined to return to its gyre.  I have to state here, for the record, that Larry Dahlberg and I have similar imaginations inasmuch as we both wish to be cremated and our ashes placed in a plug that can be easily broken off in the maw of our favorite gamefish.  For Larry it will be a muskie and for me it will be a bluefish, preferably a surface take, splashy and messy and full of evil intent.  But I digress.
After a hiatus of fifteen plus years, my law school friends and I re-acquainted as a group in Cape Cod to extract joy from its coastal waters.  I had high hopes for them to be introduced to bluefish and stripers, in that order.  Of course, as fate often does, we actually accomplished these goals, with some brief hesitations.
Our best event was striking bluefish from the beach on Vineyard Sound.  Never having been party to their ravenous natures, my friends were spellbound.  Hit upon hit upon hit, on the surface, slugging it out, eye's sclera flashing yellow and incensed, aiming toward hand, finger and throat, the mayhem continued unabated for at least two hours, although I did not keep actual track. I recall all four rods doubled over, yelling, laughing, and the unleashing of joy, as only the office bound can do when confronted with the best of all alternatives.
These were good fish, four to eight pounds, hot and agitated, and wanting only to slam the shit out of the next surface commoting popper, be it a pink Pili popper or a white pencil popper.  We saw the same fish target, execute and miss, once, twice, and three times.  This was classic excellent bluefish action.  My friends received the finest treat.
Next were large stripers, a different personality.  Bursts of sprinter speed, finicky yet positively charged, they held us captive in a rip until my friend Steve connecting on his first cast, brought a large bass to shore across a cobbly beach and I made a misstep.  This was a good fish, hefting 18 lbs and with a tandem hook sluggo in its mouth.  After subduing it, Steve asked quite reasonably for a picture.  My boga grip being attached to my waist so I could not easily free it for him to hold, I released the fish and told him to grab it by the lips.  Big Mistake.  As he hefted it, the fish initiated a slow motion head shake that freed itself from his hand and pulled the free trailer hook downward into his left index finger, to the curve of the shank.  I saw how bad it was.  I saw the fish in the rip.  I saw how bad it was.  I saw the fish in the rip, just where they were supposed to be. " Fuck".  "Fuck".  For all the effort and sublime pleasure forgone.  For my friend in need of immediate attention.  For life whose balance while, not hanging by a thread, nonetheless felt worn and tortured.  My first cast elicited a strike and a miss.  What would fortune have held for me had I not had to go to Hyannis's ER? I will never know.
After doffing his Yankee's hat at 6am at the intake desk, Steve was asked what his level of pain was?  The pictoral board showed happy to crying, from one to ten.  Steve thought about it, I am sure he thought hard, and mustered a "2".
Hmmmmmm. A "2"? I left the beach for a "2"?  My first thought was to tweak his finger to see what a "2" really felt like.  My second thought was to leave him in good hands and return hours later after he had a chance to flirt with all the ER staff sufficiently.  My last thought, as expressed to him, was that I had taken shits higher than 2 on the pain scale and that I left fish to bring him to this place of healing.  Next time I will leave my friend on the beach until the moment is past.
But it is the stories, and not the fish, that end up being burned into our consciousness.  Or so I rationalize! Ha!

The Fever

Strange how, despite the passage of time and the accumulation of experience, a seasonal fever strikes with the same pulse quickening and mind captivating intensity.  I know this feeling.  It always happens at the beginning of the season, after a long winter and the imagination has run cold.  It starts like a dry throat looking for water, as tackle fliers start to arrive in the mail.  It starts when you have watched the same episode of Larry Dahlberg's "The Hunt for Big Fish" again and again, and though you can't stomach to hit the delete on the DVR, you still feel...unsatisfied.  You find yourself poring over old tackle, sharpening old hooks, looking at the fly inventory, checking reels, reviewing tides and moon phases for the upcoming season in your mind. You check the same listservs again for recent information and fishing reports.  Such an irresponsible use of time.  There is guilt associated with this fever.  It lingers after you have clicked the "Buy" button on a particular plug you have been meaning to try out.  You reason that even if you never use it you can always save it and covet it in the future, perhaps even sell it, like the "Hab's Squid Popper" still in its original wrapper, its plugmaker notoriously meticulous and respected and now dead, the plug beginning to accrue appreciated value.  You have the reverse Atom, in cider color, still in its package, acquired for a song from the Army Navy store in downtown Portland, Maine.  That store in Monument Square is now closed.  The plug remains.  You even have an image of that plug being cast by spinning rod off a small skiff when you were in 7th grade, its bottle shape lolling on the surface, slowly filing with water, driving huge bluefish crazy.  You wish you had saved the big jointed Pikie that you ran behind an umbrella rig, a plug that was brutalized and ultimately sacrificed in the teeth laden maw of those gator blues.  When you lived in Maine, you used an old ceiling beam in the basement, above your tying bench, to hold retired lures and flies.  They earned their place on that beam, bite by bite, and bit and bit.  So when you look at those plugs and flies, a fish, a snapshot, a moment would be resurrected from the past, the ocean smell, the burn of salt in a finger cut by the line, the sunrising to reveal slashing fish and frenzied bait.  The fever is not stemmed by being fed, it only grows more ravenous.

Salmonberry River- Eden in the Moss.

AARP- Not just a gastronomical sound! Well, it really is. But enough of the aging process.

I did actually hear this sound last weekend from my gut, after hiking back on mile 11 (notably between milepost 814 and 815 on the Tillamook R.R.) on the Salmonberry River, a coastal, rain fed, Oregon river, a tributary of the mighty Nehalem river, hosting one of the few untouched native runs of steelhead that top 20 pounds. This was an adventure I had savored in my imagination for more years than I care to admit.

I set out from home and arrived at the confluence by 8:00a and suited up. The river was renowned but had lately taken it on the chin by a tempest in December 2007. The flood cit out the bank beneath many turns of the railroad bed, leaving it literally hanging free in many places, testament to man's inability to envision the rigors of nature. The repair would be astronomical, into the tens of millions, far in excess of the value of using the route by the Tillamook lumber companies that used it. They now ship their wares by boat. What is left is decrepitating and will make the route impassable, even easily by foot, in a few years. So, my timing is good to enjoy a route that is relatively accessible, for the moment.

I elected to hike two hours before fishing because the sedimentation of the lower stretch of the mainstem renders the stretch broad and featureless. Hiking farther up the mainstem the river turns into classic steelhead water, deep pools, rapids, edges, cobble, the very thing that attracts fish and with them fishermen.

When I finally started to fish, I nymphed with a "lifter", a beadhead egg pattern. Finally, walking along the railroad bed, I saw holding water above a rapid with one large fish across the river, holding, dropping, then returning to position. The drop to the river is steep and the path must be selected carefully. I dropped down well below the fish's line of sight. Wading out I knew that I had few plausible shots before the fish would spook. Carefully, I made four casts and worked the drift out the the strike zone. Almost surreally the indicator stopped and I reacted. The fish boiled, its mass tight to the line. It was a good fish- I saw it and felt it. It shook its head, moved head down, thrashing hard, its tail momentarily breaking the surface as it worked against the pressure. Bright and heavy, it started to move upstream and at that moment it came unbuttoned. My sense of time when attached to a good fish is always sealed in the moment. I can't say that I was disappointed because it was unexpected, even though I had believed I would catch it. That is the paradox of fishing. Released, it moved upstream to safety, while I reeled in and watched my hands begin to shake.

My effort felt rewarded even though I will spend the rest of the day wondering why I hadn't sharpened the hook or been better able to anticipate the take. Six hours of walking for four seconds of thrill. How bizarre the calculus leading to satisfaction.

Turning 5-0 and condensing experience into meaningful sound bites

So, at the almost ripe middle age of fifty, I feel that time urges me to share some observations about my most favorite avocation.

This journey began when I was ten years old and was taken "deep sea fishing" on the Lynnway Marine in Lynn, Massachusetts. This was a small party or head boat that brought us barely outside the harbor's entrance, where we dropped our lines using Penn Senator reels and Christmas Tree rigs, which are small pieces of fluorescent tubes tied in sequence, pre-dating Sabiki rigs by over thirty years. Mackerel were the target and they obliged.. and obliged... to the tune of forty fish, brought home in a plastic bucket and cleaned in the backyard on a cement bench. I am certain many were not eaten as no one I know has ever asked me over for a mackerel feed, and for good reason.

Yet even with the slight heft of a mackerel, the moment of hook-up remained etched in my memory, a living connection between myself and the natural world that was tangible, mysterious and fun, all of which are components of any joyful experience.

And so began an odyssey of sorts, evolving over may years, and including summer days left by my mother at Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield, Massachusetts, learning how to catch panfish with worm and bobber, how to pull nightcrawlers from the suburban lawns of my neighborhood, watching mesmerized as an old-timer waded out and caught huge largemouth bass casting rebels along the edge of a patch of lilypads with spinning gear. He illustrated in stark relief the difference between pretending and knowing, faith and certainty.

I fished for stripers from shore during their crash, a cycle of desoluteness, in the mid-1970's and 80's. I recall snorkeling at the age of 13 off of Rockport's Cape Hedge beach and encountering a small school bass that took me a moment to identify... because I had never seen them before. They appeared and disappeared, striped apparitions hovering above the sandy bottom, perhaps 18 inches long. If they lived today they would be over thirty odd years old and far larger than the all time tackle specimen Al McReynolds caught. I spent many hours thereafter trying to figure out how to connect with these fish. I even fished hard in 1974 and 1975 off of Truro for a week with a friend who had a 14 foot dory and a 20hp outboard. We trolled christmas tree rigs with large jointed pikies, tony acetta spoons trimmed with pork rind, hoochie trolls, and large rebels. We cast reverse atoms that took on water and cut long sliding curves on the retrieve. Never did we see or catch a bass, always bluefish and the very largest kind, some topping fifteen pounds. As I look back it is astounding that we found no bass off of Horseshoe Shoal in Cape Cod Bay, only bluefish. I am, however, forever indebted to blues for having tenacity and incredible power, even on conventional gear with wire.

I am embarrassed to admit that I did not finally connect with bass until I was almost thirty, in part because I left fishing behind as I pursued school, livelihood and love. My first bass came while casting a surface popper off of Old Silver Beach in a summer evening, off a jetty. I cannot even recall the stage of the tide, except that there was decent depth. The fish hit almost immediately, as if I cast on top of it and it defended its space by a slashing strike. I looked at it with a mixture of relief and alarm. I saw a fish that had long eluded me and at the same time, since my in-laws lived up the street, I saw I would be plagued by impulses to find more. And that is what happened.

After pursuing trout out west, I came to that moment where I knew salt flowed through my veins and could not be dismissed. More later.

Fear Not the Darkness

Thus spake... a fisherman devoted to the transitory moments that allow such excesses. I had the chance to fish, and fish hard, in early October of 2010. My best fishing buddy was set to retire and start turning eight or more wheels on his rather excessive RV. He had not fished with me for more than a year. I had a full weekend. Full, at least in the sense of 48 hours of uninterrupted time, coinciding with the new moon tides of October, which brought the fastest tidal flow of the year and the highest tides amid the peak of the southward migration of fish. We had high hopes and enough stored middle age energy to suggest possibility.
I had spent several weeks of sleepless tossing and turning, devoting my unconscious to tracking a list of suggestions for my conscious time. I replaced braided line. I shipped extra soft plastics. I concerned my waking hours with children, spouse, dog, and big bass.
When the moment(s) came, I arrived early with clean, fresh knots. My first fish on a new surf rod weighed in at 20 pounds, tied for one of my largest bass. Not a good omen. For I know, after more than a few days at this game, what fortune presents, and seldom does it allow two such opportunities. The next day I landed a 12 pound fish for the table along with its kindred cousin, the bluefish, in a momentary blitz at South Cape beach. These were well-deserved fish but hard won in their own right. When Dan arrived, after I had the chance to scope out the terrain, we fished hard and found little. I did land a 15lb bass (seen in the picture) but other than some bluefish, that was all. The good news is that a weekend with your best fishing buddy has less to do with fish than life. And so, we persevered, from Race Point to Wellfleet, where we observed two late model cars enjoy a cleansing dip from an unusually high tide. Their owners probably sea kayaking and would return to cars with fish swimming over their floorboards.
And so Cape Cod continues to crawl under my skin and soul, making me wait with unkind anticipation, when our futures will next cross.

The Hubris of Drag

I never learn. Or at least my reflexes don't, and since they must reflect some unconscious element of my character, apparently in dire need of improvement, I must take serious note of them. I have lost a few fish in my life, most of the modest sort, and for excuses too easily given and then forgiven. The lost fish that hurt the most are those that, in the quiet moments of reflection, usually done in questionable company and with too much to drink, make you realize you missed something truly, irretrievably special. A large fish. An old fish. A beautiful fish. A fish who cost you a toll of exhaustion, money, and ego, all repaid with a pigtail of broken promises. A fish that would have provided bragging rights to extinguish the glee of others in their own mid-tale of piscatorial accomplishments.
My most recent lesson, and one which I do think has finally penetrated like a ball peen hammer to my frontal cerebral cortex, was on the Pacific Ocean (it should be a proper noun if you have ventured out on it), thirty miles offshore of Astoria, Oregon, a place we arrived at only after crossing the Columbia River bar and making tedious passage for three hours until the water turned from muddy green to luminous navy and cobalt. A small group of flyfishers, half of whom had not partaken of this relatively new and accessible form of saltwater recreation, Pacific Longfin Albacore, formed this merry band of brothers.
I had devoted a few hours tying and preparing large deceivers out of synthetic hair, ultra-hair, bucktail, grizzlyed saddle hackle, flashabou, and krystal flash with epoxied eyes and a deadly stinger hook tied tandem off the Gammie main 7/0. The flies looked good. I added blood red gill with marker. I even thought to bring swivels, realizing at the last moment that flies on the troll tended to twist. To the best of my ability, everything was in order.
These fish are ridiculous. I have heard people say that tuna are a slugfest, a down and dirty game involving grunting and ridiculous rod angles. While this is all true, they are amazing. Gaffed, they present like taunt lycra bags stretched over superheated muscle. If they are allowed their head down, their tails, which look frayed and worn, cut the water like an amphetamine drumbeat. I have caught smaller versions, the aptly named False Albacore, on the fly which I had thought "red hot," a description which now seems...false. Longfin Albacore have outsized pectoral wings designed to cut the water and provide lift and draft(?), their finlets blaze yellow (God knows what they are for) and they have a body that should, by rights sink to the deep, except for a tail stock that tapers to a knuckle and fin.
I have never lost a flyline to a fish, at least not an entire flyline. My first fish brought that hubris, that, what are thinking fish to try to take me this far into my backing. I tightened and the backing bit into itself, parting like two mismatched lovers after the hangover wears off. Hubris makes us think that we can contain the explosive fueled run of a fish who knows nothing of the "game" and all about the tension on its jaw that seems to come from nowhere and tries to control its freedom. It must not be panic, at first, but instinct, which finds a gearbox and moves the levers and makes the thrust possible.
My failing is to think that any first run can be contained by hand and reel and drag. It must be endured and appreciated, like the decanting of an Oregon Pinot Noir. I love the moment that the knob strikes my index finger with such force as to cause nerve damage. We should all fight so, when the moment is at hand. It is hubris to think that we can control the fate of a fish, much less of ourselves.

February- Warm Breezes and the Written Word

Okay. It's been awhile. Too long in fact. This is the time of year that makes me get agitated. I get the season's new fishing magazines, new catalogs, new products. My eyes scan the pages for helpful tagging, suggesting new items, never before fished. The butterfly jig. The eight inch amber colored hogy. Each saddle hackle feather package makes me visualize a half and half clouser or a articulated streamer pattern for bull trout. I ask my youngest son to practice tying the bimini twist instead of origami storks, his manual dexterity being worthy of the task. I begin doing inventory of tippet materials. I look over my boxes of flies and wonder if, should I die tomorrow, who will use all this stuff?
This morning, my springer spaniel made a noise never heard before. Deep, tremulous, and wild. Looking along her angle of sight, my eyes locked with the eyes of an adult male coyote, standing but fifteen feet away in our side yard, unfazed by the yelping of a family pet. "Breakfast" was probably the thought formed in its head. "Playtime" was probably the thought formed in Sophie's innocent canine mind. Neither would be satisfied. Are these signs of the coming season, an edge of wildness creeping into suburbia? The primal look of the hunter, uncontained by context, ready to take to the field in search of the tug, capturing the vision of a tail holding in the current, the swirl, the refusal, the take. I am readying myself, even as I continue to live the routines of my life. I am now looking for opportunity.

Stupid Big Fish Tricks- Tarpaulin Cove

There are moments, albeit fleeting, or so we think, when we wish that we could get a re-do. I have several. Okay, maybe a few thousand. However, when one has been in pursuit of big fish , it is hard to forgive oneself for mistakes and missteps. This particular memory has been burned as vividly into my my mind as the braid that was burned into my hand. And, like most catastrophes, it begins with simple mistakes that cascade, like an airplane co-pilot who refuses to question their captain about the de-icing procedure and pays the heaviest of prices.
In this instance, you must first understand the setting and the characters.
The Elizabeth Island chain, running southeast below Woods Hole, Ma, represents the most prolific striper habitat in that fish's northern range. These islands, owned by the Forbes family, have been kept pristine and beyond development, perhaps the mark of an ecologically minded capitalist dynasty. Seemingly in conflict with the addage that great fortunes are made of great crimes. Nonetheless I have a fondness for the deceased Malcom Forbes who rode a Harley in the gang know as the Capitalist Tools. At least the guy had a sense of humor, and a personality, which is more than we can say for some of his progeny.
These islands harbor the most fantastic shorelines, mainly rocky glacial deposits with sand intermixed. Rocks some twenty feet in length jut to within inches of the surface causing Vineyard Sound's treacherous currents to whip past them in rips and runs that make anyone adept at spotting good lies mutter to themselves like a streetwise schizophrenic. One of the finest spots is Tarpaulin Cove along Naushon Island. At slack tide, it sleeps, quiescent and without pretension. Put some water behind it, drain it, and a rip a hundred yards long amid a boulder field makes your senses tingle.
Such was like the moment I found it, with my best fishing buddy Dan (see pictures with innumerable smiles) in the Fall of 2006. We positioned my boat , an 18'Maritime skiff, off the rip and began casting spinning gear using surface plugs. My first few casts with Bluish Smackit popper drew little interest. On the next one, an explosive device went off. Having fished for bass many years, I was relatively adept at honestly appraising a take. This one was beyond my experience when I saw the distance between the tail and the dorsal fin, a steady, irrefutable, indicator of the fish's size. It was immense. I had caught fish to 20 lbs (39') before. I knew immediately it was my best fish to date.
A little history is in order, if only to build the dramatic tension. I have been fishing for bass and bluefish since I was in 7th grade. My experience with big fish during my formative years left me breathless and hollow; which is to say, in need of a greater and greater fix. Before this day, I had fished Cape Cod and Maine for upwards of fifteen years in search of my best fish and had banner days along with soul-crushing ones. While I am an optimist at heart, I am capable of long riffs involving alcohol and mindless self-flagellation when necessary. All of which is to say that a moment in time involving cruxification can be preserved in human memory with undue vividness.
This fish cast away my demons, as it drew braided line from my Penn without any intention of stopping. I had 8o lb mono tippet done loop to loop with braid. This was a rig i had tried only a few times before but felt confidence in. Not having a swivel allowed the line to pull cleanly through the guides. Not having a swivel also allowed the lines to bite deeply into each other when under great stress.
When I felt the weight of the bass, I struck it and put immediate tension on it. I had a single piece Ben Doerr Spinning rod, eight feet tall and with serious wood at its base. This fish ran without so much as a quiver or hesitation. No matter how I clamped the drag down, it ran. Fifty pound braid! I put just enough tension on it to see if I could get its head to turn. I let my palm rub the casing of the reel and .... tck. Off.
I suppose I could have thrown the rod. I suppose I could have slashed my wrists. All would have been to no avail.
In the end we take these lessons in humility and try to get them to synchronize with our view of the world. For me, I will never be without a swivel again.

September Madness

Unlike March Madness, which elicits endless online betting and flat screen watching, this is madness of a different type, fueled by a metaphoric sense of life's end. Every September, no matter where I live, I always get a quickening pulse at this time of year. Living now in Oregon, it is a bit separated from the source, the Atlantic Ocean and the world's greatest migration of living creatures- bunker, herring, rain bait, false albacore, bluefish, and striped bass- which mass along the coast and, sensing the shortening of days, begin to gather together and sweep in a gigantic movement southward before the ocean's great cooling. In Maine, the migration has begun. Bass leave the bays and inlets, the coves and rivers, and combine by age and size to form football shaped hydrodynamic clouds and begin moving. I have witnessed this in many forms and it is both exciting and sad. Exciting to think of the opportunity to witness feeding frenzies so necessary to fuel this movement. Sad, because we know what follows- months of cold and hollowness to test the spirit until the spring renewal.

And yet, I have a fondness for the Fall. I realize, now that I am pushing fifty, how limited our vision of these natural miracles really is. I see that we have a kindred spirit with the fish, who only respond to stimuli we otherwise can only guess at. When I say it is metaphoric of our own mortality, I mean it. Each year that passes brings us closer to a conclusion we have no control over writing. If I knew I could fish for another fifty years, perhaps the moment would lack something, a dimension of poignancy that gives it richness. As Orson Wells said, Death gives Life its succor.

And so for those on the edge of the Atlantic, I say get your ass out there and enjoy this moment. The best fishing of the year is upon you and you will need rich memories to get you through what follows. Now I have to start tying steelhead flies for the coming months. Ha.

The Gift of Missing Me

Last November, sitting quietly on a stump, smoking a fine smelling cigar, no doubt rolled on the thighs of an octoroon Cuban woman, I heard one of the finest lines ever muttered by a fellow brother of the flyfishing fraternity. In many ways it encapsulated subconscious thoughts I would like to think I am capable of and yet had not expressed. Like so many iconoclastic ideas, it was simplicity itself. Sitting there above a spectacularly clear pool on the Metolis River, a place your imagination is NOT fertile enough to conjure, no insult intended, he was telling me he lived in Bend, Oregon and was an aspiring guide who probably fished fifty or more times a year.

I took note that he was not a youngish man, more into his thirties, who had moments before made reference to his wife.

Always keen to know how other fishermen are able to sell their obsessional neurosis to their spouses without risking apolcalyptic outcomes, I inquired how he was able to get so much time for his unhealthy habit. He said that he had told her this weekend he was fishing and told her he was giving her 'the gift of missing me." After wiping the tears from my eyes, you decide their source, I slowly digested the line, like an anaconda savoring a fine feral pig. One reason I enjoy fishing, truth be told, is that you are more likely than not bound to find a character or two, someone whose alignment with the Earth is a bit off and who, as a result, can show you things you had not previously seen. The mystery of human relationships revealed, for example, in a passing comment. I concede that this may not be a gift that keeps on giving, and must be used with particular caution and judiciousness, but when you absolutely must go, when your irritability level has reached redline, and the thought of a river or coastal scene floods your consciousness, lifting you off the banks, and when charm seems utterly beyond your capacity, try this. But don't blame me if, as a result, she gives you the gift of missing her.

Hex Hatch- Lost Lake- Mt Hood Wilderness

Hexagenia mayflies are seldom seen, but talked about nonetheless. Large (2") and bright yellow, it is no wonder that they seek out the twilight to rise from their burrows and fly vertically into the evening. They are prime forage for aquatic and airborne predators. I saw rainbows, nighthawks and a large bat species feeding on them simultaneously. Had it been an hour earlier and these mayflies would never have survived the oslaught. They seek out muddy bottoms of alpine lakes and take at least two years to develop; as nymphs they are large- size 4 or 2's. As adult emergers, ridiculous. Check out my photos.

My oldest son & I spent two nights on Lost Lake, Mt. Hood Wilderness, trying to time the evening hatch and finding the window of opportunity quite narrow, to say the least. The hatch took off between 9:00 and 9:20pm both nights, leaving us scratching our heads and wondering whether we had missed something. But no, that was it. How ephemeral, how mayflyish.

The good news is that such alpine lakes harbor decent trout fishing during the other hours, as well as ample opportunity to enjoy the amenities of the lake for swimming and general carousing.

One Fly, Two Fish

Sometimes, quite rarely, the stars align and fate hands you an undeniable gift. That has happened to me from time to time in life, and nowhere more conspicuously does it happen then while fishing. That is probably a result of your senses being attuned through hours of concentration to your surroundings, coupled with the knowledge that things can always end badly- so when they work out, when the hoped for actually materializes, we sit back with pride, knowing all the while that the world gave us a gift over which we had very little control. Sure, feel pride, but deep down realize that nothing needed to turn out this way, and be thankful to the unseen hand.

This is a circular way of saying that I had an experience with one fly you just do not hear about. I am a believer that there is nothing new under the sun. That is borne out by watching cable television at any hour of the day; if you can think it, then it has already happened. Nonetheless, if any of you have heard of this one before, I am all ears. It happened when I fished Long Island, Bahamas, the last two hours of the last of six days of fishing, sun starting its low angled sloping into the horizon line. The trip already having met our expectations, this was just another day of magic. We returned to the ocean flats, anchoring in an azure channel, hoping to land some jacks. As I rigged my twelve weight, I tied on an 80 lb shock tippet and a chartreuse cuda fly to do some deep dredging on the swing. Looking across the channel I was struck by a sudden surface commotion as a school of large fish, moving quickly, porpoised and disappeared. This happened several times; their backs barely breaking the surface, but by their length I thought they were some type of small shark. After several casts, one struck and I was amazed to feel a bonefish on the other end of the line, and not a small bone, but a 7 lber. Colin Cartwright, our guide and the fishing camp owner (Cartwright's Bonefishing Lodge) said he had seen this behavior, albeit rarely and usually by larger class fish, who see to come to the channel to feed on small fish.

By now the clock was running out and we made one more move before the end of the day, to the large confluence of channels where we had see and heard large tarpon sucking in air on several previous visits. On my third cast, without changing the fly, I let it sink into the blue and began my retrieve. The take was solid and I knew immediately it was a nice fish and was thankful it was on my Twelve weight with my heavy Abel reel and plenty of backing. Looking forty yards off, I watched the line rising as the fish broke for the surface, and there it was! The tarpon you see with Dan's hand in its mouth. Two fish, one fly- but a bonefish AND a tarpon? Anyone heard that one before?

Oregon Albacore flyfishing

Oregon actually has an offshore tuna fishery available to flyfishermen who don't get seasick. This is the longfin albacore. It sometimes approaches within 20 miles (with el Nino) but more often is past the 30 mile mark. I have a 12 wt and I am stocked up with bonine. They troll flies or chum them in with live bait and there is no catch limit as they are not considered threatened, which is typical American management for maximum sustainable "yield", a topic unto itself, just ask anyone currently suffering through the second great collapse of the striped bass fishery.

I also have some anchovie flies tied by Rick Vandenburg which I won as a door prize at his slide show on a cold Maine CCa gathering highlighting his offshore big boat trip out of San Diego a couple years back. I expect to do some tying shortly; nothing provides me a greater sense of accomplishment that tying big saltwater flies, using synthetic materials, like ultrahair, to form a pallet of color, blended together and anchored by a glass-like epoxy head. Trey Combs has the best offshore saltwater fish hooks on the market; I believe you could tow a small vehicle with them because their shanks are such thick posts of steel. With luck I'll have some pictures in the not too distant future to share.

Pardon my lapse of time, I had a two week renewable energy law class to get through plus twenty page take home exam. Ha.

Evil Fish- Part Two

See the Video below for Part One of Evil Fish.

I can tell you that this six day trip yielded forty pages of notes about bonefishing; when I tell people about this trip I say, "It was like every morning was Christmas." Of course, I have been accused of getting up at 1am for a four am trip, just to organize my flies and re-tie my leaders. I will tell you more about this trip sometime in the future. Right now, it being June 22d, the day after the Summer Solstice, you have no excuse but to be out somewhere on the water. I can't think of any place in the Northern Hemisphere where you can't find fish activity right now.

Evil Fish

Except for Pike, I suppose few fish I am apt to run into in the Northwest can be described as evil- which is actually a compliment in my book. I love nothing more than to throw a surface popper at a pod of bluefish and watch them race each other to blast it free. They also have a black pupil in a yellow sclera that follows your hand around, even when out of water, a good reason to invest in a boga grip and be patient when landing. I have never seen what a set of bluefish jaws could do to the human hand and I would prefer to not have to witness that, having seen that they can easily cut a mackeral in half. I recommend John Hershey's book "Blues" to provide a complete description of them for all their ferocity and beauty. They are marauders to anything smaller than themselves; the fact that they are candy to Mako sharks and bluefin tuna raises them even higher in my regard.

All that being said, I did discover the most vicious fish I have yet known while on my first Bahamanian bonefish trip a year ago. Capable of the kind of speed that you really just have to witness to believe, the barracuda sets a high standard. When wading across a flat, from a mile away in the morning calm, you can hear them rip through a school of bonefish, and if you're lucky see the roostertail of their dorsal fin. From such a distance the scattering sound of a large school of bones is like a large handul of pebbles thrown high into the air. I read somewhere that predator/prey evolution caused the north american antelope (a.k.a. pronghorn) to acquire its 55 mph speed. Its predator, now long extinct, was a cat-like speedster, much like a cheetah. Each stride of the antelope now is testimony to a shadowy fear no longer in existence. I would find myself squinting as I watched an antelope put on its afterburners, as I crossed Wyoming, to see if there was an apparition silouetted in the dust cloud, closing the distance. Without the cuda, there would be no bonefish, and we anglers would be all the poorer for it.

This video is taken of a good friend of mine, Vic, who at first unknowingly works a bone close for release, only to be surprised in a big way. I continued filming and the second segment follows. Be aware that even the guide was disturbed by this large cuda, which I estimate at over five feet and forty pounds. We treated the fish gingerly as we walked backwards, trying to get some distance from it. It wouldn't leave us alone until it got the head; that struck me as a matter of pride. Despite their best efforts, I doubt cuda get too many bones. Enjoy.

Portland, Maine to Portland, Or

My family is bi-coastal. I have lived in Maine for over 15 years of my life and now Oregon for over seven years. They share similar features in the love their natural gifts inspire in others and their offbeat sense of who they are. They inspire geographic egocentricity. I have hiked, camped and boated extensively in both states and they are both counterfoils. Maine is deciduous woods, ancient mountains, stunning islands and coastal fog. Oregon has volcanic peaks, sun blasted high chaparral, sage brush, and rivers that flow as blue as Paul Newman's eyes. It's ocean is less forgiving, a wild animal, whose intent is always to be questioned. I have come to love them both but sadly I can only live in one place at a time. At this point in my life I do not foresee returning to live in Maine, in no small part because of children and work. The common thread that runs through all this is my love of flyfishing and need to get out on a regular basis to immerse myself in the surroundings and feel the pull.

As I sit here at my desk in Oregon, I am buffeted by memories of cruising Casco Bay or the Elizabeth Islands, expectancy thrumming through the rigged lines, feeling the hull rise and fall atop the gentle swells and watching for birds or a place where the clues give rise to fish beneath. fishing acts a s a bridge between human and nature, leaving one constantly alive in the present yet always searching for new means of connecting. The Elizabeth Islands, for one, a archipelago stretching from Woods Hole, Massachusetts south, and owned almost entirely by the Forbes family, remains largely undeveloped. You find quintessential striped bass habitat along its shores, huge glacial rocks jutting twenty feet from the bottom, tidal rips caused by water forced through narrow funnels of land, coves that trap bait, and Vineyard Sound's constant flushing action. I have seen the waves jumbled like granite chunks against each other, pyramiding ten feet, and glass-clear calm, where a mosquito's spit could be seen on the surface a mile away.

The Story of Friendship

A famous philosopher, I believe it was George Santayama, once said that friends are friends in spots. Which is, in my interpretation, that we share only a small piece of our complex selves with others, and that for friends there must be a significant piece that is shared. Of course even with friends there are gradations of this as well. At the very least a friendship must extract good humor from the participants. At its best, friendship is a synergistic, creative enterprise, wherein we feel ourselves grow in enthusiasm and interest, not just toward the other person but also to the surrounding world. Fatigue and boredom have very little to do with true friendship. The other interesting phenomenon to me is that, despite our best efforts, sometimes friendships just plain end. The elements of the other person that drew you to them, attenuate or change or, perhaps you do, without really fully appreciating it, until the distance seems great. I've had that happen a few times, usually with respect to friends made when I was younger and which time and experience bore down on, like water on rock, and changed the flow.

I'd like to think that when it comes to fishing partners certain common elements find each other. I suppose shared obsession isn't too strong a word insofar as having the interest in getting out on the water goes. Curiosity toward the natural world, having a naturalist's eye, to put it another way, also seems a common denominator. Patience with the process, but exasperation with failure; these two create the fine line. I don't like to get skunked and I will fight it like a puppy on a short leash, but sooner or later we must all become philosophical and accept that our best efforts fall short from time to time. I suppose that doesn't mean we don't feel shortchanged when we have arisen at 4:30 am and found that the best pre-dawn opportunity amounts to zippo. Still we did put ourselves in the way of opportunity, which is more than ninety percent of our fellow humans do, and should feel gratified about it. I am reminded of that feeling when I am loading the boat back on the trailer at 9am after five hours on the water and others are just arriving. Usually I know what they missed.

So I am blessed to have many very good friends, with countless accumulated shared hours with them on shore or on boat. I see many fish in my mind's eye, some of the best of them I never had the pleasure of bringing to my hand. They remain captured in memory and in the stories we swap among ourselves. Even when casting to spotted fish cruising the shallows, at the back of my mind I know how transitory the experience will be, even as I live in the moment. The visual stays with me and is reinforced by the presence of a fishing companion. Our friends make these brief moments of sublime pleasure remain solid far into the future; they provide us with the pinch to the flesh that, yes, that fish was real.

For those of you who know of what I say, enjoy your friends. For those with whom I have had the pleasure of spending many a moment of true joy, I thank you and look forward to our next adventure.

Ray's River Dories

If you ever have say 100 plus hours of free time on your hands and the desire to work with wood, my suggestion is to buy a kit for a drift boat and have at it. The best manufacturer of these kits is, in my humble opinion, Ray Heater based out of Multnomah Village here in Portland Oregon. Ray has been doing boats for over twenty-five years and just walking into his shop is like breathing spiced cedar scented air. His kits are straightforward and yield surprisingly excellent results, even for neophytes. Check out his website for a sampling of his designs and prices- www.raysriverdories.com.

I bought his 17' rogue River flyfishing model back in 1996- the year my second son was born. I spent the hours between 10pm and midnight working on it, after putting in a full day of attorney billable hours, and, upon completion, promptly moved from Oregon to Maine. As much as I love Maine, it's rivers run a poor second to Oregon's. This boat pined away from my enclosed shop for ten years to get back, and now it gets out at every opportunity, usually to the Deschutes, but soon enough on the McKenzie, the Rogue and the Umpqua. My current goal is to get adept enough with the oars to tackle white horse rapids on the Deschutes, a three day paddle through class III and IV water. I'm still a way's away from that but soon enough.

Oregon Coast- The jetty at Winchester Bay- Umpqua River meets the sea

This week my family went to the Oregon coast expecting grey skies and cold. Surprise. Blue skies and 80 degrees. What do ya know? I did take a couple rods and my all round salt box. the locals fished bait. The tide was ripping and all I could think about was the striped bass that populate the Umpqua- with a minimum 30 in limit size. There was a ton of bait, anchovies, working and the birds were on them. No boats! Jared and I rigged up and up and walked out on this massive jetty. The work that went into this jetty was astounding. Rocks that had to be 20 plus tons. When I say birds, I mean classic, pelicans, herring gulls, black backed gulls, guilemots, cormorants. Everything rafted up and diving on bait balls. Occasionaly, about three hundred yards off, I could see fish surfacing and blitzing. No way could we reach them. I tied on a yozuri pink jig, probably 3 oz and heaved away. Our neighbors were fishing clams and bringing in a steady stream of what they termed sea trout, which were actually greenling sea bass. None bigger than a couple pounds. I'm sure they thought we were idiots throwing artificials on braided line. Tons of structure along th edge of the jetty. Halfway through I had a decent strike on 15lb fluoro and I kept the pressure on. It is always nice to be rewarded for your efforts, yes? I landed a 5lb lingcod; this toothy devil that did not deserve to be landed but he came in and I lifted him clear. Lots of teeth and barnicles to clear, so he wanted to die apparently. I gave him to one of the locals who was thrilled to bring it home to dear old dad.

If I had but one rig to bring with me in heaven it would be a bucktail jig (or clouser, arguably the same thing). Anything that swims finds the dipping, diving action irrestible. The yozuri is sharp and fluorescent. I guess I should get a few more now that I lost that one. I should also return to fish a fly in the headwaters of the Umpqua. It is supposed to be the most pristine steelhead water along the coast. I am a believer in always bringing your rod and checking new territory out. See my goofy face and fish below.