It was a good summer.
I spent it fishing; more fishing than I've ever done in my life.
As I write this, rain is falling from a low, gray sky, the droplets expending the pent-up energy of their long freefall in a fireworks display of ripples on the surface of the puddle outside the window. It's late October. The trees have long since passed their peak of color. Lots of pumpkins and ghosts adorning household windows. This is the coldest it's been in a while; last night a northerly wind ripped most of the leaves off the trees. The world has become bare and a bit sullen. Soon wet will turn to white. Water will turn solid. Temperature will fall to nothing. Already whispers abound of the holidays to come.
But it was a damn good summer.
There are two rivers where I live. I fish both of them, below a certain dam usually, or at their confluence. Although one traverses my home state through seven counties and empties into the Mississippi, neither it nor its smaller tributary are all that mighty. They sport weak current at most spots, and in a dry summer such as this the water level is so low it's possible to wade almost all the way across, which is what a buddy and I have done over the summer. Most mornings, we could be found picking our way over rock ledges from the shore, some twenty feet out, gaining a tenuous footing and casting spinners into the current as the sun broke over the treeline.
I've always liked to fish, but until this year it was only an occasional indulgence. Time constraints and a lack of motivation (to get up and get out) always kept me from doing it, even though I have lived all of my life amidst water, and at times amidst some of the finest recreational fisheries in the country.
This summer, though, with a change in my schedule, a change in the very fabric of my life, I became gripped by compulsion. I began to crave the sense of Zen that comes from fishing; that is, the meditative mindfulness of daily experiences as part of the road to wisdom. Indeed, fishing is very Zen. From being in nature, in impossibly peaceful environs, to the mere repetition of casting out and reeling in, fishing is an effective means of clearing my thoughts, calming my anxieties, allowing myself to appreciate and accept that which I have and that which I am. Also, that which I am not.
At the same time, the ultimate goal is to catch something, catch lots of something ideally. To that end, this summer at least, I haven't had the best of luck. I'm new to this area, but have been fortunate to be taken out by a guy who not only knows all the best hot spots, but is also someone I don't feel sheepish firing questions at. I love to fish, and I know the basics, but I have never done it as extensively as I have this summer, so I quickly found there was much for me to learn. I wouldn't call this guy a professional angler, but he has an unmistakble instinct when it comes to fishing. He sees them under the water; the slightest below-the-surface movement as we're strolling along the riverside and he's pointing to a spot where I saw absolutely nothing, remarking, See that? They're down there. They're waitin' to be fed.
He has an uncanny knack for identifying species with only the slightest glimpse. The moment a fish breaks the surface at the end of his line - just a second's blur of spraying water and writhing tail or fin in my eyes - he knows what he's hooked. Perhaps this is not particular to him; I imagine most people who have been fishing all their lives have this ability. But it was new to me.
He also moves damn quick. For most of the summer we've used artificial bait, relentlessly casting out and reeling in spinners and jigheads with determined consistency, no matter how lousy the results. But recently we switched to live bait - rigging hooks with crawlers and minnows, casting out, propping our poles up on sticks drilled into the ground, sitting back and waiting for something to happen.I spent it fishing; more fishing than I've ever done in my life.
As I write this, rain is falling from a low, gray sky, the droplets expending the pent-up energy of their long freefall in a fireworks display of ripples on the surface of the puddle outside the window. It's late October. The trees have long since passed their peak of color. Lots of pumpkins and ghosts adorning household windows. This is the coldest it's been in a while; last night a northerly wind ripped most of the leaves off the trees. The world has become bare and a bit sullen. Soon wet will turn to white. Water will turn solid. Temperature will fall to nothing. Already whispers abound of the holidays to come.
But it was a damn good summer.
There are two rivers where I live. I fish both of them, below a certain dam usually, or at their confluence. Although one traverses my home state through seven counties and empties into the Mississippi, neither it nor its smaller tributary are all that mighty. They sport weak current at most spots, and in a dry summer such as this the water level is so low it's possible to wade almost all the way across, which is what a buddy and I have done over the summer. Most mornings, we could be found picking our way over rock ledges from the shore, some twenty feet out, gaining a tenuous footing and casting spinners into the current as the sun broke over the treeline.I've always liked to fish, but until this year it was only an occasional indulgence. Time constraints and a lack of motivation (to get up and get out) always kept me from doing it, even though I have lived all of my life amidst water, and at times amidst some of the finest recreational fisheries in the country.
This summer, though, with a change in my schedule, a change in the very fabric of my life, I became gripped by compulsion. I began to crave the sense of Zen that comes from fishing; that is, the meditative mindfulness of daily experiences as part of the road to wisdom. Indeed, fishing is very Zen. From being in nature, in impossibly peaceful environs, to the mere repetition of casting out and reeling in, fishing is an effective means of clearing my thoughts, calming my anxieties, allowing myself to appreciate and accept that which I have and that which I am. Also, that which I am not.
At the same time, the ultimate goal is to catch something, catch lots of something ideally. To that end, this summer at least, I haven't had the best of luck. I'm new to this area, but have been fortunate to be taken out by a guy who not only knows all the best hot spots, but is also someone I don't feel sheepish firing questions at. I love to fish, and I know the basics, but I have never done it as extensively as I have this summer, so I quickly found there was much for me to learn. I wouldn't call this guy a professional angler, but he has an unmistakble instinct when it comes to fishing. He sees them under the water; the slightest below-the-surface movement as we're strolling along the riverside and he's pointing to a spot where I saw absolutely nothing, remarking, See that? They're down there. They're waitin' to be fed.
He has an uncanny knack for identifying species with only the slightest glimpse. The moment a fish breaks the surface at the end of his line - just a second's blur of spraying water and writhing tail or fin in my eyes - he knows what he's hooked. Perhaps this is not particular to him; I imagine most people who have been fishing all their lives have this ability. But it was new to me.
This is perhaps the more disciplined version of fishing. Without the constant activity of casting and reeling over and over, by just sitting there and watching the line and the water, it's much more difficult to stay vigilant. One must learn to discern between what is motion on the line caused by the current and what is the first nano-second stages of a fish's interest, at which time one must grab hold of the pole and attempt to set the hook before the fish takes the bait, gets spooked and flees or loses interest. My friend does this in a lightning fast, almost violent, motion. The slightest tremble of the line or jerk of the rod tip and he launches himself from whatever sitting or squatting position he may be in and has the pole in his hand before I realize what's going on.
Me...I'm a little clutzier. If there's no action for a few minutes, I tend to sink into the shore a little, sit back, drink some coffee, smoke a cigarette...start contemplating larger Zen thoughts, teetering on distraction. When the bite comes (and it does come; live bait is almost always superior), I don't lunge, I lumber. I've gotten better at it, better at staying vigilant, and I move quicker than I did at first, but I don't think I will ever move with crouching tiger intensity like my fishing buddy. (He's fifteen years my junior, and I have to accept the fact that this is largely a part of it.)
All in all, he's been a good fishing guide. He does occasionally gloat over the fact that, though we fish in the same places, often with the exact same bait, at the exact same time, he's managed to outfish me almost two to one over the last three months.
And yet, that really isn't saying much, because the fishing has been abysmal all around this year. We've gone at it hard all summer - in the early morning where the current is stronger for smallies. Late at night, hunting for walleye by moonlight (although summer is not prime walleye season). There are fish to be found in these two rivers. We can hear them jump, sometimes frequently, sometimes largely, displacing big portions of water in a reverberating glugging sound when they break the surface. But for reasons unknown - or not understood to us anyway - they have left our lures alone with an unusually high level of indifference. Of course, fishing is always challenging (otherwise everyone would be pulling up trophies all the time, and what fun would that be?), but he says it's not the same this year. Like the current economic mess our world seems to be in, he decries his fishing index as having taken hard hits of late. He doesn't know what could be the cause of this - low water levels, some more complex disruption of the ecosystem...who knows? He just knows they ain't bitin' as they have in the past.
There have been some high points - we've caught some sturgeon (I'd never seen one before; remarkably prehistoric looking), several smallies, some walleye, a musky even - although he was just a little shaver - some northern. I landed a really nice crappie one night in some rapids directly below a highway overpass. But mostly we've spent the time bullshitting, discussing in jest (mostly) how much fish really know, if they're up to something, and feeding the river our lures when it chomps its very snaggy teeth down on them. I honestly have never fished such a snag-filled body of water in my life.
One thing is certain, and this ties into the Zen of fishing: it doesn't matter how frequently it happens, every time I get a bite, every time I yank back on the pole and know through the sudden tension of the line that I have hooked something, I get a new rush of adrenalin. Every time. It never gets old, never gets taken for granted, and it matters not the size of the fish I eventually land. That sensation alone makes fishing worth my (and everyone's) time.
Eventually the rivers and lakes around here are going to freeze up and the snow will begin to fly. My friend ice fishes as religiously as he casts out in the summer; but I may retire for the season, draw inward, physically and metaphorically. But I will be back next year for the '09 opener, craving that adrenalin rush with a newly heightened potentcy.
It's been a good summer. With more to come.
