Troutsmith (12 page)

A deliberate, heron-like approach was called for. I lengthened the leader to sixteen feet and tapered it down to a long 6x tippet. For a fly I picked a #18 CDC Caddis with a dirty yellow body, a simple and versatile pattern that to a trout might suggest any of a half-dozen types of insects. Few Wisconsin trout streams can match the Rush for its density and diversity of invertebrate life.

I made a wide detour downstream of the bridge and slipped into the river below the tail of the flat. Then, sliding my feet along the bottom and wading so slowly that not one ripple of water pushed upstream, I entered the flat and began casting to the nearest trout. It was a fishing chess game.

Every move was carefully considered on its own merit and for its effects on future moves. Trout that were easy to see from the bridge were surprisingly difficult to locate once I was in the water, and again I spent a great deal of time watching the river for rises. Often I saw a rise without a trout. The fish were invisible in the flat light of late afternoon and the rises might have been made by ghosts. Such fishing is absorbing, and I had no sense of time passing as I stalked and cast to each trout in turn. Long, looping casts were curved so that the fly settled down a couple of feet upstream from each trout without the leader falling on the fish's head. There was a long wait as the fly drifted back, ever so slowly, waiting, waiting, a rise so small that it might have been a chub or a dace, a turn of the wrist to set the hook, and then a surge of water and the satisfying feel of a heavy trout dancing on the end of the line.

I spent two happy hours fishing the fifty-yard flat, and it was seven o'clock when I moved upstream of the bridge in anticipation of the sulphur hatch. But the flies were late. I still caught trout here and there from the riffles by searching the current breaks around midstream rocks with a single Pheasant Tail Nymph. By eight o'clock I was well upstream of the junction with Lost Creek. A brief rain shower drifted past, soaking me, and then an intense double rainbow arched across the river, backlit by the setting sun. As suddenly as organ music strikes up in church, clouds of sulphurs began helicoptering over the riffles. Within a few minutes it seemed that every trout in the Rush was eating them with reckless abandon.

The air was filled with small mayflies. Flights of swallows, swifts, flycatchers, and waxwings made no visible impact on their numbers. The river boiled and seethed with trout, and as I knotted a #16 Sulphur Comparadun to the end of the leader I thought I could not miss. But the first trout rose to the fly without being hooked, and then another, and another. Something was wrong. It looked like trout were taking the fly and somehow not getting hooked, but I examined the fly carefully and the hook was straight and sharp. After several more “missed fish” I was sure that the fly wasn't right. Daylight was fading and I was getting frantic as a golden opportunity slipped away. I was shaking so hard that I could barely tie on another #16 Comparadun, but this one had a chartreuse body instead of the usual pumpkin-orange dubbing.

I cast nearly straight across the stream to a rise that just spelled “size.” The trout rose to the fly, but this time when I set the hook the long rod bent and a thick brown trout cartwheeled across the river. From that point on the fishing was easy although I soon ran out of daylight. Still the flies hatched, the trout rose, and I kept fishing, on and on into the darkness. The familiar colors of the day faded. Molten silver dripped from coal-black trout that sagged in the net and writhed in shadow. I think they were brown trout, but a big brookie or two might have been among them. Bats replaced the swallows and swifts. Coyotes sang from the ridges.

At ten o'clock I reeled up for the last time. The smell of dust in the damp night air mixed with the lush scent of a June evening as I crossed several pastures and crunched the gravel roads back to the truck. Lost Creek whispered in the gloom where it splashed through the culvert beneath the country lane. Fireflies flashed above the hedgerows. Bright stars wheeled overhead in the rain-washed sky as I swung along. The welcome outline of the truck loomed up out of the deeper shade beside the road, and I was glad to slide the rod into its case and get out of waders at the end of a long day. Then I sat for a while on the tailgate, picking out familiar constellations in the night sky, enjoying the warm darkness and a cold Rolling Rock. I knew then, as all anglers know, that to have a June day like this was worth any sacrifice.

I was teaching high school science when Halley's Comet returned to our neck of the cosmic woods in 1986. To commemorate the event I traveled around to various elementary schools in our district, teaching lessons about comets and organizing evening sessions where students could get a good look, through a powerful telescope, at this “fuzzy star” moving across the heavens. Students in primary grades ask good questions. One that came up often was “Mr. Searock, what's your favorite planet?” One day I wrote an answer.

Make a hard right turn as you walk into our house and you'll find yourself on the stairs leading to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs is a rod rack. It has to be there because the stairwell is the only place where we have enough floor-to-ceiling height to accommodate the longer rods, as long as fourteen feet for some of the steelhead and coarse-fishing rods. Anyone who fishes could tell a lot about Teresa and me after a brief glance at our rod rack.

This particular rod rack was a Christmas gift from my youngest sister. Jill is a thoughtful soul who's always looking for the perfect Christmas gift for family members and she hit a home run with this one. The rack is octagonal and it stands about four feet tall. The rods are held vertically in a series of slots distributed evenly around the octagonal base. A sort of weather vane carved in the shape of a jumping fish crowns the top, and large brass hooks, shaped like fish hooks, wrap around each rod and hold it in place. With a little finagling the rack can hold a surprising number of rods, and it bristles like a mad porcupine during the winter when we don't have rods stashed in our vehicles. You might be surprised at the distribution; there are eight fly rods, six spinning rods, one spin-casting outfit, and a heavy casting rod rigged with a spinner-bait for muskies.

There was a time when there were two kinds of people: folks who hunted and fished and spent time in the outdoors, and the poor devils who didn't. Anglers looked at rods and reels as tools of the trade, and found enjoyment and satisfaction in using quality tools that were well made. Experienced anglers chose the right tool for the job at hand, and could employ a diverse skill set of tackle and tactics to suit the water type, the season, and the particular species they were fishing for. Outdoor writers like Gordon MacQuarrie and Ray Bergman referred to fisherfolk as “the angling brethren.” They assumed that their readers could drop a tiny dry fly over a persnickety brown trout today and cast a big surface plug for bass or pike tomorrow. They also knew the heart-pounding thrill of ducks dropping into decoys or a big whitetail buck standing square in their sights on a frosty November morning. There was more solidarity among outdoors-people fifty years ago than there is now.

Fishing and hunting are religions in the minds of their devotees, and the outdoor community of the twenty-first century is sharply dividing along denominational lines. In Wisconsin, bitter arguments rage between people who fish for trout with bait and those who cast flies, as if a person couldn't do both. Tournament-style bass fishing has evolved into a world of its own, a world of glitter, money, noise, and fame reminiscent of NASCAR racing. Hunters have split into bow hunters, upland hunters, waterfowl hunters, big game, muzzle-loading, and turkey-hunting factions, and each faction seems willing to jealously guard its interests at the expense of the others. All across the American outdoor landscape increasing specialization seems to be the order of the day, and intolerance among the various user groups is growing. There is even growing animosity between consumptive users—people who take fish, game, and other wild crops to eat—and nonconsumptive users—birders, boaters, backpackers, and the like, again assuming that a person can't possibly be both. There seems to be no spirit of compromise. As one angler told me at one of the annual meetings of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, “If we compromise, we lose half of what we're fighting for.” Yes, and if we don't compromise we could very easily lose all of it. So, in the spirit of outdoorsy ecumenism I offer the following Ten Fishing Commandments for Twenty-First-Century Anglers:

I. Although some fishing is better than others, any fishing is better than no fishing. And when I say that some fishing is better than others, I'm mostly talking about the setting. I suspect that most of us would prefer to fish a tumbling mountain stream instead of a city canal, but I also know darned well that if a canal was the only fishing game in town, we'd all be standing shoulder-to shoulder on its banks, casting our flies, lures, and (heaven forbid) bait with the glassy-eyed zeal of true believers. Think of the anglers fishing the River Seine where it flows through Paris, as depicted by generations of French painters. I've never seen any of them shown with a fish in hand, but they're always fishing.

II. Any fish is a good catch, and all fish are worth fishing for. Trash fish? When you can go to your workshop or your laboratory and make a fish from scratch, I'll let you call it a “trash fish” if you want to. Until then, all fish are miracles of creation and should be treated with the respect and admiration they deserve. Yes, there are invasive, nonnative fish like Asian silver carp that are hard to live with. Are the fish to blame or are we?

III. Assuming that the method is legal, the type of rod, reel, pole, or other tackle used by an angler does
not
constitute grounds for disparaging his or her character. I am reminded of a day on the shores of Trout Lake in Yellowstone National Park when Teresa landed and promptly released a seven-pound rainbow trout some twenty-six inches long. As Teresa lifted the big rainbow from the water, everybody could see the bright yellow #8 weighted Woolly Worm clicked firmly in the trout's toothy upper jaw. When the poor fishless beggar standing next to her said, “Well, I didn't travel three thousand miles to fish with weighted nymphs,” Teresa giggled and responded with “That's OK—more for me!”

IV. Thou shalt not criticize the modus operandi of a fellow angler until you have fished with him or her for three full days. The habits of fisherfolk are shaped by their home waters, and the variety of water types found across Wisconsin, let alone North America, defies description. How somebody fishes usually makes perfect sense once you see where they're fishing and what they're fishing for.

V. Arguing about knots is silly. Sometimes as I'm tying on a new tippet with a Blood knot, the person with me will chime in with “You know, a double surgeon's knot is stronger.” Then I ask “Can you tie a Blood knot?” The answer is always no.

VI. Litter, and you will burn in Hell for eternity. I also believe that time spent picking up litter is not counted against one's allotted time on Earth.

VII. Take your kids fishing, even if you feel like throwing the little buggers in after a few minutes. Take this one step further and make any necessary sacrifices to supply your kids with quality equipment as they grow into the activity, and take them where they need to go to enjoy decent fishing. Time spent together by the water often connects to other happy times. Catch some frogs, skip stones, buy some ice cream, relax in a lawn chair on the bank and read, or take a nap. Shut off all of your electronic devices, slow down, and feel the soft caress of the breeze on your cheek. Breathe.

VIII. It's probably better to let someone else teach your spouse or significant other to fish, especially if you want them to enjoy it and stick with it. I don't really know why this is so, but it is.

IX. Fight the good fight and help those who are trying to help our lakes, rivers, and coastal waterways. We do not own the land, the water, or the wind; we hold these things in trust for the young people who follow us.

X. Always have a cold beverage waiting for you and a friend at the end of a long, hot day.

Richard Walker was hunting a giant. He had hunted it all season, and as the sky lightened in the east on this misty September morning it revealed a man's face, gaunt and hollow-eyed, a face whose features were sculpted by exhaustion and obsession. Images unbidden haunted his mind: a sickle-shaped dorsal fin cleaving the still water of Redmire Pool, shiny brass scales resting on black silt in the shallows, scales like armor plates more than three inches across; an impossibly large shadow that floated serenely near a downed willow tree one sultry summer afternoon and then faded away like an evaporating cloud.

For a moment Walker turned his gaze away from water and sky, looked down near his feet, and smiled. It always made him feel better to see his rod suspended by its holder and his line looped through the bite alarm. He'd crafted the rod himself, spending many hours planing long strips of Tonkin cane to exacting tapers and then gluing them together to construct a two-piece rod, ten feet long. The finished rod was beautiful and functional; it was made to fish with, not to hang on the wall as a decoration. Like Henry V 's sword or a Spitfire fighter, this was a weapon for working days. Walker christened his rod the Mark IV, and went giant hunting.