The Average Steelheader

Fooling around with my template

2011-12-07T09:22:00.006-05:00

So I'm fiddling around with my blog template. For a little while now, the Blogger service has been politely telling me that there's a new interface and new design options available, including how the blog looks. Mostly, I've ignored this because I've been more intent on contributing written content - and in fact finding time to do so.

Anyway, I've finally decided to make time to try the re-design, and so far so good.

I like the new design, but I've got a good base in xhtml, css and the like, so I can read the actual code - and since Blogger is so obliging, by offering access to the code, I will keep playing around with that until I have something more individualised. For example, the standard background pic was the same for everyone who uses this template. It was the first to go!

Currently, the background is a pic from the Elk in December.

Stay tuned!

p.-

The Tao of the Average Steelheader

2011-12-02T22:07:00.015-05:00

In this strange sport that some of us call steelheading, given the passion it inspires, it is even stranger that there are days that make us want to quit.

I don’t know.

Maybe it’s because of the amazingly disparate possibilities that it can provide. You may be knee deep in chromers for five minutes or half an hour, but then find yourself empty handed for a whole day. And there is such an excitement in seeing the float go down, such exultation when it happens – and in the initial pull of the fish – that it sweetens the experience to have it take place over and over and over again. Conversely, it is dreadful to gaze feebly on the painfully wasted potential of a peaceful, buoyant float, a numbing pain that doubles and triples by the hour.

And it’s always after a few hours have passed, that thoughts of quitting start to surface. At first they’re not really all that serious. But with the addition of another few hours, maybe a bird’s nest and a blown rig or two, a stubbed toe and cold hands; then they start to get serious. Why am I doing this? What's the point? What the...?

Then like a giant wind-shield wiper dispelling the fog of doubt, there is a sudden strike - sometimes incredibly vicious - and we're as good as new. The fish jabs up in anger, splits the surface of the water in a white fury of foam, and the rod bends almost gleefully under the awesome pressure of a speeding chrome bullet. The heart fills with laughter and song. Out of all the doubt, the word "yes!" comes like a sudden ray of sunlight. Everything is alright with the world, as the fish struggles on. When it is landed, it is like the fulfillment of a prayer; if it gets off then somehow, when the Leafs were down 4-1 in the third period, they scored two quick goals and are now back into it, with 10 minutes left to go! The nerves re-engage and we are on the tips of our toes, eager for the next drift, the next shot at getting another serious hit - waiting breathlessly for the tying goal.

There is no better way to describe my morning, today, than this. With the promise of the previous day torn out by what seemed to me mostly dead water, I was unexpectedly delivered five minutes of glory this morning. And though I still lost the game, having to leave the waters for work, I know the tying goal hit the post; and that was enough.

There is a little lie here, of course, because I am being selfish in my description. This is the story teller's license: I get to tell it to you from my point of view, or - if you will - from my fisherman's point of view. And from that point of view, of course, yesterday was far less than what I had expected it to be, and this morning was a redemption; though only by the barest margin. The full story is quite different.

Enter Oliver and Richard, who meet me in the early morning at the designated spot. Richard, you may recall from my earlier posts, is my brother in-law (brewer supreme) who has fished steelhead with me many times (and by the way, who could ask for a better brother in-law than that? Here is a man who shares my passion for steelhead and brews some absolutely delicious beer - always from the best ingredients - of which full kegs often find their way to my fridge! Truly: a toast to my sister, for her impeccable taste in men, and in playmates for her brothers!). Oliver is a new friend, a real gentleman that I've met through this blog. Though he lives a little far from our eastern rivers, he gladly accepted my invitation to fish them with me on this day.

For these men, there is not a wasted minute to our day together. Maybe part of my lamentation was that I'd hoped to put them both onto more fish than I did; and yet they both equalled or surpassed my total - so maybe I can relax! Anyway, despite the rains that had promised throngs of hungry steelhead, we had the typical eastern Lake Ontario experience: early morning bite followed by mid-morning shut down. And yet, Oliver caught easily the biggest fish we saw all day, and Richard capped the day by catching the second biggest one almost right at sunset. Sandwiched in between was a fish of excellent proportions, which I fought for almost five minutes, before it pulled the hook.

At the end of the day, however, I receive such a collection of pictures of the Average Steelheader fishing, fighting fish and releasing fish that two things are driven home: first, we had a good (though not great) day; second, I'm usually the one taking all the pictures! Oliver had brought his DSLR, had taken shots and sent me such a great variety of pictures that I am truly grateful for the gift that they represent. Ha! Not that I cut such a striking figure, but one sometimes wonders "hey, what does it look like when I'M at the helm?" So, though you usually see pictures I took on this blog - or pictures taken with one of my cameras - this time, if you see a picture of me, it is courtesy of Oliver. Thanks again, Oliver!

Still, the entire day left me tired and somewhat weary of the sport. I'd have enjoyed the day just as much if we'd spent it at a bar, watching Hockey Day in Canada, as fishing. For me, the only saving grace for the day was the excellent company of my brother in-law and my new friend. So, hitting potentially barren water on my own this morning, before my late shift at work, did not really enthuse.

Thus, I woke up later than I would normally have, and assisted Laura with the kids, got them dressed, fed them, did some clearing of dishes from the machine and dropped Samuel off at school.

I then went to the nearest river and committed my first error. I mis-read the colour of the water from the road, deemed it too dirty, and decided to return to yesterday's destination, without stopping to have a proper look. It's an honest mistake, really, in view of the fact that it was raining at the time; I assumed that there'd been enough to raise all the rivers again. Unfortunately, I was wrong. So the culmination of mistake one was mistake two: opting to untangle a wicked birdsnest instead of just cutting it off and re-rigging.

But yesterday Oliver, who had brought some tricks of his own, had said something that stuck. He had said it casually, about a different way of tying roe that he was showing me; and now, on a morning when I had considered first my comfort zone and the easy decision to make, it wafted back into memory: "try something different." Try something different I did, and so on to my third mistake.

Mistake number three? You can't fault me for this one: having a job. Yes, the mundane things in life often outweigh our passions in importance. Though fishing brings me infinitely more joy than commuting back and forth to Toronto, the latter is far more important and in fact enables the former. If I didn't work, I couldn't even afford to go fishing. So there.

And the only reason my job is a mistake, today, is that my five minutes of vindication occurred 10 minutes before I had to purposely commit that mistake! Two hits in five minutes. One, unexpected and which I thought was a snag, produced the surfacing of what I guess must have been a 5 or 6 lb hen, which spit the hook instantly. You see? "Try something different." That was the 4-3 score. Still down one and with 10 minutes to go, I re-tied my hook and set to drifting the same spot; no go but there was better water just behind this, at the end of an arc, in the tail-out, just after that pack of brush - and the float literally whipped sideways when the Monster took the bait.

I've fished the Nottawasaga river and I know what "berserk psychotic" looks like at the end of your rod, when it's a steelhead and it's about 5 lbs; but this was "berserk psychotic" chrome-bright and ultra-fresh 10lbs from lake Ontario. I can't even describe the first few seconds of this fight. But eventually the fish came crashing to my side of the river, turned and literally shot across; too quickly, because it found itself riding right up on the other shore, clear out of the water! In one motion, though, and still under the impetus of his flight he (by now I'd seen the kype) swirled mid-air and dove back into the froth. We fought for a bit, give and take, only a few feet beneath me in the pool and, being nowhere near spent, he dashed under the thicket. For a while, I applied the Michigan Dirty to him. I thrust my rod right down into the depths and used the water's force combined with the rod's flex against him. He swept up. I pulled him down. But something was wrong. I was caught up in the bush.

Finally, all indication of motion ceased. The knot that held my tippet to my mainline had finally reached the last ounce of its strength, and it had given up. I pulled it out of the mess of branches, thankful for the behemoth manifestation of that awesome fish.

I vacillated for a few seconds, torn between the need to leave and the wish to re-rig and try one last drift... But I took apart the rod and stepped out of the stream, and I coolly walked away from what was probably the best water I've seen in weeks - big mistake, but needful mistake.

No regrets. And I look forward, now, to the next outing. "Quit"? What does that mean, anyway?

No idea!

p.-

Adventures in a Dream

2011-11-13T16:53:00.017-05:00

Several years ago, in his own way, Mike told me that if I was to take vacation time to fish for Steelhead, then it would be infinitely more intelligent to do so in the Fall rather than during the Spring trout opener. The argument ran like this: autumn fish are fresher and more energetic than beat-up drop-backs and fewer people fish for them in November than in May.

It took me years to apply this wisdom to my ways, and if anyone who reads this has also read prior episodes on this blog, then you will know that the catalyst for my metamorphosis came two Springs ago during that wicked drought. Unable to stomach the slaughter that I witnessed on gin-clear May-time rivers, I finally made the fateful choice to spend more time fishing at the opposite end of the calendar, and I put this into practice this November.

So it was that after many weeks of nervous anticipation, my Fall fishing vacation had arrived. In fact, I had almost re-booked it due to lack of rain - a familiar refrain - but in hindsight I'm glad I didn't. I needed a rest from work, to replenish my patience with certain things and ease out the stress. It was like programming, as if a subroutine was added where let "stress" = "force of the fish pulling on the line" and let "pressure" = "force exerted by angler on rod, in response to stress." I knew that to delay the time would not do anyone any good, and that a healthy dose of pure steelhead chromium was exactly what I needed. Not only that, but it rained on the my first day out - on November 9th - and it didn't rain for more than two weeks afterwards.

Being constrained hourly, whether by responsibility to family or to work, one forgets what it's like to spend whole days in the pursuit of one's favourite quarry. There is no time-watching, no nervous retying of hooks and leads in an attempt to shave off minutes in order to have time for one more cast. The feeling at the pit of the stomach, the helplessness before the inevitability of the early termination of a foray - successful or otherwise - does not take hold. Wading through this glut of time, one unexpectedly finds one's self not only at times wholly engrossed in the acute surveillance of one's float, but in the sounds of the water and of birds nearby, of the freshness of the air, of the feeling of the wind against one's face; the rigid focus of the daily militaristic routine and attention to pragmatic detail falls away like a doffed uniform. The little family bubble, the sole acceptable refuge of diurnal life from the mundane and the formulaic, is suddenly joined to this wide river filled with fish and every atom that fills it and surround it.

Isaac giggles in the splash of water as it spills over a boulder; Samuel plays everywhere around me in the wind; Laura gazes at me from the river's flow. Over and through the eye's focus on the bright cap of the float, as it glides over the surface of dark, inscrutable pools, images of these beloved faces appear, great smiles of childhood, clear eyes of most pristine innocence. Vanish suddenly; when the float scythes beneath the flow, and the rod swings up, and the pulse and pull of the fish begin.

Thus, many hours are spent as if in a dream; a passage through a collection of vibrant, moving photographs, where everything - or almost everything - that one loves moves and beats around me. What do I care that my legs are leaden, or that my arms are tired? In the activity of the prehistoric struggle for survival - taking fish - I have found a respite from the modern one, and I have separated myself from the oppressive, mitigated serfdom of the wage earner - transplanted on shores of light, a witness to the extraordinary bounty available to everyone, if only they try.

The first day is spent mostly in admiration, not only of those things that have brought such sweet meditation, but of the gift of piscatorial mastery with which the gods have blessed my friend. Mike catches fish under everyone's noses. He catches them every which way, with lures, under a float... While, mostly, I fish to empty water, and I feel like a novice who stepped onto the ice with a veteran from the NHL. His talent is that obvious.

Eventually, he hands me some of his roe and indicates the seam over which it should be swung out into the big river. Feeling sorry for me, doubtless because I haven't caught anything yet, he has stepped away from the best spot to stand, on one of the best pools on the river, and relinquished it to me. The float spikes down. I set the hook. Nothing. Well, not really nothing. When I reel in my rig and inspect the bait, I see that the bag has been shredded. I look up river to see if I have Mike's attention. When he looks, I sign: three fingers. "Three missed fish so far," and that in less than five minutes.

I get almost a dozen hits in this run, hook and miss a titan, and land two beautiful steelhead - and that's it for me on day one. To the pragmatist, intent only on catching, it is an irrevocable disaster. But, though I am disappointed with my luck, I feel only, at the end of the day, something that has been just out of reach lately, always seemingly close by but not quite within my grasp: peace. It was a good day, spent with a good friend (and superlative fisherman), on a good river.

And anyway, some days are a pre-payment for good things to come, and we should never lament them - especially when the price was easy to pay.

On day two, my passion for success is re-ignited, and I wake from an uneasy sleep - not feeling the slightest bit tired. I am fishing brand new water with Bill and Dave today, and my "get up and go" gets me up and gets me going.

We meet at the designated bridge, among the country side maze, which I studied several times before going. Dave is our guide, and he decides that we should start elsewhere. Back through the knot of roads we go. I follow them, finally to come to a stop on the side of a road, surrounded by tall pine and birch. Early morning birdsong wafts in as soon as I open the car door. We get dressed quickly, and my guides set off almost at a dead run.

And I am plunged into another surprise. Here is a thick wood, cloven by interwoven deer paths, growing on the steep sides of a valley - at the bottom of which the river gleams emerald lover's eyes to anyone seeking her copious gifts. Such as we three. And I am confronted by time; not yet the running out of it, but that I have had more of it in this world than my two companions for the day. They seem to skip effortlessly through the thickets and over the fallen great trunks of bygone Lords among maples and pines, oak and birch; while I trudge and struggle. Then I am no longer racing with them but rather strolling through the quiet woods. Distinctly, I think of my father. He would love this place. No other fishermen, other than we three, are within sight or hearing; here we enjoy the mellifluous combining of the peace of the beautiful forest and the chaos of the pristine fish, come from so far that their power seems nothing short of miraculous.

My count on this day is much better than that of the previous day, but don't ask me what it was. I don't remember, and I honestly don't really care. There were no extremely long stretches of inactivity, and while we fished together, there were only short intervals during which none of the three rods were active in some way. None of the fish were very big, and of the ones I landed only a couple of them grazed the lower reach of about 4lbs - but they might as well have been twice or thrice as large, for the battle that they gave. And, together with the deep green of the forest that surrounds them, they imparted a love of that place in me that I will never try to escape, but that I will now and then take the opportunity to requite.

Day three is like the slow return to reality, the waking from the blessedness of dreams. Everywhere, fishermen lined the shores of the little rivers close to home. I could not strike far afield on this day. There was business to look after, surrounding Isaac, in the morning and I couldn't - wouldn't - miss it. So I stayed close to home.

And yet, though the concrete shores of the first place I stopped didn't produce for me; the muddy confines of the second spot were surprisingly prolific. Somehow, a fresh run of fish had come in and, free to harass them until the day's end, I gave into the glee of catching them. I happily endured the other fishermen who shared the place with me, as we all had in success. Eventually, my two best fish came to me, after everyone else had left - two brutes in and around the 10 and 12 lbs range. The second one felt as though he might have already had a fight that day, but the first gave me a display of power that I will not soon forget.

At day's end, I walked down to the lake, and rinsed the mud from my boots by wading out into the clear out-flow. I calmly and happily got changed, once back at the car, and turned for home.

Just in time for dinner, and for the newest parade of photographs, of smiles and laughter, awake and living, love flowing over me as from the gentle flame dancing on the hearth.

p.-

The Chrome-pilgrim's Progress

2011-11-05T23:48:00.010-04:00

With two small children at home, one of whom has special needs, and a busy job in the City - with a daily commute of about 3 hours - there are not as many opportunities to chase after Steelhead as there used to be, for this tired "old man."

Often, it seems that I am losing my touch.

I go out for an hour or two, three if I can steal that much, and I try my luck. Sometimes I am successful, often I am not.

I map out my time and my attempts, though, not to cover places and conditions that I know; but to cover new conditions in nearby places. So I expect a measure of failure. With my ever shrinking timetable, I angle closer to home and therefore need to apply myself to learning the wheres and hows of those streams, how to glean from low, clear waters the quarry that I seek.

But this slowly turns me into a local, and memories of bigger, faster, meaner waters fade. More often than not, these days, my feet step off into the smaller trickles or motionless waters of eastern Lake Ontario tributaries. Even the Credit River, which is not that big but has a decent gradient, is on the other side of Toronto and therefore might as well be on the other side of the world. I can't even squeeze in the time to drive that far, let a lone fish. No: these days, I live and die by the 15 minute drive.

Every now and then, though, I get a chance to slough the mouse-like attention to schedule, the timid and fleeting outings on frisky local waters, and head for the larger streams further north. Rain comes, an invitation from Mike, and I throw myself a bone: "ok, count me in!"

And then, I measure myself. I measure myself against Mike and against my peers and against myself. I watch, I adapt, I learn. I know that this full day of fishing will not soon be repeated, so I apply what I've learned - focus. Focus on the conditions, on the river; look for the seams, feel around for the pockets; that snag may have been a boulder, cast 2 feet up from it, now 3, now 4 - fish on! The bright, brand new chrome fish fly out of the water and sprint downstream. I follow, filled with glee. Some get off, but only a few; nowadays, the focus of the father steelheader demands brand new, and therefore sharp, hooks, new line, and the patience to select opportunities to re-tie and re-rig properly. Presentation and preparedness are key.

On this past day, there is all kinds of water in the rivers, but not so many fish. Maybe we missed the big wave, or maybe it hasn't come. We amble from river to river, from lower stretches to upper stretches and pick a few fish off here and there. I am not without action anywhere, but the astronomical numbers that we had hoped to get into do not materialize. Patient as prospectors, we sift through the swift waters for the silver creatures we covet, knowing that there are some there but that we are required to work for them.

I do not equal my friend on this day, but I do better than most. Much of this is thanks to Mike, who is like a lightning rod; if there is any way that a fish can be caught, he will manage it - and one need only follow his lead to have a chance at success. Switch the focus to your tackle as it rides the current, feel for the bottom, be patient. And take the time to breathe; the other lesson of experience which draws attention to this most primal act, of capturing the pristine beautiful rainbow trout, far away from temporal, monetary, or other existential concerns.

The old cliché: it's not just about catching fish.

Charging the batteries, so to speak.

p.-

Of Half-days and Fullness

2011-10-26T23:06:00.014-04:00

This past Wednesday was a day like so many others have been, recently. Time is of the essence. I get to a river by daybreak, fish for a few hours and leave. The forces that pull me from the flows are few, but they are powerful. Sons, a wife, employment, responsibility.

The worst thing about it is that, if I make the wrong choice, I don't have time to change course or leave one river and go to the next. I have to stick it out, eek what fish I can, or catch nothing. The best thing about it is that I am learning, more precisely than ever, how to pick the right place to go.

But even so, it may not always go so smoothly. I may be my worst enemy and wake up late; which I did this last Sunday, getting to the river after first light and finding two gentlemen already combing my favourite spot, under my favourite conditions, and basically in the place I love to catch them the most - right out in the lake - and they were catching ungodly numbers of steelhead while doing so. Fish where they were fishing, and you can do the same. Fish ten feet further out, and maybe you won't have any success. Still, experience says that if you don't throw your line in, you won't catch anything at all. I managed to score a small strip of palatable water on the fringe of where these two guys were working their piscatorial magic and, by dint of trial and patience, managed one lovely fish. The buck glistened like jewelry on the wet pebbles of the bank. Barely an hour later, when the time to leave had come, I turned my back on the river with only a wistful look over my shoulder at the two fishermen who were still fishing, but where things had slowed down somewhat...

Fast forward three days, to Wednesday (where this story began), and I am on a different river, with different conditions. I had expected dirty water, but find that the recent 20mm of rain only managed to stir up the slightest green tinge, and at least 2 feet of visibility present themselves to the eye. These are not great conditions, but they are good nonetheless. The wind is out of the North East, the sky is gray and dull, the waves on the lake are plentiful but not too big.

I start fishing.

In the first hour, I have some good success. I land a small hen, a slightly larger male and miss three fish. The male takes me much longer to land than his size would seem to belie. After a few leaps and a couple of zig-zagging runs, he points his nose to the bottom, finds the deepest water available and attempts to remain there as long as possible. Eventually, though, the pressure from the rod and line are too much and he comes meekly to shore. I snap a few quick shots and release him.

The next two hours are slower. I see a couple of fish caught by other fishermen, and things slow down overall. I move a little up river, a straggler behind the line of the other men, all sifting for the same reluctant silver. Things perk up a little. I miss another male fish, probably in the 6lb range: he pulls the hook just before I can get him to shore to take his picture. Shortly after - or before, I don't remember now - a small female of about 4lbs slaps my float down, comes up rolling and shaking her head, and escapes the hook. And things slow down again.

I look at my watch. Not a lot of time left. I have to go soon.

I look up river and down. There's a fair bit of pressure from other anglers. There are seven or eight of them, spaced neatly up river from where I am. The water is clearer than any of us probably expected, and as such the fish have likely responded to the pressure either by forging on upstream or holding a little further down. My positioning on the river gives me an advantage if the latter is true and, if it is, I have to switch things up a little and offer something slightly different. Maybe if I offer a larger roe bag than the others? Also, I've been using chartreuse and hot pink... maybe white? I decide to try it.

My strategy pays dividends almost immediately. Before my first drift gets past 10 feet, the float begins to bob a little. It looks like a sunfish has found the bag and is nibbling it. Sunfish nibbles mean one of two things: it is either a smaller fish, such as a goby or a smolt, attempting to engulf a gargantuan meal, or it is a larger adult steelhead (or salmon) cautiously mouthing the proffered bait. I wait a second or two. The float stops and I set the hook; whiffffffffffffffff! Air! Nothing.

I compose myself, making a slight adjustment to the placement of the roe, and try again. This time, the float has not travelled five feet before the nibbles recommence; then stop. My heart starts to beat enough to shorten my breath. A couple more feet and they start again. Pop, pop, pop. The float dances downriver for maybe a foot or two, then stops and surreptitiously, almost as with the most furtive touch of a mouse's tail, it goes down.

Boom!

I set the hook. Nothing moves. It's a log? No, the log begins to stir, and shake its head. I put lots of pressure. The fish comes up a little, and the float crests above the water. But this fish has other ideas. He powers suddenly forward and the float zooms down under water. I am suddenly helpless, riding on the back of a bull. I can do nothing with this fish. For a moment, I fear that I've actually snagged it. It takes a run up river and I yell "coming up!" at which four or five of my compadres remove their lines from the water and watch my line careen upstream like the smoke trail of a race car. He goes up quite far before finally running out of steam.

Or so I thought; because his downriver course is suddenly far too swift. I find myself in a clumsy madness of reeling, trying desperately to keep some kind of tension on the line. Finally, he runs out of river almost at my feet and turns again. I put the "boots" to him as hard as I think my tippet will take, and I see his sides flash as he massively shakes his whole body, lighting up the deep green, in an attempt to throw me. I pull hard upriver and he responds by heading down. We're so close to the lake here, that I am risking him running for it. But I want to land him on cleaner gravel, not in the mud, and roughly 40 feet downriver is the only place that that can happen.

But he's getting tired now. He does make a run for it, but I stop him just as he reaches the deeper water off the gravel bank. My arms and my right shoulder, by now, are burning. I can only imagine how tired the fish is, putting all his might into his attempt to escape! I see his tail come up, and my heart wants to burst through my throat. The last time I caught a fish that big, my boys were one month old - now, they are almost 6 years old. Finally, I managed to heave the behemoth steelhead buck ashore, and I am tired but elated. The fight has lasted a little over ten minutes.

I give myself no more than 30 seconds, or so, to take as many pictures as possible; although in truth it's hard to tell when so much adrenalin is coursing through one's brain. He kicks before the photo op can start and gets some water and grit in the lens. I do the best I can with what I have, take five or six shots of both sides of the fish. On his left, he has a huge lamprey gash, and the vestiges of past attacks. I take one last snapshot, for posterity, straight along the length of the rod, so I can get an approximate measurement afterward.

From the silver line at the butt of my rod, to the furthest blue strip on the wrap above the hook holder is 26 inches. The butt itself measures 21. So, using this picture as an imperfect measure, the steelhead had a length of about 34 inches. The reel has a 5 inch diameter, so the thick-bodied fish also had a very good girth. His weight was probably close to 15lbs.

But while he's still lying on the river's edge, all I really care about is releasing him. I bend down, position his head in the current - marveling again at his size - and let the water freeze my hands for a few minutes. I give him ample time to revive. Such an adversary deserves no less. A fish like this is worth a full day of fishing, and then some. He has filled me with an elation that I seldom feel, but it has washed away so much weariness that his release is like the ending to a kind of ritual of renewal, the momentary return of the fresh newness of childhood.

When his muscles start to strain my grip on his tail, I waggle him a little side to side, then let go; just as he gives a mighty swoosh of his tail. He darts away, like a shadow and a memory.

p.-

Summer Synopsis

2011-08-22T21:44:00.029-04:00

I did very little fishing this summer, as usual. Summer weekends tend to be for family and friends, and weekdays are for commuting - and when I did take a week off work, it was to make time for family and also to celebrate our wedding anniversary. But with Samuel and Isaac both progressing at their own paces, the whole of it has been filled with laughs and enough fun to make me forget about fishing...most days.

I managed to go fishing only three times, all summer. Here is a short synopsis of how all three events took place. I hope you enjoy the slide shows that I put together :).

Trip 1: All in the families

What has become a tradition between JP's and my families continued this year. For the past 3 years, we go camping trip together, and marshmallows, home-style breakfasts, campfires, swimming, laughing, playing etc... are all part of the show, but then so is fishing. This year, we did something really fun. We rented a pontoon boat. Although this is generally not a "fishing" boat per se, it is actually a great way to have the best of both worlds: swimmers on one side, fishers on the other. Throw in an on-board barbecue and coolers full of beverages, and you've got the recipe for a great all-round family experience!

Trip 2: Bass-tastic portage

What to do with five kids between the ages of 2 and 6? Why, portage through the trackless bush of course! Armies of deerflies and legions of mosquitoes, beware! And ye Largemouth and Smallmouth bass, run for ye lives! If you can believe it, this was one of the most fun trips I've had in years. It was also Sam's first chance to catch a really big fish, as opposed to sunfish and rockbass.

Three dads and 5 kid, and 30+ bass, 200+ deerflies and 500+mosquitoes. Recipe for disaster? or recipe for unforgettable fun? You decide!

Trip 3: Charterboat Fantasy

Finally, as the fall season approaches and before the full-boot onslaught of salmonids can take place on our local rivers, four of us decided to take them on out on Lake Ontario. For the first time, I booked a charter on our famous lake; and I/we were surprised to observe that this was indeed my very first time to actually go fishing out on the lake. All my previous experience has been from shore. Go figure.

I was surprised at the number of fish marked on the sonar. Some areas of the lake looked like veritable constellations of fish, when viewed on the tiny screen. Not surprisingly, we boated 16 fish and hooked into 21, over a span of about 5 1/2 hours. Coho, steelhead and chinook comprised our catch.

Also, if you take into account the speed at which these fish transition from 75+ feet of depth to the surface, the mortality rate is quite high. Distended air bladders were obvious on most of the fish, and there are very few successful releases, so far as I can tell. Easy creek-side catch-and-release seems almost impossible under these conditions, and the experience gave me a brand new perspective on the debates that often rage on fishing forums about proper methods of catch and release. I can tell you this: any fish hooked and released in a river has a much, much better chance of survival than the poor devils who get wrenched out of the depths of our lakes!

Still, the experience was rife with spectacular fish, sights and company. Fishing from a 24ft boat was certainly preferable to sitting on an aluminum seat all day long. And speaking to Guy Parenteau, our guide, brought me fresh insight on these fish as well as on our fishery.

As I write this, summer is ebbing, and chinook salmon as well as the odd brown trout are starting their ascent of our eastern Lake Ontario tributaries. With luck, I'll tangle with one of them tomorrow morning... stay tuned!

p.-

Curtains

2011-05-21T23:07:00.015-04:00

It's been at least a month since the trout opener, and there are still fish in the river, but the 2011 spring steelhead season's done for me. Most of my little friends have made it back to the lake, or made it to someone's table, and less than a third are still in the rivers.

With summer's imminent approach and spring's undeniable presence, nature has made up in a couple of weeks what it would normally have taken more than a month to do. Plenty of rain followed by plenty of sunshine, followed again by plenty of rain, and full grown ferns grow where even fiddleheads couldn't be found just a few weeks ago. The grass in the back yard is like a savanna, and most trees have unfurled their verdure. If May 1st felt like mid April, May 21st feels like... well... May 21st. She has caught up with herself, and the fish alone are ample sign that this is true.

When I saw the river gauge, after the most recent rainy period, I knew instinctively that I needed to get my buttocks down to my favourite river pronto. Consciously, I thought that this was because I should expect a bonanza, the first big wave of the late spring steelhead exodus; but I think my bones knew otherwise. This was going to be my last chance for the spring, period.

There is a little bit of irony also in the fact that yesterday was the only full day of fishing that I got, throughout the entire opening season. Any other trip was over before 1:30pm, and some were over even before that. If I could have had a full day of fishing on May 1st... But then again, if I count the eggs in my basket, there is no reason to feel disappointment - unless it's the usual disappointment; that is, the current steelheading season is over and we have to wait for the next one. October is now so remote as to appear eternally distant.

Time to turn the Mind over to other things, the yard, the house, work, etc... I don't mention the ones that are always on that list: Laura, Isaac, Samuel. Ubiquitous as always.

All the fish I hooked or caught or saw, on this last day, were for the most part very well recovered, bright, silver and energetic. Acrobatics ruled the day and were welcome distractions from the otherwise monotonous routine of eeking out drifts in every nook and cranny. Free spinning casts, feeling the load on the rod at every cast, gauge the landing of the float, watch it and guide it as it follows the flow down; repeat. Repeat and repeat.

So, yes, when at the end of the day the float went down to a dubious rock, a loose hookset on which I felt a sinewy back-and-forth, and reeled in a bit; and set it right - to watch the bright male, the last fish I catch this season, crash up out of the clear flow; with the rod up high and backing away to get more leverage and more tension in the line - it must have been a sight even just watching little old me doing this microcosmic "River Runs through it" routine. Yes, it was the perfect ending.

It occurred to me as I made the leisurely drive home, over the local back-roads; I couldn't have scripted it any better if I'd tried.

p.-

Big Wild Great Lakes Steelhead

2011-05-02T22:06:00.013-04:00

Let's start this one by saying that it almost didn't happen.

When the clock struck 5am, I was really tempted not to get up. I hit snooze a couple of times. The bed was warm, and I was tired enough: we have 5 year-old twins, still very young and very energetic. And on the previous evening, I'd found out that all my prospective partners for the day were either incapacitated, disqualified or otherwise occupied. Dan, Bill, Dave, JP, Khalid, Richard, Mike; no one was coming with me. How much easier then, to just turn off the alarm clock and go back to sleep...

But I owed it to myself to get out of bed, and I guess I owed it to Laura too. She almost stayed in Peterborough for the whole weekend, instead of coming home on Saturday night as previously agreed. One of her cousins had not been able to make it to the Friday night Royal Wedding Mulligan ladies' jamboree, and her arrival on Saturday evening almost spelled doom for any trip on Sunday. We had to be at my sister's on Sunday afternoon (so I only had a half day anyway) and I certainly wasn't going to deny Laura an extra day's rest: if she decided to stay longer, I was going to take my lumps like a man and go fishing some other time. But she had missed her little boys and, though she didn't say it, didn't really want to disappoint me. So she came back.

So she came back on Saturday night, and I got up on Sunday morning at 5:30am. I packed my things into the trunk, slipped off the driveway, swung out to Tim Horton's and sped down the highway. As I neared my destination, I caught a glimpse of the sun rising over a hill in a farmer's field. I stopped and took a few pictures. Except for birdsong, the world was quiet. What is the saying? "Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning." But it was going to be an entirely different kind of storm that I was going to get into.

It started with the first drift, in the same stretch of river that Dan, Bill and I had had to ourselves on Friday. The float went down, and in minutes I had my first fish of the day on the bank. It would be the only male of the day, and the only one to take roe. After that, things got a bit blurry. There was a good deal of see-sawing, as I went from pool to deep green pool, of fish on and fish off, fish landed and fish lost.

There were two very notable losses. First, a large hen that seemed like it had only recently arrived in the river. She leapt a few times right in front of me, then zipped down river, between two thick, tangled stumps. My line got messed up with one of the stumps and she pulled further down river. We fought like this for a while, and I saw her big tail come up - with not a mark on it - but eventually the tippet could no longer take the pressure, and she was gone. Magically, my rig came free from the stump and I was able to resume fishing without too much re-tying. Only a few moments later, my float went down for what I first thought might be a log but turned out to be one of the biggest steelhead I've ever seen! She seemed somewhat grizzled as she took to the air, and my heart stopped; and skipped a beat when she hit the water. Anyone walking by would've attributed the sound to a boulder or a heavy log falling into the water. It's hard to tell how big she really was, since emotions tend to magnify everything, but I'll never know now: the hook pulled, and I was left shaking a little in dismay and amazement. The fish, in the picture above, I landed a little later and, though it was around 7 or 8 pounds, it seemed tiny in comparison to the behemoth that got away.

Eventually, though, the lightening coloration of the river started to dawn on me, and by mid morning I thought I should try a different spot, lower on the river. It's one of my favourite stretches and I thought to myself that it could be holding more drop-back fish than the upper stretches and so, possibly, offer even more action. Either way, I'd had a brilliant morning so far and I was not concerned about not catching anything else, if that were to happen. Which it didn't.

Let's fast forward to about an hour later, and there is a madman sitting in the river. He looks up wistfully at the trees, and down again at the river, surveying the eddies in the current, the deep green of the water. His waders protect him from the cold flow, so he is impervious to the current that flows all around him. He pulls out a schtoggie and lights it, and he sits there a while longer. Sighing and going on about something big, to no one in particular. Of course, that was me and I was enjoying the moment.

Fifteen minutes before that, I had gotten myself into an unprecedented string of hits, of stolen worms and solid takes. I think that the two or three drifts that preceded that fateful take had all produced a fish and/or a fight. In any case, when the float went down for this latest one, the extreme power of the fish was immediately evident. In a split second, my line and rod went from being limp and loose, to nearly breaking. The pulsing in the line and rod was electric. The fish broke the surface and somersaulted two or three times, came at me, decided that that was a bad idea and shot downriver like a train. I could not keep up. The reel spun so fast that it knocked my knuckles and I could barely keep it pinced. She flew down past the end of the run, through a pool, over a shoal, down into another pool, under the branches of a fallen tree and finally pulled and tugged and battled with me in the deep, fast water behind this tree.

I thought for a long moment that she might be snagged, as I had so very little control over her. After I caught up to her, though, I could see by her zigs and zags that I well and truly had her in the mouth. But she was quite large, and I don't think that our small size 12 hooks hurt bigger fish as much as they do smaller ones. I hauled and pumped and pulled this way and that, and I was finally able to reach down and grab her. Victory! She was a gorgeous, thick-bodied, almost fully recovered post-spawn steelhead, and a classic example of a wild eastern Lake Ontario fish. Large head, big and slightly hooked tail, well rounded and thick; somewhere in the area of 14 to 16 lbs; many of these don't make it out of the clutch of their captors. But I took my time reviving her. My shoulder was still screaming at me from the strain of the fight; I can only imagine that it was ten times worse for the fish, and so care was needed in the release. I think I did a good job of it, because she eventually left me with a powerful stroke of her tail - swoosh - leaving no doubt as to fullness of her strength.

I did catch a few more after that - you can see some of them just above (whereas the big hen appears below)-, but I was only out for a half day. So I eventually folded up my rod and headed back to the car. By quarter to two, I was home, and now there's a fresh bouquet of tulips on the mantelpiece. It was the least I could do. Mornings like the one I had don't come often. Getting to enjoy them is a gift, and that sort of thing always deserves a thank you.

p.-

Trout Hopener 2011

2011-04-29T21:56:00.010-04:00

In early May 1997, when my good friend Ed pulled a shining chrome hen from the upper reaches of the Ganaraska river, I couldn't believe my eyes. Neither of us could. But it was a late spring and, as I recall, I heard stories that year of guys catching drop-back steelhead well into June.

I'll never forget the one Ed missed that same year, large and dime-bright, which vaulted several times and snapped off his entire rig like gossamer. May Chrome lightning, literally out of a bottle!

This past Friday morning, I thought I was onto a similar, though smaller combatant. In the gray early morning light, it was obvious to both Dan and I that she was particularly bright, and the delicate blush of fresh pink on her sides was easily visible at every leap. I lost count of her aeronautics after about the sixth jump, and she will be one of those fish that I'll be talking to my sons about someday, when they've experienced their their fair share of fighting with feisty lake Ontario steelhead. As it is, she was either freshly spawned out or a rare, almost fully recovered, drop-back.

But as it was in 1997, so it may be in 2011, it seems. To many it may feel as though the fish have all gone back to the lake, but I think that this view would be mistaken. As such this year's opener is in stark contrast to last year's, when bass were already present in systems where they often don't appear until late May. This year, it seems that the progress of the steelhead run is about where it would normally be in the first week of April. I certainly hope to tangle with a chrome fish or two before the weekend is over, anyway.

It's funny. Last year, the hot sunny weather (and pneumonia) conspired against me when the opener rolled around, and this year the cold rainy weather, Easter and the Royal Wedding have turned the same trick on me. Whereas I cursed the dry weather we had last year, I was almost ready to do the same for the wet weather we've had this year. And as for the other interferences in question, to quote the wise Wallacio, "Easter on the opener should be banned!" Hear, hear! And let's add Royal Weddings to the list. Honestly, a gentleman - a Prince no less - should know better than to cast aside his bachelor status at such a time as when trout bite best! The nerve! As he will soon discover, a husband and father can do nothing on his own without the assistance of his wife; and similarly may his wife some day be as enchanted by the prospect of some royal wedding or other when for all the world he would rather have gone fishing!

Another contrast between this year's opener and last year's are the invariably cloudy water conditions. Fish could see your offering coming for miles, last year, but on both times I was out I had to count on good piscatorial feeding reflexes to carry the day. Certainly fish weren't seeing our baits until they were a few inches from their faces. Then, to the strong side of the ledger, the crowds of fishermen have dissipated with the decrease in water visibility. Amazingly, sections of river that looked like circus bivouacs last year, now sit entirely deserted.

This was certainly the case for Dan and I on Friday. There were no cars parked in any of the usually popular spots, and we had miles of river to ourselves. The visibility was quite poor, thanks to the recent monsoons that have battered the countryside, but we happily made do amid the early morning birdsong - always so sweet in April - and scents of wet cedar on a cool, fresh breeze. A few short minutes after I released then hen that I referred to above, Dan mentioned that someone was coming through the woods, on the other side of the river. I was somewhat disappointed, as I was really enjoying not having to share any of the pools or runs that were available in this stretch of river. First I heard him coming through the bush, then I saw a pair of waders, obviously Simms, and the flash of a centrepin reel. At least, I thought, it looks like someone who understands how to fish them and he probably won't bother us. Then I saw a gray coat and a black cap. The black cap swivelled left, then right, as the man surveyed the river before him. Then I did a double-take; Bill?

Bill! This was a pleasant surprise indeed. For a second I felt like I was in a scene from the Lord of the Rings, where the hobbits re-unite. Frodo! Bilbo! Merry! Sam! This is a very legitimate way of feeling about it, actually, since Bill is always a great guy to fish with. He's always happy to be out, always in a good mood no matter what the circumstances, so you can never be unhappy when you see him show up. How fortuitous that what we had talked about planning in the past should happen entirely by accident, namely fishing an Eastern Lake Ontario tributary together! He lives in Barrie, so it's not as though it's a short drive for him.

If I was happy to see Bill, Dan was ecstatic. They talked about all manner of northern Ontario fishing trips together as the morning wore on. They're on the same wavelength where that's concerned and they've already been on a good, long trip together. Also, Dan is a pretty open-hearted guy and he really appreciates friendly and positive chaps like Bill.

As for me, I gave them both a short recount of opening day on the past weekend. Khalid and I had combined for only 4 fish between the two of us, and we didn't find them where we had expected them. Hindsight being 20/20 we probably should have strayed from fish to find more fish, since our productivity really dwindled after we moved from our initial starting point. Mind you, we went from a crowded little spot to large areas of no fishermen at all. The fishing was slower there but not entirely unsuccessful, so you take the good with the bad. And then finishing the day with a Flor de Oliva - which I so rarely get to sample - was the icing on the cake for me.

The next day, on a completely different river, was much more favorable for Khalid. In the span of about two hours, he and his daughter landed two fish and missed another four, and all of them in water that most people quickly glanced at then moved away. The secret? He'd found the right seam at the right depth, in a perfect spot for fish to come and rest; and feed.

Dan and Bill listened to me patiently enough, but by the end of my spiel, they went back to talking about Thunder Bay and Nipigon, coasters and giant pike. It's very interesting stuff, but given my circumstances - and my natural tendency anyway - I'm a poor or average specialist in floatfishing our little rivers here in southern Ontario. I just don't have the time to engage in omnivorous fishing activities, so I tend not to have much to contribute once the discussion meanders away from great lakes steelhead.

As I randomly amble along for this particular post, I finally come to a point where I can put my reader(s) out of his/her/their misery. A coda: the best part about this >year's opener is hope. It's not the opener, then, but the "hopener." Unlike many more recent opening seasons, this one promises to be a long one. If not, and should the weather suddenly turn hot and dry, then at least it was not over in only a week and anyone who pays close attention, wherever they fish in Ontario, has an excellent chance of hitting real paydirt.

Here's to hope!

p.-

Peace, Love and Happiness

2011-04-09T00:21:00.013-04:00

It's very early, it's dark and I'm still groggy. I dress up as quickly as my sluggish fingers allow, wash my hands, rinse my face, suck my contacts into my eyes, tip-toe downstairs and find the cell phone. I text,

I'm up.

Within seconds the cell phone chimes, new message.

Me too.

Good. Disaster number one has been averted. Memories of the beginnings of our last two trips can now be erased. Twice Jean-Pierre and I have gone fishing together for the day, and twice I've woken up late, and twice I didn't deserve the patient friend waiting at the doorstep. I've scoured all the synonyms for "idiot," and I would say that on two occasions my favourite self-descriptor would be "muttonhead." I like that one.

But this time, the muttonhead is up on time. My things go into the car, I go through the list one last time - rods, reels, waders, boots, coat, cigars, brandy, beer, salami, cheese, grapes, roe, roe, more roe... I've got it all. I drive to JP's. He's waiting at the door, and five minutes later we slip smoothly out onto the road.

A few hours pass. Obviously, we're excited, so we talk a lot. Mostly our conversation is not fishing related. JP is a ravenous conversationalist and topics range from shot patterns to kids, to politics and sports. I eat it up, and before you know it, the drive is over and we are here. We park the car, and we're the first ones. Nice. A few minutes later, two retired gentlemen show up. We shoot the brown stuff while we all put on our waders and get set to go. I notice that I forgot to bring my famous red hat. The two retirees go up river, we go down.

Jean-Pierre starts fishing first. I have a technicality to take care of, shot not properly balanced, float too small, hook too dull; so I set up and within a few minutes I am ready to cast. Up it goes and down, swinging close to shore. It's deep here, I notice, as the float sails peacefully without the slightest hiccup. But there's bottom now, no. That's not bottom! I set the hook, two head-shakes, maybe three, and the fish is gone. Too bad I missed it but what a harbinger! It's gonna be a banner day!

There are still a few things I don't like about my rig, so I fix them, and I start fishing again. "Drifting, drifting, endlessly drifting." I look around. The water is like glass. There is as much wind as in a closed room, and even the lake is flat, like a giant window gazing down into the deep blue. Clouds move slowly across the sky as the sun rises, peeking now and then between them, casting ever brighter beams into the high, green, and gradually clearing water. There are all kinds of ducks everywhere. Buffleheads and mergansers cruise the edges of the current at the far side of the river. Every now and again, a few of them fly away and I see flashes of blue on the backs of the mergansers' wings. I keep on fishing.

Suddenly my float starts to shake. It looks like the offering below is skidding across a bed of gravel. But there's no gravel, there. So the rod swings back, and the hook sets into a heavy jaw. The fish is no slouch. The head-shakes are large and strong. It zags a bit across the current, comes up, then blisters down. I hold on. The new Rainshadow XST is performing as advertised - almost too well. It's easy to tell when the fish will turn, and that's what I make it do. It gradually comes closer, and I can see him. Big male, maybe 10lbs. Hard to tell, because the glimpse is brief. He turns again and this time he smokes me for more than 50 feet. I turn him up again, and now I can feel him ebbing. He comes back up against the current much easier this time. Finally, I swing him out and slightly further up, then quickly in and on shore. A few quick pictures and I opt to cradle him for a bit in the glacial water, enjoying the feel of life returning in him. At last, when my hands can't take the cold anymore, I let go and watch as he smoothly disappears into the flow.

My hook is bent and my leader is wrecked, so I sit down and take my time re-rigging. It's a fine, rare morning and I want to absorb as much of it as I can. The fish has already set much bad luck to rights, and I know that even though I should catch little or nothing the rest of the way, I will be content. And I know that such quiet mornings, as still as a baby's sleep, are equally fleeting.

One of the older gentlemen pops around the corner, and we talk a little bit more. He remarks that he has no taste for centrepin reels, preferring bottom bouncing and chucking lures. Could never get into those damn things & 'd rather feel the hit than watch one ' them goofy floats go down. Somehow, he manages to express this in a way that doesn't offend me in the least. To each his own, eh. He settles in lower down in the drift, then gradually works his way to the mouth.

An hour passes, maybe two, during which no fish are caught. But as the old fellow comes back up river, just as he crests a great big rock to look down on how we're doing, my float gives a savage spike. I set the hook and a rainbow trout comes up almost immediately. It shakes its head a lot, quick shakes, not big ones. It occurs to me that I've got it well positioned to just tow it in, before it can swim down to capitalise on the force of the current. I clamp on the reel and go for it, and just like that she's on shore. No release this time.

No eggs either. When we clean the fish later, we find not even the barest trace of an ovary. Strange. Must be a "croker," or at the very least a fall spawner. It yields beautiful, bright orange fillets that look better than the most expensive Sashimi. Half of it has a date with JP's freezer, the other half with my barbecue on Sunday. It's been a little more than a year since I kept a steelhead for the table, and I think that to keep one for that purpose, from time to time, far from being non-conservationist, rather does them homage.

And that's all there is to tell about our piscatorial success, sadly. On a freak accident, I missed another one which took my entire rig when I set the hook. I had probably scythed my line on a rock, after I caught the croker, and there had been just enough power left in the mainline to allow me to cast. Then, shortly before we left, Jean-Pierre had a wicked hit. He set the hook, had too much slack, reeled in frantically and set the hook again. The fish shook its head, bob, bob, bob, swing! and the hook was free. That in itself guarantees him a guided trip to one of my eastern Ontario favourites, come opener: the rivers are smaller here and the drift is much less technical. Nonetheless, he came about 6 feet of line and 1 second short of having the best piscatorial battle of his life, though he doesn't know that yet.

A couple of hours after lunch, we debate: where should we go? up river, down river? Then there's another text message on Jean-Pierre's cell phone,

Daddy, when are you coming home?

That's the end of it. The rods are packed in, and we change into our non-fishing clothing.

Exhaustion, stress, confusion even, these things lead us out onto the fishing zones. And we enjoy friendship there, focus on simple things - a float drifting down the river - hope of fish, and wonderment of nature. But love calls us back home. Love always calls us back.

And isn't that, finally, the point?

p.-

Eternally springing hope

2011-04-03T21:48:00.012-04:00

All of my outings this Spring have been less than stellar. In fact, I believe that I have caught one fewer fish than the number of times I've been out fishing. There are a lot of reasons for my continued failure, but they are all starting to sound like excuses.

So, one of two things has happened. Either I've again run into a string of bad luck or, as I get older, a veil is slowly lifting from my eyes, to reveal how incomplete a fisherman I truly am.

It's easy to blame things on luck, or circumstance, and most of the time this is probably the right approach to take. It's certainly the simplest and it's usually true enough. But blaming oneself, or worse - one's skill - is an approach that requires a personal admission of guilt and, more delicately, clear identification of past mistakes. Without first knowing that you did something wrong, you can live in ignorant bliss. Knowing you committed an error, and exactly what it was, you can at least hope to fix it. But knowing you fouled things up, without being quite sure how or even what it is you fouled up, is a lonely and confusing state. This is, in a nutshell, the fisherman's eternal dilemma and even the best among us go there sometimes.

I'm sitting in that place right now, as I type. Did the cup get smaller as I've grown older? Have I forgotten what I knew? Did I just think I knew it, but had it wrong all this time? Was I luckier than I am now? The truth is, I don't know.

This past Saturday had its little insight. After watching Mike catch most of the fish, as I often do anyway, I finally followed his lead, tied on one of René's white bunny jigs with chartreuse collar, and I jigged it in a patch of slow moving water. After a short while, I felt the pull as a fair-sized fish engulfed what it had taken to be a shiner. I set the hook, a short battle ensued, pictures were taken and the fish released.

The crux is that I felt, at the time, that this was in fact Mike's fish - or René's - rather than my own. You can see it in my face, in the picture: I look like the guy at the pageant who gets to kiss his sister. I was looking back on the past 3 or 4 outings, poor performances all, letting them weigh in on the moment in a way I shouldn't have. Not just because every fish is a gift, but because of what James Reimer said.

The emerging number one goalie of the Toronto Maple Leafs was being interviewed, on Hockey Night in Canada recently, and Glenn Healy brought up the inscription on the back of the goalie's mask:

Obstacles are the things you see when you lose sight of the goal.

Notwithstanding the jocular over-simplification or the possibly accidental double-entendre (haha, the "goal" is behind him), it is really true. In other words, not catching a truckload of fish is the thing the Average Steelheader sees when he loses sight of the goal, which is of course, fishing. Granted, the object of fishing is to catch fish, but the object of the angler is to find opportunities to go fishing. It's more than just avowing that fishing is its own reward, though it usually is. It's about learning, always being willing to learn.

And finally, it's about learning the art of sacrificing; one's hours and minutes, one's day, one's season, for the very noble purpose of learning even more about fishing. I can take it a step further and say that it's about accepting that learning wasn't even what you thought your goal was for the day, when you got up in the morning and drove out in the pre-dawn blackness. That is, doubt the validity of your choice, but not the validity of your actions.

I've seen some pretty spectacular things so far. Rivers at opposite ends of the spectrum: one near flooding (in which I still managed to hook a couple of fish) and one that literally had its flow "cut off" in the middle of the day - a sure sign that the steelhead gods were telling me to begone. I've fished with Jean-Pierre and Mike (and hopefully soon with Wallacio) and enjoyed good conversation and companionship as a result. And I've fished in times and places that I hadn't fished before, so that my repertoire has grown.

The best part is that Spring has just begun, with lots of time left for a good numbers day or two. Balanced with the future successes that the lessons of the past few weeks will bring, not to mention respite and a clearer mind (and heart) as a result, I don't feel so badly about having been such a "rube," anymore. Against the vast tome of nature's reality, we are all ignorant. But does that really matter? No.

Let's go fishing!

p.-

Double Trouble

2010-11-21T00:48:00.015-05:00

The best part about a good dose of November rain is that it brings in the fish. This goes for pretty much any river that is home to a run of Steelhead. The worst part about that very same dose of rain is that it causes a conundrum as to where one should go: suddenly, there are so many options!

Lucky for me, my dilemma was eliminated completely after a short, to-the-point conversation with Laura. A family engagement, on the evening of the chosen date, meant that faraway destinations like Lake Huron or Georgian Bay tributaries were out of the question. My only requirement for the day was that I remain close to home, so that I could make it back in time to honour my obligations.

This suited my partner for the day just fine. Khalid is still not hugely accustomed to the larger, northern tributaries, and he was quite happy to remain in his comfort zone. So, naturally, we chose to fish the eastern Lake Ontario tributaries which, so much of the time, are desperately in need of rain and resemble ditches rather than rivers or creeks. Close to 30mm of precipitation should change that, shouldn't it?

Not really, as it turns out.

It seems that we have not had a lot of rain this fall. All that last Tuesday's nearly monsoon-like downpour did was to replenish the local water table. All the rivers we fished were low and clearing. They almost looked as if there'd been no rain at all. The conditions appeared to be so bad that my reaction, upon beholding our initial destination, was almost to turn around and leave. Luckily, I didn't succumb to this pessimism. There was enough colour to the water to make it worthwhile, and by mid November there is typically no reason why fish would not be present at most of their landing pads, especially after a significant rainfall.

I've been fishing the eastern Lake Ontario tributaries for over 20 years, now, and I suppose that this has given me a good amount of familiarity with them. I've gotten to know their rhythm. If I stand on the banks of one tributary and observe the conditions under which it flows, I know what all the others are doing. And as I continue to learn, I've become aware of a loose timetable that these rivers keep and which basically allows me to pick fish off steadily, all day long. With my family responsibilities, in fact, it's becoming more and more tempting to eschew rivers farther afield, since they often represent a greater risk of being skunked!

Thursday was another nail in that coffin, so to speak.

Khalid and I did quite well. We visited three tributaries, both hooking well into the double digits, and landing a respectable total at the end of the day. As a matter of fact, my day started really well, right off the bat: I had a fish on within two or three drifts. But Khalid had me worried: at first, I wasn't sure that the Tim's "double double" I bought him had had any real effect. Every now and again, I heard his rod whip back, but I would look up only to see him shaking his head or shrugging at yet another missed opportunity. As we walked away from our first river of the day, we were both scratching our heads. Was he cursed?

For so many years, it had seemed that my good friend didn't really take the sport all that seriously. He was always just happy to be out fishing, and it didn't seem to matter much whether he caught one fish or five, or even none at all. But last Spring, that all began to change. He purchased an advanced steelhead rod blank and built his own rod; he turned to Simms for waders and wading boots; he picked up a fly vice and fly tying materials and started experimenting with his own jig and fly designs. And since then, he's been out fishing more often than I can remember, and he has steadily had more and more success.

So it was a mystery, as we approached our day's second destination, how it was that he had still not had even a solid battle yet. We set up on opposite sides of the river and started fishing. It wasn't long before my float went down, and I set the hook... on nothing; which caused the float to fly out and my line to get tangled up in some bushes behind me. As I wrestled with this situation, I looked up to see what Khalid was doing. I saw his float. It was there. Then, it was gone.

Fish on!

My buddy had found his groove. For the next hour or so, he was the only one to steadily catch fish. Again and again, the little red float would vanish beneath the surface of the water, and his rod would bend under the pressure of another strike. He outfished us all, during that stretch of time, and I could see by the look on his face that it felt good. It felt good for me, too.

His display of new-found ability didn't stop there. At our third destination, he did the same thing, again. He managed to locate a pod of migrating brown trout, hooking three and landing one. I think he's ready for the next stage; he doesn't have to feel uncomfortable with fishing the northern rivers. Fishing new waters demands that one be observant, and flexible enough to try something different in order to be successful. Khalid has now shown me that he can do that.

And the best part of it, in the end, is that not only do I have this good friend named Khalid - but he's a great fishing buddy to boot! To have this crazy passion, float fishing for Steelhead, in common is a tremendous gift. Not many people have walked as far from the path of "normalcy" as I have, always looking forward to the next opportunity to slip on my waders and head a-river; so it's nice to know that I have a great friend with whom to share this rare and finely measured insanity!

Welcome to the loonie bin, Khalid!

p.-

Tale of Two Rivers

2010-11-11T22:42:00.027-05:00

What few people realize before they go fishing with Mike is that he is quite a natural story teller. Some people have the innate talent of spellbinding others, simply by the manner in which they present things to their listeners. They often don't even know they're doing it, or have even the slightest notion of the full effect that their stories have on other people.

Mike is one of these people.

And since I love a good story and tend to have a good memory where stories, movies, novels (etc) are concerned, part of my enjoyment of fishing with Mike is to hear all the good stories that come my way. This is a concept that has always been floating around in the back of my head and which I'm only now putting into words. In a way, I surprise myself by finally writing it all down; it's new and familiar all at once.

I became acutely conscious of it only today, when Mike marveled at how I could remember the "disappearing roe" episode. In fact, I remember much more than that, but the story of how the roe disappeared, and where it went to, is among my favourites.

It's quite simple, really.

One evening, before a fishing trip, Mike was tying up roe bags as usual. He likes to get comfortable when he does this, so not only did he have his roe laid out in a small container on the table, but he had crackers to munch on and presumably something to drink along with that. Before he started tying the roe up into the bags he needed, he decided to step out for a smoke - or he may have gone to the washroom. I don't remember.

In any case, when he returned, the roe had vanished. The container was still there, but it was empty. Minutes later, an acquaintance of his appeared and apologized for his rudeness. Mike asked why. Well, because the acquaintance had seen the caviar on the table, and the crackers, and... well... he hadn't been able to resist! Mike decided it was better not to tell this person that he'd actually been preparing those eggs for use as bait...

The flip-side of being a good storyteller is that you tend to use the same devices in your everyday speech as you do in your stories, especially if you're a subconscious storyteller like Mike. Grand vistas of opportunity will open before your eyes, as you speak to him over the phone before your next trip together. The number of chrome fish that you'll hook up with reaches wild proportions, and you feel your confidence soar as you listen to the fantastic creek conditions, how "stacked" the fish will be, and how epic or awesome it's all going to be.

The problem is of course that, for most of us, the end result is seldom as stellar as in the promising "trailer." This is not at all to say that there are not excellent days to be had fishing with Mike - because there are, and there have been (and will be) many. And this is no claim that any of these opportunities would ever have come to light if it hadn't been for that optimistic baritone at the other end of the line, describing all the great fishing that lies ahead. Rather, the point is merely this: the guy in the trailer is Mike, or some dude with the skills of a Mike, and there are very few of these dudes around on any given day. I've seldom seen him outfished, and I've never seen him get skunked.

Case (or rather "cases") in point: our last two trips together. Perhaps, as it pertains to me, the Steelhead Gods were unimpressed that I should have the opportunity to fish twice with Mike in any given steelhead season. So they withdrew success on the first one, and gave it on the second. I think, as I pulled a sizeable Georgian Bay "shaker" ashore, I heard some deity's giggles in the flow. But two weeks later, there was a choir singing as another Lake Ontario brute snapped my tippet or pulled a hook.

Oh but I've visited new waters that I would probably never have seen and hooked into fish that I otherwise would never have found if not for my guide. Yea though I caught nothing (or almost) on the first trip and hooked many but lost almost all of them on the second, I enjoyed myself immensely.

I enjoyed:

being outdoors all day
having my picture taken with fish, as opposed to the other way around
sharing hot capicolo and swiss cheese
being greeted with a cold "Blanche de Chambly" at the end of each trip

getting jibed about my "lack" of skill and the "poor" quality of my waders
wading chest deep into green rivers
the spring of my trusty "Frontier" as my spinning side casts gradually gain more "spin" and less "side"
getting into several long, serious and epic battles, in heavy flows, with primed, chromed and heavy fish
not having to drive
not having to push "send" or "delete" on 70 to 100 emails (140 to 200 if you count both days)
spending time with an old friend (seriously, the man is going quite gray...) :)
the many stories and recountings of recent and long passed events alike

However, overall, what I found most gratifying was not only all of the above, but the realization of the fact that, through it all, I've somehow managed to take my own place in the story. I too, "tuned," them in the tail-outs, or cast my presence on an uneventful day. I walked into the great Historia Mikus and added my 2 cents, or maybe 3, along with what I said and what I did, and what I recorded.

Indeed, this post is almost more suited to a diary than to a blog. It's a little navel-gazing exercise that, for once, I don't have to feel guilty about. The reasons are hidden in some of the events not recounted here, but that this entry will always serve to refresh in my memory. Good things, enriching things; the bright threads that serve to weave the roe bag - or spawn sac - tapestry that every angler creates, consciously or not, as he or she traverses this life of far too occasional fishing.

p.-

Giving it where it's due

2010-10-22T21:54:00.008-04:00

When the weather conditions and long laid plans to fish with Richard seemed to coincide, I decided that it was finally time to visit a stretch of river that I'd always wanted to fish. For years, this stretch of river had been a sanctuary, but thanks to recent changes to the regulations it is now open for angling. Richard and I intended to fish all of it. We parked one car at the top of the stretch, and one below it; almost all of it would be brand new water to us.

The morning was warm, for the time of year, and the water was lower and clearer than we'd hoped. It seems to be an autumnal trend that, as we get less and less rain, and as many of our rivers recover or benefit from better overall management (and therefore suffer less siltation and overrun), water conditions are almost always lower and clearer than we would be lead to expect, just from reading the graphs.

Nonetheless, we started fishing, working our way up, drifting in deeper or faster water, in bends and in pockets behind large boulders. One of the latter provided my first surprise of the day, as a large steelhead in the 8lb range took my float down with a quick bob. Just as I was pulling it up on shore, my leader snapped, and the fish promptly flipped and turned, and then it zipped out into the free river. I was a little disappointed at not getting a picture, but I was very happy to have hooked into something under less than promising conditions.

I won't lie. It wasn't exactly a fish-fest, and there were long stretches of sifting unsuccessful drifts, but we acquitted ourselves well, both of us catching more than we thought we could expect, including Richard's personal best steelhead, and probably my personal best coho.

Beyond that, the river yielded some very good water, which I can't wait to fish again, under better conditions. There were some really interesting stretches, with some hidden troughs to be sounded at some future point, when the fish are in again and in greater numbers.

Then, there was the usual bonus of fishing with Richard. He is always a jovial and optimistic companion, and his sense of humour never fails to make a fishless hour pass more quickly and less painfully. I was really glad that he also finally took my advice, adjusting his drift depth as instructed, to absolutely "school" me in one of the better pools we found.

I was lucky enough to take the last fish of the day, an absolute lightning bolt of a hen that forced me to rush down-river in its pursuit. Richard was there to help snap a picture of it, and it will adorn my banner for a while.

More days of fishing are coming soon, and more entries!

p.-

Dreaming

2010-10-19T19:40:00.008-04:00

I was sitting in a business meeting.

14 floors up overlooking the City the dormant suburbs the mature trees growing in organised quadrants of fall splashes of brown, orange, red, yellow in the hazy distance smokestacks, and bits of highway scratching their swaths through the horizon, down there.

How many people are milling about? How many cars?

Who is late for something, or just impatient waiting at a light, leaning on the horn, gesticulating with a minute hand at a minute problem? At an old lady pushing her wheels across the rickety concrete. At a teenager spitting his gum in the gutter.

Over the monotonous drone of the traffic and of my peers discussing statistics and positioning and advancements and pros and cons, through the double panes I begin to hear a siren.

Who is sick? and will this be their last day? Does their family know? What sequence of events will it set in motion? A priest, a lawyer, a florist, tissue paper for the lacrimal aftermath.

The siren rises and we all hear it, but our world goes on, and on as the wailing fades. Just like that. Someone in the room sighs.

Just a random event, like a leaf falling from a tree, one of the many many.

But somewhere down there, somewhere just below the furthest reach of sight and beyond that of the corporate imagination, there is a single point of focus that cannot be explained, nor can it be devined, nor touched, nor caught, nor frozen, nor forced, nor feigned, because it moves like one of the living, and it is never the same thing twice; for over the miles of concrete and all the woods and waters and through all the active trouble of this world, somehow, at the precise point marked by a little red beacon, comes the flash, the silver pulse of the wild trout, which careens through a wave, busting the shadows and tearing from the absolute centre of the heart of at least one person,

a deep sigh. This is what it is.

This is what it means, to be alive.

p.-

It never rains but...

2010-10-06T20:33:00.010-04:00

Buoyed by Wallacio's optimism, I ignored the fact that it had rained buckets last night and that most of my rivers would be running high chocolate today, and went fishing.

I only had a little less than a couple of hours to deal with, as usual, which did nothing for my own optimism, but did wonders for my pessimism.

When I got down to the Lake, I saw that my predictions in that quarter, at least, were correct. Though there were a few taller waves, the swell was minimal and gentle. My spirits rose.

I fished the Lake for about 30 minutes without effect. My spirits fell.

Sighing, I trudged to shore and began looking over the estuary. The water was nowhere near as high as I would have liked, and the clarity left much to be desired. It looked somehow like a giant, green sewer. My spirits retreated somewhere, down in the vicinity of my heels.

Tearing off a spent roe bag, I put on a new one and cast it out. The cast was bad, and the wind blew the offering to shore, and I thought doesn't that just figure. Sucking it up, I cast out again and this time the float landed true. It rounded the corner gently, sauntering toward the river mouth, and then it went down. My rod whistled through the air as I yanked back, and the line, hook and all, came flying out fishless. But the roe bag had been pulverized by something... my spirits rose, cautiously.

I tied on a new roe bag. I tried again. Perhaps three drifts into it, the float started to jiggle. It jiggled a little left, a little right. It stopped. Then it when down. Whooof! my rod went up, and this time I felt the hook hit home. There were head shakes, a leap - of brilliant chrome steelhead - and moments later, a beautiful 4 lb early fall steelhead on the bank. Oh clumsy me! A lovely steelhead in the water again, slipping through my fingers before I could take a picture.

Steelhead number two did about the same thing, only this time when the fish took off from shore, and as I reached confidently for my camera, my right hand forgot what my left hand was doing - which was to block the wheel on the centrepin; and the fish shook its head once, a lunge, and it was gone.

But now my spirits were up. They stayed up, through four large Chinooks. I went through the trouble of landing two of them, one of which I gave to a fellow angler who seemed interested in finding new ways of torturing his own palate, and released the other. The last two I "released" via clamping on the reel and letting the line break, as by then I didn't have time to fight them but needed to start toward the car and make for work. On my way out, I handed the few roe bags I had left to the envious Russian gentleman, who was genuinely grateful for the chance to catch a fish on his own!

All this in just a little over an hour. Too bad it can't always be like this!

.

p.-

Full Circle

2010-09-12T22:44:00.005-04:00

This weekend marked the first time, since I injured my back about 3 weeks ago, that I could start resuming some of my normal activities, such as picking up my kids and pitching in an equal share of the chores at home (insert Laura's giggle soundbyte here).

It also meant that I could go salmon fishing, given the time. In fact, I was lucky enough to go twice. This past Friday night with JP, and just this afternoon for a couple of hours by myself.

Friday night's escapade was uneventful. Under the pier lights, we saw one salmon rise up and consider JP's lure, which it declined to hit. And we saw another type of fish altogether, absolutely slam a lure more than half its size; the lure was a rapala J-13 and the fish... a smallmouth bass! It was only about 2lbs but it fought fiercely enough to give an account of itself better than any salmon of the same size. As soon as it was released, it zipped away into the dark.

It was unfortunate that we didn't get any salmon but, with JP, piscatorial success is almost a secondary consideration, since we spend so much time enjoying good conversation. Add piers and beers (and a Tim Horton's coffee), and the fish are really just a bonus!

The only facet of Friday's foray which I really didn't enjoy was the incredible crowd of people, many of whom had tents and trailers set up, and who were ready to spend all night fishing for their elusive quarry. Perhaps because Chinook salmon are so big, it increases their popular visibility. Every year, the same mass exodus takes place, seemingly more fanatical than in years past. The glowing rod tips lining each side of the pier were like giant, radioactive reeds waving in an ethereal wind. The number of lines sitting on bottom could sift the river mouth with no less efficacy than a gill net. Next year, I fully expect to hear religious chanting to the Salmon God...

Today's outing was in stark contrast. Worried that last night's rain might have been enough to muddy the local rivers, and needing to get the boys out of the house, I took Samuel & Isaac to take a look at a nearby dam. They were both better for the walk, and Samuel took real interest in the behemoths that boiled in the protected waters below the dam. Afterward, I dropped the boys off at home, and Laura was kind enough to grant me a couple of hours to see if I might get a fish or two.

As luck would have it, the spot I picked was deserted. There were people around, but nowhere near me; and there wasn't a tent or camper in sight. The only inhabitants were swans. There was a mother there, with two cygnets, and she hissed as they slipped into the water to get away from me. I unfolded a chair, sat down and watched my float swing in the lazy current. Every now and again, a salmon would jump and land with a splash. Not much happened. In fact, the swans got so comfortable with me sitting there, that they came back to their spot & seemed to offer the same detached attention to my float as I was.

But time was wearing on, and I was soon going to have to leave. I looked downriver, to zone in on a splash that I'd heard, and then my float went down. Ironically, I had no idea that it had gone down. All I knew was that my rod suddenly kicked and bucked, as if it wanted to leap out of my hand. I no sooner looked back to where my float had been than the great, big splash of a rolling salmon replaced it. I pulled back hard on the stick, and then, like a rider at the rodeo when the gates open, I waited for the bull to tear out.

She took a wicked run about 100ft long, before she tired somewhat and I was able to turn her. A few shorter runs followed, but within 10 minutes, I had my first salmon of 2010 on the bank. I was pleased that it was a female, no less, since I need eggs, and I would rather take them from a stocked Chinook than from a wild steelhead.

And anyway Samuel had also asked me, earlier today, if I could bring one home the next time I caught one. How could I disappoint him?

Back Out

2010-09-01T22:13:00.005-04:00

Here's a quote for you "The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity." (Mark Twain)

I've recently been granted a golden opportunity, of which I can say I took the most complete advantage, to truly understand this quote. I've never read it before tonight. But a recent back injury, incurred while lifting Isaac out of the back of my car, has got me thinking that I'm not 25 anymore. It's also got me reading a bunch of quotes about aging. And Mark Twain's "chance without the capacity" really caught my funny bone.

Two doctors and one chiropractor all agree that I've seriously strained some muscles in my lower back. But Experience has a different point to make: for example driving for even 30 minutes anywhere, and then coming home, means an agonizing morning to come. Also, "thou shalt not sit or stand comfortably in one place for more than 5 minutes at a time," and "thou shalt beg thy wife to tie thy shoes" appear to be among the more salient of the many commandments of Experience.

You would think that nearly 2 weeks would be enough to put the old man back on his feet, but that is apparently not the case. Today I elected not to drive to Peterborough with my family, and tonight I decided not to go casting glo-spoons off the nearby pier; not just because I have to concentrate on getting better (so I can get back to work), but because I risk some pretty nasty consequences should I not follow the octogenarian rhythm of my inferior vertebrae.

This brings me back to Twain's quote. My back woes have kept me away from work for almost two weeks. Under more favorable circumstances, this should have provided for an opportunity to tangle with some Chinook salmon, but I have simply not had the means. My rods and lures sit in the basement collecting cobwebs and dust, and I've been looking at my fly box with less relish and hope than I have at my little bottle of Tylenol 3's. My empty waders, hanging from their hooks, fill me with dread at the prospect of the horrifyingly painful task of having to lift my legs, bend them inward (OUCH!) and then plunge them into place, one by one.

When something you love scares you this much, just because of the acute physical discomfort it may cause, it's a sure sign of old age! In other words, "The years teach much which the days never knew." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

p.-

Opener 2010: Epiphany

2010-05-10T22:25:00.013-04:00

As I sit here, finally writing down my thoughts on this year's opener, I still waver. I still doubt myself, and I still don't know quite what to write. I think it’s because I have suffered, and because I have had an epiphany.

Is it moronic-ironic to say that I "suffered" an epiphany? And yet, this is what has happened.

It will take me more than a few sit downs to write this entry, I know. I am in no mood to shorten things, so you might as well go to the fridge, get yourself a beer then pass by the pantry and pull out a bag of your favourite munchies, before you sit back down in front of your computer. Because, unless this space usually makes you want to expel the full content of your stomach (in which case you're not even reading this), you will have full leisure to attend to your chosen drink and snack, and then some.

First, I must take down the ridiculous "countdown to the 2010 opener" counter. Done!

Then, I must tell you about this spring, how much I looked forward to it, how much I finally disdained the fishing conditions it offered when it did arrive, and what in truth were the redeeming circumstances. I don't really know where to start. I'm so late in writing this, mostly through disgust, and yet there really is something to tell. I have to set my nose to the grindstone and finally get it done.

Alright then: what kind of an idiot books a week of vacation to go fishing - during a drought? And who goes fishing with a full blown pneumonia? Granted, I didn't know it was pneumonia at the time, and I thought it was just a foreshadowing of old age that caused me to lose my steam half-way through opening day. But eventually, even in my feverish mental state, I concluded that pulmonary difficulties don't usually persist beyond a couple of weeks and a full set of strong antibiotics. It took a second prescription of even stronger stuff to finally cure me. Even now, as I write this, the lungs are clear and the sinuses have finally begun to follow suit.

But fishing during a drought? Never, ever, in my entire life have I seen our rivers so low. I have seen all of them in the summer, and they were never so devoid of flow. It is the terrible proof of the drought that has hung over Southern Ontario since September 2009. Even as most people (and my lower back) have been thankful for an easy Winter, I know what it means when we get no snow.

It invariably means low, clear conditions, skittish fish that fear even the faintest hint of the appearance of a float over their heads, regardless of what is dangling beneath it. Worse, when the fish are visible, everyone sees them. And whether you are like me, more apt to release them carefully… or not - you will see them, too. And if you are so inclined, you can kick them at your leisure, after you beached them with a hook down their throat. You can slit the males' bellies to look for eggs. You can keep them all. No wonder those that are left fear your float even more than the sight of you: if the appearance of the white corpses of their peers is not enough, then the rush-hour-like congestion of floats and bobbers overhead is a sure sign that danger is nearby.

There is little or no true float fishing skill involved in presenting to trout that are readily visible. The first part of the equation - locating fish - is already resolved for you. You hardly need to read the water to determine where the fish might be. And if you are crafty enough to be the first to arrive at a likely pool, just as the sun rises, you will not be denied. One or another of the sleepy fish will engulf even your clumsiest offering.

But to locate these fish in high water, when it is not clear, when pools are not obvious and fish cannot be seen... that is a real skill. I trumpet myself a little, of course, because I know that I possess a reasonable measure of that skill. And I can also tell you that, under these conditions, fish are rarely spooked; so that, if you find them in any number, you will surely have a good day. Give me any eastern Lake Ontario river in spate, and I will guide you to the fish. Give it me in a drought..... and I will guide you to the nearest beer-stocked cooler. Why bother panic-stricken trout? If they could partake, I would share the refreshing contents of the cooler with them, rather than whatever I might attach beneath the float!

And yet, and yet... Many trips are defined not only by the fish you catch, but by the quality of the company you keep. In fact, when the fishing goes south, your friends will more often than not salvage the whole affair for you. Their presence, and the fun you share, makes the whole experience worthwhile. And as such, what an opener it was! I walked more than I fished, and I got to share it with some excellent company.

Thanks to René, Dan, Jean-Pierre, Samuel, Marie-Eve and Khalid, I had a pleasant opener. Despite some surprisingly crowded conditions, rivers in an agony of hypohydrosis (no water) and a season at least 2 weeks early, we had fun. While it is certain that I thoroughly enjoy "double digit" days, it is equally true that days spent fishing with friends are never really fruitless.

I suppose that I've come to a cross-roads in life and in fishing life. I've long been in the habit of putting off the pursuit of angling perfection, for an extra hour or two in the company of my wife and of my sons. But this has solidified, now. Why go at all? If the gods do not deduct from the allotment of a man's life hours spent fishing, then surely they treat the joy of the fleeting years of the infancy of his children with the same indulgence. It is easy to forego a slow day of fishing alone, for hours spent bathing in the happiness of a hearth rich in the laughter of children and the love of an inimitable wife.

I've turned myself inside out. I don't want to go fishing in the heat anymore. I will wait for the autumn, and for whatever rain the steelhead gods are so kind as to let fall within the compass of my leisure time. Returning health has fueled my optimism that, yes, every drought has its end; and it has helped me understand that one should harvest always what is most in plenty and readiest to be plucked. During a drought, and with two funny, cheerful, adorable four year-olds, and with a wife who is still young and beautiful, I can readily discern the complete futility of chasing the shadow of past piscatorial successes. Carpe diem.

So I've just come in, now, from a warm May evening, that feels more like late July, and I have smoked the first cigar since I don't know when - a gorgeous No.4 Partagas, and probably the best I've had in a long, long time. I don't snarl so much at the drought - which I can't control - but rather am inclined to sit in wonderment, enjoying the experience, and ready to wait and see when this dry spell will end, and what will come round the next bend...

p.-

Creek Hopping with a Friend

2010-04-12T23:36:00.009-04:00

Somewhere in the tangled energies of steelhead fishing fever, there is the catalyst of self destruction. And when this volatile trigger is depressed, though accidentally, it is always a good thing if friendlier, more wholesome forces are at hand.

It was 6am. Or I think the alarm clock read "6:02am." This took a second or two, to sink in. In fact, it was supposed to say "3:35am." Oh no! I slept in! J.P. was supposed to be here at 4am, and we were supposed to be an hour away from our chosen destination by now. Noooooo! In the beffudled madness that ensued, I managed to pull on some long-johns, get my feet into some socks and rush almost head-long out onto my wet driveway where; miraculously, he was still waiting for me. This is the quality of the man: that he could not bring himself to wake up all the inhabitants of the house, for the foolishness of just one of them.

Now, in hindsight, I know what I did not do. I did not check to make sure that the little dot, which signifies "alarm is on," was lit. That's all. In my unthinking hurry to get fishing, I forgot to merely observe the simplest, yet most important detail which would have meant more fish for both of us. Build a better mouse trap (i.e. use more alarms) or pay attention: either way, it was an embarrassing first for me, on the first truly "epic" steelheading trip that my friend was going to experience.

Of course he laughed at me, and by 6:15am his positive energy had us hurtling eastward, in time to catch the first hour of sunlight on a favourite estuary. But I already knew what the result would be. By now, I've fished my little eastern Lake Ontario tributaries enough to know when they will hold good numbers of fish, and when they will not. I knew quite well that most of the steelhead in these systems were either upstream, spawning in protected waters, or already pushed out of the rivers by the recent, moderate rainfall.

But again, Jean-Pierre's energy proved our salvation. He didn't mind the difficult conditions in the slightest. He was very happy to be out, fishing together and learning a new discipline, as well as several new fishing spots. So we hopped from creek to creek, fishing one that was clearing and lowering, fishing another that was still quite high and dirty, fishing another that was low and clear... Wherever we could, we did some extra walking and scouted for the open season to come.

The comedic highlight of the day, other than my confused wake-up routine, was feeding time for a rather large, recovering hen. She was resting her approximately 35" length, close to surface, on the upriver side of a bridge, in waters that will not be open to fishing before April 24th. I was waiting for J.P. to join me, munching on a granola bar, and I decided that this magnificent specimen, who was swimming right beneath me, might also be in need of sustenance. I pulled a fresh roe bag from a container and idly let it drop. At first, she seemed a little spooked. She zigged, then zagged. Then, as if catching the scent of the offering, she dove quickly to retrieve the bag; only to spit it once she got to the surface.

This made me laugh and I called J.P. to hurry up and come see. When he arrived, I tossed a couple more roe bags, one at a time. The fish gobbled them without hesitation. And, below her, some of her peers were getting the drift & seemed to want to get into the action as well. But, even though they were also large, she was the biggest, and her influence held sway. I couldn't help but talk to this fish, and chuckle gleefully, as she ate her lunch along with us. I stopped at five roe bags, though, as I was afraid that too much tule in the stomach might not be a good thing...

Unbelievably, on the last river that we visited, I caught a nice sized drop-back female. It was close to the end of the day, as it always seems to be with me when this sort of thing happens, and I was swinging a white "René" jig through a well-known pool. When the float dropped, I thought I'd gotten tangled in a log or a rock. But setting the hook proved otherwise. She had not wasted much movement in the capture of my offering, but she had nearly engulfed it. She was freshly off the redds and took a while to revive. My hands were numb from the cold water, when she finally thrust herself away, back into the deep green.

I cannot remember the last time that a fishing trip with such abysmal results left me with a feeling of such unbridled excitement. Any fishing trip with Jean-Pierre would prove interesting and entertaining, but a steelheading trip is beyond compare. I find myself looking forward to the opening season with renewed enthusiasm, because I hope we get the chance to find - and actually catch - some trout together. I will enjoy taking his picture, when he lands his first one!

Who's the Sherpa?

2010-03-24T23:50:00.003-04:00

Last March, I amused myself by picking on a couple of friends, after a slow day of fishing. Because I'd caught the only one, I jokingly called them my "fishing sherpas".

*sigh*

Well, the joke was on me this past weekend.

Wallacio and I got out for a much anticipated morning visit, to a tributary that is among our favourites. The water was just a little higher and dirtier than we would have liked, but we were game nonetheless. We hiked down to a large wintering hole and started fishing.

Once there, after a few drifts, I decided I wanted to have a smoke, so I reached for my cigar. I then promptly found out that I had forgot to bring a lighter. I also found out that my friend appreciates a good stogie from time to time, as well - I suppose forgetting the lighter in the car was a form of justice, then, as not bringing an extra cigar to share flouts proper etiquette!

In the meantime, it wasn't long before Wallacio hooked into a fish, which he said was big and heavy. Only, the fight didn't last very long and, soon he had a giant, gleaming sucker on the bank. This is a bit early for suckers to be in the rivers, to tell the truth, and it wasn't the only one we'd catch. I was experimenting with a new "secret" roe cure, and I found out that the suckers liked it very much.

But the steelhead, the one that was caught and landed, liked Wallacio's roe better. When it came boiling to the surface after being hooked, there was no doubt as to which species it belonged to. The fight also lasted much longer than any old sucker could've offered.

Finally, Wallacio had her on the bank. We snapped a few quick pictures, then released her to continue on her maiden spawning run.

A few hours and many frozen toes later, I ran out of time and had to make my way home. The sherpa was done, skunked, but glad nonetheless to have spent the morning with such a fine gentleman; and one who didn't brag at all or carry on the way his "sherpa" once had...

Next time, I bring two cigars.

p.-

Thaw

2010-03-16T22:21:00.005-04:00

After all the angst of my last post, May manifests itself in March. Just like that, the ice receded, the rivers rose, the fish ran and the rain came.

And by miraculous chance, I was afforded a day and a few hours to launch myself into this early Spring, with rod in hand and fish on the brain.

I visited some of the smallest flows available, as well as the very biggest - the Niagara river. I won't tell you that my success was stellar on the Niagara, because the hot bite was "so last week," but I acquitted myself well everywhere else I went. Mind you, the Niagara fresh from ice-out is a wonderful thing to behold. Such a greenish turquoise hue lights up the water, that one can stare at it for hours - which is really easy to do when the fish aren't biting.

Elsewhere, the water was either on the rise or on the drop, fresh from ice-out, teeming with opportunity. Whether I targeted fish that were hampered by an obstruction or swiftly passing through a wide open lower section of river, I managed to make a decent number of connections. I also got to fish with one of my newest friends in the steelheading community. Rene is not only a superb fly and jig tyer, but he is a superlative steelheader. He exhibits all the characteristics of the rest of us addicts: careful indecision and indomitable enthusiasm. Is the wind too high? Is the water too brown? but all these doubts will disappear in a cloud of laughter the moment the float disappears under the flow.

But for me, these past few days, it's as though nature and fate have wanted to remove all doubt. At perfectly timed intervals, my most trusted "advisors" have made the often torturous decision of "where to go" quite painless.
Very timely, unexpected meetings and phone calls have resulted in good advice and good fishing, for which I'm thankful.

The most memorable fish over this little stretch is probably the last one I caught. She was neither big nor incredibly strong or acrobatic, but she was definitely enthusiastic in her expression of hunger! After having watched Rene "out-dozen" me, I deduced that he'd sprinkled some sort of magical faerie steelhead-attractant dust on his roe; and fifteen minutes of drifting with one of roe bags he'd tied proved the point. The above fish was the result, and I've rarely seen a more aggressive take. There was a little stream of air bubbles in its wake, as it literally torpedoed down!

But that's only speaking for me... As far as Rene was concerned, well... Need I say more? Let me say that I eyed that thing with envy - and looking at the picture now, I can honestly say that I'll beg him for his bait can earlier in the game next time!

So what now? Back to hand wringing, I suppose. That, and staring at my "days to the opener" counter on my blog.
I'll probably go and flick through my pictures, and then those of other fisherfolk who are so kind as to share their success pictorially, while I work and raise kids. Sigh. Big sigh. HUGE sigh.

But these sons of mine will keep my busy enough, I suppose. And that's a good thing, as it can make time go by really quickly - and if they beat me up enough (remember: twins, and they're 4 years old now!) I will actually deserve the break!

p.-

Prime Location

2010-03-01T13:38:00.010-05:00

“Chopping up wieners in my kitchen.”

Months or years down the road, when someone asks me “where were you,” that is going to be part of my answer.

With Canada and the USA tied at 2 in overtime, at the gold medal hockey game in Vancouver, February 28th 2010, I left my seat to attend to the menial – while the truly epic was going on. I struggle to explain even to myself, why.

The wieners are the easiest part to explain. Isaac loves them, and it was nearing supper time for him. God knows, I couldn’t eat. And it was probably not a good idea, in retrospect, to be holding a knife, trying to cut specific things not referred to as “fingers,” while such an historic occasion was going on. The knife was rattling on the cutting board as I tried to concentrate on the task at hand. But the TV was on, and I could hear the excitement of the crowd, of Chris Cuthbert trying to stay with the moment, the slap of pucks on sticks, the crashing of bodies caroming off the boards.

But I couldn’t bear to watch.

After the tying goal, scored by USA’s Zach Parisé, with only 24 seconds left in the third period, I had flown off my seat, ranting and raving; 2 posts earlier in the third! Sidney Crosby missed on a break-away! Whose check was Parisé anyway? And inevitably: are they going to beat us? Again? These were probably the same thoughts that were going through the minds and hearts of countless other Canadians. So many of us must have felt as though our doom was almost at hand. The Gold Medal – the 14th for Canada in Vancouver, and the most ever by any nation at any Olympic Winter Games – had been seconds away, and now it could be put out of reach altogether and forever: overtime would ensue and, beyond it, lurking in dark, un-nameable fear, the spectre of a shoot-out.

In steelheader’s terms, it was like having a 25lb steelhead not only hooked, but almost landed, mere feet from shore; only to have it turn quickly away, snap the shredded tippet and disappear. It's enough to make a wildly beating heart spiral down into the stomach, sinking like a stone to which you, me, all of us had foolishly tied our collective Spirit. I wasn’t at any of the thousands of public gatherings, in any bar or arena or public venue, so I didn’t have to face the dreadful silence that must have fallen on all those places. But I did not have any countrymen to lean on either, so that I could have the courage to continue watching. I was alone at home, except for a little child who did not understand what was going on but who was getting hungrier by the minute. I had to get him something to eat. And I couldn’t brave the pain of possibly seeing the game evaporate, of watching the dagger go in, live.

Then, who knows how close I came to cutting a finger; I heard Cuthbert say something about a goal. Was it over? For a moment, I think there was silence everywhere, a huge intake of breath across the country. Because a second later, the roar of the crowd left me no doubt, and I jumped out of the kitchen, my knife rolling about on the counter like Sidney’s stick after he dropped it on the ice, hopping around like a fool, picking up Isaac, my little boy, and hugging him and saying “look Isaac, we won! We won!” I opened up the patio door and sounded my victorious yawp across the rooftops of the neighborhood, to add it to all the other voices that were also cheering, here in Canada and around the world.

A day or two before the game, Stephen Brunt submitted a piece to CTV, which captured something important about Canada and the Vancouver Winter Games. It was inspiring. And I think that this hockey game was, in many ways, an embodiment of what Brunt was telling us. When Sidney scored the “golden goal,” it was more than winning a hockey game. It was about more than just hockey, or even the Olympics: it was about the joy of being Canadian. We all felt it.

So, where were you? Does it really matter? No. Not really. Because, for once, no matter where you were in the geographic world, our hearts were all right there in Vancouver, flying on the shot that went in, lifting in that single moment all our Spirits.

Where were you? The only real answer is: "Canada."

p.-

Gloom

2010-01-26T15:48:00.008-05:00

Long

has this night gone on.
Long may it heap
upon my brow its corporeal darkness, its
dank, mundane, molassed
minutes; crawling to
a far, bleak horizon that with each
slow step
seems always further
away.

Each grey morning before I
open my eyes there
is a new “tick!” as
the black beads click on Time’s
exchequer’s abacus.
Each day. Again and again.
Unwavering. Unchanging. Slow.
Slow.
Slow.
Slow.

And such a wrath of despair sometimes
surges, enough to split the sternum
asunder like brittle sticks. Only the thought
that the disk is there,
coiled about with fresh line and waiting as I wait, keeps me whole.

In this wintry gloom,
I know not the sum he counts. But
let it be a large debt, half in arrears or more!
Because inexorably he
will count himself out anon, and
Spring
and the quarreling crows,
the red songs of armies of cardinals,
will echo and resound
through the forest as I ride his trilling pearls
at last to the edge of a river,
to collect the shining compensation
and gather the thrilling life
in the quickly milling silver bodies,
the bright, fluttering trout;

before they slip away
again
and the counting
returns, and
the tick
slows.
Down.
Again.

p.-

Folly Redeemed

2009-12-17T22:53:00.014-05:00

Standing like
a forlorn ghost
by the river's sterile banks
the fisherman may seem
to the passerby
a fool
who has risen before the sun to
brave the wind the ice the
roaring current
to stand up in
water to his thighs
seeking
fish that the observer
does not see materialise

Instead the fisherman stands
there methodically
drifting
his tiny float down
and casting it up and floating it down
and casting it up and standing
there
lonely and intent
stupidly absorbed
like
a fool

And hours later or sometimes days
or sometimes weeks and months
the little red float on
its passage through
the nebulous green
waters skirting
a seam or tracking
over the trench will
hesitate it
will tick or shoot down in
to the swirl
and the rod will bend upward
and there will be a great pulse and
muscular throb
of silver from the depth
and that is what the fool
- now fisherman -
was waiting for.

The Scouring of the Shire

2009-12-04T23:59:00.009-05:00

As the gods would have it, I was recently blessed with an extra vacation day, the result of an office raffle of which I was the fortunate winner. Out of about 100 people, I was the lucky person who ended up with the One Free Day. That it also happened at the end of an uncommonly warm Nov, just in time for an equally balmy beginning of December, smacked of fate - or better, the subtle influence of the ineffable Valar.

What, to a mind in the midst of the throes of severe Mykissian dementia, could be more Precious than this One day, unlooked for and unforeseen? The action was immediate and unwavering: I dispatched a mail message to Mike advising him of my fortune, and we set the date for Wednesday, December 2nd.

Where would we go? A few cross-border locations seemed to beckon, and plans were close to final, when a precipitation event further north changed our minds. A river that I had never been to, and that Mike had only fished once before, had received a goodly amount of rain and was just rounding into form. The choice of quality over quantity, of wild steelhead over stocked ones, is simple. We altered our plans and made arrangements. We would assault the Shire.

Shortly after first light, on the fateful day, we issued from Mike's car, ready to don our gear; to be faced with a local landowner, who was quite agitated. He made his reasons very clear. It was hunting season in the surrounding forest, and he did not want anyone getting shot on his land. He forbade us from accessing the river from his property. Both facts, that it was deer hunting season and that the trail to the river was on private property, had been unknown to me. So I was very thankful when he nonetheless offered us a substitute path to the river, as well as loaning us each a bright orange hat and vest – so that we wouldn’t be mistaken for deer.

So, down we went, into a steep valley, surrounded by mostly deciduous trees and, here and there, the dark green apparition of a cedar, or a tall pine. It was tricky going, as the leaves that covered the forest floor were still quite damp, and we skied down as often as we walked. Now and again, the echo of a shot was heard, reverberating in the naked forest, attesting to faraway attempts at procuring venison.

At the bottom of the valley, the river sped languidly, laughing and gurgling over white rocks, slightly aqua-tinged and clearing swiftly. We did not bother searching for a trail to take us up river, where we wanted to be, but set off against the current, over logs and stones, and through tall grasses. Soon, I was lagging behind. I couldn’t help but take in the serene purity of the valley; and it quickly became obvious to me why some of the gentlemen who fish here often refer to it as “the Shire.” But as I walked and took pictures, scanning the river all the while for signs of any deeper pools or the manifestations of fish, I began to think that the nickname is a slight misnomer. A deep valley, filled with trees and a rushing, crystal clear river smacks to me more of Rivendell than of the bucolic Shire, with its quaint villages, hobbit holes, farms and well-attended pubs. Still, assigning it a name from Tolkien’s epics is quite correct: one does feel as though time does not pass there, or that one could expect the distant song of elves at any time. The river is so close to farmlands and highways; and yet on her banks it is as though one had stepped through a portal to a stream that is exceedingly distant, both in time and in place. The occasional fracas of buckshot, far away, and Mike’s bright orange noggin, bobbing up and down in the distance ahead, were the only reminders of reality.

As far as the fishing was concerned, I didn’t play a major role or cover myself with glory. I managed only three fish, one of which I am convinced took my bait twice! on the other hand, Mike had known exactly where he wanted to go. And by the time I caught up to him, he was already releasing his fourth fish. His next five drifts would all produce more electrically chrome steelhead, except for the last, where the fish overpowered the hook and got off. It was an incredible thing to see happen on a northern river, a feat that few could duplicate.

Technically speaking, I found that the good pools in this river are few and far between and, in order for it to be really exciting, much higher water volumes than those that greeted us would be de rigueur. And although I managed to “salvage” the trip for myself, when we fished lower down in the river and well outside of Rivendell – back in normal time – I will time my return with the rains. But from a poetic stand-point, the river is its own reward. There are few prettier places in southern Ontario, truly.

Oh! I almost forgot: just past mid-day, as Mike and I lounged on the riverbank, enjoying lunch, we heard cracking in the woods behind us. An epithet reached our ears: someone was making jocular references to my hat. We turned and who should we chance to see, approaching through the woods? Two hobbits: my fellow blog authors from November Rains and A Screaming Comes Across the Sky – Merry and Pippin if you will. They sat with us for a while, and after a short conversation all four of us made our way back to our cars together. Strange... these hobbits didn't seem to like pipeweed.

When Mike dropped me off, back at the Highway 401 car-park, it felt like I was awakening from a dream; or is it that I was going back to sleep?

p.-

In a Flash

2009-11-28T20:42:00.005-05:00

I had one hour this morning in which to test out a hunch (which was also a tip) and hopefully catch a fish. And it was a near thing.

One thing about being short on time is that one has no real choice as to the destination. I knew that I had no more than an hour today, because I needed a) a haircut and b) to be home in time (9:00am) to head for Santa Claus's Bowmanville hideout to have pictures taken with the boys.

I met my curfew, but about 20 minutes late. I'll explain later. But I should tell you now that the Christmas activities of meeting up with Santa and shopping at the Pickering Town Centre are anything but normal, when your prime reason is a special needs child. Most of my hockey games require less stamina than this. We didn't get a single picture where both boys were looking at the camera or even looking semi decent. In all the pictures, either Samuel or Isaac or Santa is out of kilter. At the PTC, I was amazed at Isaac's tenacity and stamina. I spent more than half the time wrestling with him - either to keep him from ripping open every shoe box in the mall, or from running off into oblivion, in the middle of the bustling crowd, indeterminately toward wherever without any consideration of where the rest of us (Laura, Samuel and I) might be.

When we got home, Isaac woke up on cue. As usual, after a long outing, he fell asleep on the way home, and as usual he woke up as soon as we parked in the driveway. Samuel, after my own heart, had no idea and slept right through. Laura took Isaac into the house & I decided to stay in the van & nap with Samuel. Angelic son! Not only did he help corral his brother all day, but he slept like a log when we got home; I woke myself up snoring.

I thought, then, as I was waking up, that I should take my roe into the house to put it back in the fridge, and I should rinse off my waders with the hose. I should probably also upload the few pictures I took this morning to my photobucket account. This exercise also reminded me that I had been rather lucky this morning.

The water at "river X" was extremely low. I had had a description of a section of the river that had fished well a couple of days ago, and I immediately went in search of it in the morning. It should have been at least 6 feet deep, but I found no such depth anywhere in the lower section. The reason of course is that the extended drought that ended just a week ago, caused all rivers in this area to clear and drop much quicker than usual. "River X" was no exception, and I was astounded at how dismally low and clear it was, even following a 20 mm rain - less than 3 days ago. In fact, the river was lower than I've ever seen it, even in Summer and, at first, the geese were definitely more interesting (and more numerous) than the trout.

Under no circumstance would I have gone out to fish it, if I had known how low it would be. I would have stayed in bed and woken up whenever the boys did.

In any case, in spite of my quickly vanishing window of opportunity (having spent most of my hour gaging the water in the section to which I'd been directed) I fell back on my experience: steelhead, having ascended a river recently and now being faced with low water conditions will congregate where? In the deepest water available, that's where.

It took me about 7 drifts in the water described above, before I got a "tickle," that alerted me to the presence of fish; then I took one more drift, in a slightly better line, and the float shot down. This is the best part: the float didn't simply shoot down, it rocketed down. Hooking this fish was like scoring an empty net goal in hockey. No amount of inexperience would have sufficed to cause any angler to miss it. Conservatively, the white "René" jig was dragged down 10 inches when the fish struck. Within a tenth of a second, the float was nearly out of sight. One moment, it bobbed gleefully at the surface of the pool, then it was gone in a laser beam streak.

This all happened at about the time I should have been leaving the river, of course. A "good boy" might not have even gone fishing, but he surely would have been leaving at the time my float went down. So the roughly 9 lbs male steelhead was largely responsible for my fall from the status of "good boy." He fought long, despite having been in the river a while and not being as fresh as he once surely had been.

Nonetheless, my hair is now cleanly cut, and our family's day's activities are done.

And I have something to show for it, too.

p.-

Delerium Oncorhychus Mykiss Tremens

2009-10-29T21:19:00.025-04:00

Gone is the innocence. The bliss of ignorance was long ago taken under the float of sublime realisation, so sweet, so brief.

Yet not so brief that to taste it again is not merely delectable, but divine. Godlike the fish, godlike the strike of the fish, like lightning from a blue sky, mead where I expected water, wine where I thought there would be only dust.

In the short space of the great battle I lose myself in the maelstrom of jeweled fishes' armour, foaming waters, fins flying like wings, like the feet that walk on the water wherein it dances, struggles, darts. Ersatz, panacea, Eulalie, Tinuviel! Tinuviel! I am myself and not myself. I watch myself even as I live through the combat, the tug of war against the shining, unpredictable, powerful silver thing that pushes throbbing pulsations through my line, the graphite, the bone, to the heart, the mind in a resonating hum.

Then comes the realisation that this is all and that this is not all, it is everything you want and nothing - for you will want more, endlessly more.

I cannot sleep without a vision of the bright red slender sliver of balsa, waltzing on currents, over seams, over riffles, over slow deep pools filled with deep, portentious green water. And when consciousness glimmers in through the morning fog, as somnolence recedes, and before I turn on the light, I see it still in front of me in the morning gloom, the river, beckoning, flowing regardless of whether I am there or not; and an echo of a dream somewhere that says I fished all night.

Friends come and go in the storm, others like me who number among the afflicted, who have seen the passage to Kubla Khan and know not the way back, and who search as I search, even in waterless summer, for that time again, that first time, when the wild fish first took the bait, scythed line through water and splintered it into fragments of cobweb. Leaving only the thunder of a heart beating away its innocence with every breath, every thought of what was that? how big was it? where did it go? and will I ever see it again? and the wrenching knowledge that we will not.

Miles upon miles we travel, to find the trout. We will eschew sleep, good stout common sense, logic. We throw them overboard. Sobriety, duty, despair. We launch these from our minds and join the search for the pixie creatures that scintillate in waters far away.

Cold wind, rain, sleet, snow, ice and frigid waters are merely unheeded companions, minor irritants, necessary evils encountered along the way. They are not serious obstacles, nor do they deter the seekers of gleaming Mykiss. Hills we climb and we brave the fast water, we ski on the mud, we trample wayward brambles underfoot; for at the end of the journey is the drug, the prescription, the heartsfill.

Help me! help me!

But no, I don't want your help. I am happy in my dependence, my addiction, I do not want you to take it from me.

Because it is not really a drug, but a deep connection to the quiet of the way things were, the excitement of what they can be again and again, and the hope of another day - on the water, with friends, with sons or fathers, or alone. To see again the gleaming fish, before the end.

p.-

Losing Streak ( a Conceit)

2009-10-13T21:21:00.007-04:00

Poor me. I feel like the Toronto Maple Leafs. Despite a few mishaps, I had a pretty good pre-season, with some unexpected conquests and the introduction of some promising rookies. All of this lead me to think that I could hope; and then the start of the real season comes & I can't win for trying. And to top it off, I actually am a Leafs fan. The Horror!

As I write this, the Leafs are losing (again) 4 - 1 to the Colorado Rockies, on their way to what is sure to be their worst start in franchise history. One more loss, and they will be 0-6-1, which basically ties their worst season. Or is it 0-7-1? No matter: they will achieve it. ...OR, will they come back in the Third? Was that a winged pig I just saw out my window?

Actually, they're kind of making me feel better about myself. There's no way my season's been so bad this far. I've only had 2 games, really. And both times I at least hit a few posts, with my float going down and coming up with nothing at the other end. Minimum, there was the tease of success, which I would have to say has not been apparent for the Leafs since the end of their first game. And whereas my "losses" have all been low scoring affairs, the Leafs have been donating unspeakable numbers of goals to their opponents.

My only real mishap, which was actually quite funny but caused me not to have any pictures, occurred during my first warm-up trip of the year to a large river on the north shore of lake Huron. There were three of us in the canoe. My dad, my friend Luc (who was turning 40 that day)and myself. We like to cross the river, to get a better spot from which to catch the pink salmon that congregate there. To our surprise, both sides of the river were fairly crowded. This must have had some effect on our collective judgement, since, moments after the first swirls of current enveloped the keel of the canoe, we tipped.

The water was really nice. Surprising, in view of the fact that a man had perished in that same river, a few days earlier. His motor had failed, causing his boat to get dragged into a nearby waterfall, with lethal results. Maybe Frenchmen float, because all three of us merely noted how nice the water was. Then, by necessity, we started laughing. We carefully worked our way to shore & did an inventory. Lost: 1 cigar. All electronic devices were soaked through and through. So were we. Otherwise, the fishing stuff was just as wet as the rest, but it was present.

We spent the rest of the day drying off and discovering that, during off-years, the run is smaller than during ON-years. We observed some wildlife sporting various gut-sizes and speedo-style underwear that used to be white but is now gray, and that this somehow must have a positive effect on one's success at snagging multiple fish. Perhaps the absence of clothing helps shave some of those vital nanoseconds from one's hook set? Anyway, that was the "low" point of my pre-season.

For the rest, I managed a few Chinook salmon in my local waters. I also brought my sons down to observe piscatorial movements at one of the nearby dams. It was neat to watch Isaac & Samuel as they gaped in amazement at the large creatures that milled about, mere feet from where we were sitting together. Are they going to come out and eat us? Are they bigger than dinosaurs? Isaac is not verbal, yet, but he was much more interested than I thought he'd be: just another of the pleasant surprises he's been serving us lately.

Afterwards, Laura and I decided to "divide and conquer - so Samuel got to have some "moi et papa" ("me and dad") time, fishing for salmon. We didn't catch any, although some of papa's roe bags were mashed up pretty fiercely. Both of us were rigged with a float, split shot and roe - it would've been great if he could have hooked one on his Diego rod! I would've had to hold on to him! But in the end Samuel got to see more fish moving around, wear some really cool fishing gear, and enjoy a well deserved nap on the way back home. I wish I could do that! There are times when a nap would be just the thing...

Anyway, where was I?

Right. The real season has more or less started. Steelhead are slowly making their way into our rivers. I've spent two half-days, one with frost, poking about here and there, watching others like me not catching anything, but eying with at least a small amount of envy the few lottery winners among us whose fate intervenes in the form of a pristine, silver steelhead. My own luck isn't too bad, as I've at least seen my float go down a few times. I don't know whether this action is always from big fish, but it does keep me on my toes!

The third period is on now... Gotta go!

Just kidding. I have some chores to do and, if they're not done by a certain time, there could be more articles of this nature: not so much about fish as about the lack thereof!

p.-

Opener 2009, Finale: The Gift

2009-05-04T23:37:00.011-04:00

At the beginning and end of each trip, before I can even start talking about fishing, there has to be a partner who is willing and able to support my madness. There has to be someone who goes through the duress of life alone for a day, for two days, for three...; so that I can take that first step in the quiet waters, in the early morning, just as the sun breaches the rim of the world, and the birds loudly and musically pronounce the glorious first notes of the springtime.

This kind of love is not easy to come by. It is the kind that enables the one who is infused with it, to persevere through circumstances that are often difficult, sometimes exhausting; not only to allow her partner to experience one of his great joys, but moreover so that others may come to experience it for themselves and, in part, through him. Generosity incarnate is my wife, Laura.

Without her, there are not the fish, the fishing stories, the cigars smoked with friends or alone, the laughs, the beers, the early morning drives, the satisfying half hour at the end of the day when we amicably discuss our conquests, the victories we scored against the fish, the victories they scored against us - verily, if there was no Laura in my life then there would be no Steelhead, nor so many of the joys that attend the fishing of Steelhead.

One could think very wrongly that special needs might not have occurred if in some other dream, one had married another - but some things are fated. And I cannot think of a better fate than to share what Life has brought me with the beautiful person I have had the privilege and pure luck to marry.

Our first kiss was better than a float going down, better than a million floats going down; from our first conversation I knew that I had found the woman for me.

And now, when I come home, and I sit tiredly on the couch after a long day on the river, to have my two smiling, handsome 3 year-old sons sat on my lap, I feel the full blessedness of my life. It could not have happened any other way. I wouldn't want it to.

Thanks, luvy, for putting up with me. Thanks for being here to share it all with me.

Ich liebe dich :).

p.-

Opener 2009, Part 3: Dan the Man

2009-05-02T00:10:00.005-04:00

Fishing with my brother is always fun and interesting because I like eccentrics, and Dan definitely fits that bill in his own way. Although he is my brother, he always manages to surprise me with one or another of his behavioral gems.

For example, this year: never mind talking to the man, because he's listening to some UFC podcasts on his mp3 player, even while we fish. I cannot count the number of times I had to repeat myself when addressing some observation to him, or asking him a question. In normal circumstances, this would provoke impatience, but I was amused enough to find it funny. It gets funnier every day, in retrospect, even though I struggle to understand how one so overtly and vociferously enamoured of wilderness should substitute the river's chatter and sweet morning birdsong, for droning voices recorded in mono. Such is eccentricity!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we didn't get to fish much together this year. Although the fact that we only got to spend one morning, plying low, clear waters for only a pair of steelhead, might contribute to my sense of humour regarding Dan's podcasts, I wish we'd had more time together. The day I had planned for us on one of our eastern Ontario tributaries held all kinds of promise, but a flu (in one of my sons) prevented it.

Besides the fact that Dan is my brother, and we both enjoy and appreciate eachother's company, discussion and tastes in beer, I also relish observing his innate ability to catch fish, in action. I've always considered this ability to be far stronger in my brother than in myself, and watching Dan make minute and naturally sensible adjustments to his presentation over a few minutes or hours has always been a subject of keen interest for me. He does this whether he has been fishing for days on end, or whether he last fished a year ago. He seems to have some kind of radar which is not species dependent, but applies to all of them, and which guides him in his choices and his approach. I sometimes wonder if he has an unconscious "telepiscopathy," if he can actually read their minds...

Last year, when the previous day's rain forced us to fish for trout in what basically looked like mud, he was the only one who caught anything. This year, after I'd spent the first hour and a half after sunrise, plying a stingy stream, he appeared late as usual and picked up a steelhead on his first drift. It was all very casual, although it probably surprised him, if not myself.

After so many years, I pretty much expect it!

p.-

Opener 2009, Part 2: The Khalidian Invasion

2009-04-27T10:26:00.019-04:00

I struggled only briefly for the title of this section of my Opening day 2009 Saga. The heading picture basically says it all. The gleaming, drop-back steelhead could just as easily be a double-barreled shot-gun!

Sometimes, when things aren't going well and you can't figure out why the fish aren't hitting your line, you need to drop into your comfort zone. This is what Khalid did for this year's opener, and it paid big dividends.

Instead of bringing out the centrepin, which he is still getting used to, he brought out his trusty old spinning setup. He rigged it properly, picked good current seams and pockets, had the right presentation and offerings, and ultimately he had more success than I've personally seen him have. He caught fish every day that we fished together. And furthermore, on the Sunday, he caught the biggest fish no less!

But the defining moment for him probably came when he tied on a jig and berkley's split-fin jig body, adjusted it based on the hits he seemed to be getting but not hooking, and ultimately had the float go down under the urgings of a hungry steelhead. He was understandably proud of having figured out what the steelhead would go for and eagerly and happily insisted that I get a few pictures of the lure in the fish's mouth.

All in all, it was as pleasant as usual to fish with Khalid. He is always a convivial fishing partner, making cigar smoke-breaks fun as well as full of steelheading discussion. What they've taken, what we think they'll take, what they seem to be feeding on etc... are all items of discussion and planning for our post-break activities.

Khalid's camaraderie is definitely one of the things that make me wish we had more river-time to spend, but I suppose that that's part of the reason that it's so precious: it's fleeting. It's over so quickly that one sometimes wonders if it was all just a dream...

p.-

Opener 2009, Part 1: Steelhead Ed

2009-04-27T09:34:00.017-04:00

To my great chagrin, it turns out that Ed was right, and if I'd followed his advice I might have acquitted myself of at least some of the verbal abuse that I peppered him with from the break of dawn.

But this just adds to the litany of my deficiencies for the day. I also failed to refresh his memory of how to properly shot a float fishing rig, how to distinguish between cured and uncured roe, how to read current etc..; luckily I didn't need to refresh any of his abilities in complaints output management. His skills in this area are surprisingly "on."

Maybe I can be forgiven, if only on the basis that he used to out-fish me regularly in the old days. In fact, he was always the more open-minded and experimental between us. It was while fishing with Ed that I finally decided to try a wet fly - rather than just roe, roe, roe - based on the keen observation that he was catching fish with them ... and I wasn't. So I had no expectation that he could have forgotten any of the skills he used to display during those halcyon days. But then, I guess that's what fishing less than once a year does to even the sharpest among us. Vile atrophy!

Yesterday, however, will probably have served to restore some of the old prowess and wash away much of the rust. After I finally realized that senility had robbed my good friend of all of his steelheading faculties, I set to playing the guide for about an hour, and this is when he started hooking into fish. Most of them got off, until his reflexes caught up to the action. When the float went down for the last time, he delivered a quick, strong hookset and the fight was on. Then, because his rig was a little on the light side for the fish he was battling - a spawned out hen in the 9lb range - I taught him how to do the "Michigan Dirty." It comes in handy when you need to bring a fish up river, that has stopped peeling off line but is difficult to turn. You can see him applying the technique expertly in the caption above.

Ed's advice to me? While I was filming the action : "careful you don't kill the batteries."

My retort: "aw I just recharged them two days ago. They'll be fine."

The result: no picture evidence of Ed's fish on my camera.

Officially, I could claim that he got no fish. I could do that, if it wasn't for the meddling, pictorially enabled presence of one of the other three characters in this little Saga, who snapped the picture in the paragraph above.

continued in part 2: The Khalidian Invasion

p.-

Destiny, Fate and the Fish'n Sherpas

2009-03-22T09:49:00.008-04:00

Argh.

I am starting to believe in Destiny and Fate. I think that these two deities, these two powers of the universe, bend their attention even down to the minutest details, such as who on March 21st 2009 catches fish and who doesn't. All else being equal, the water being the perfect colour, and at the perfect height, with a gentle breeze out of the south-west and a birdsong morning - there is no reason why three perfectly good anglers should have such ill mykissian fortune.

It was in fact a very strange day, for the perfectly good reason that I wasn't even supposed to start the day where I did. I was originally taking a friend fishing, in the opposite direction of the compass. But he phoned me the night before, just as I was starting to prepare his roe bags, to save me the trouble. His wife and one of his children were sick, so he wouldn't be able to make it. The following morning, the flu that had assailed his family would miraculously abate, and he would call me at work thinking he was calling my cell... that is Fate.

This gave me the opportunity to fish with Wallacio again and finally meet Joe A. (aka JFL), with whom I've often corresponded. Joe's deceased but excellent Blog (Steelhead Diaries) served as inspiration for this little space of my own. I was glad to find that he has a very good sense of humour and is a joy to fish with. I was further impressed by his relaxed, easy-going, non-compulsive, low-keyed, unselfconscious style. :) I could tell that he and Wallacio have been fishing together for a long time, because certain orations and points of view that Joe expressed elicited smirks and suppressed giggles of the kind which can only come from long familiarity.

About the fishing, for the day, it was mostly in the back seat. We spent a lot of time talking, getting to know eachother and laughing. Each of us poked or got robbed by at least one fish. But I was the lucky winner for the day, cashing my lottery ticket in the form of a fresh 6lb hen. My two sherpas were extremely helpful with regards to landing the gleaming fish. Wallacio obligingly tailed the fish, while Joe took pictures. Although I took pictures of it, too, I really didn't have to go through the effort, since my sherpas did such a great job themselves. That is Destiny.

In the end, I was just really happy to get out. It's all about getting out there, for me.

p.-

Exploration & Fishing with a Friend

2009-03-15T22:32:00.010-04:00

Part 1: A New River to Fish.

It was 5:10pm and my self-appointed quitting time had come. My watch alarm was beeping, and it was time to pull the float from the water and go home, to help my wife with our rambunctious twins. The water was probably a little dirtier than I would have liked, and fishing a new river in high-water conditions is usually pretty challenging, no matter the skill level of the angler. Add to this the fact that I only had an hour in which to fish, and the result should be obvious. That is, until the float went down.

As it turns out, I had read the water correctly. After 45 minutes or so of dredging the deeper portions of a corner-shaped pool, I had decided that fish might be seeking rest behind the many bottom obstructions that had hampered my drifts in the long, straight section immediately following the tail-out of the pool I'd been fishing. I'd seen several large wakes in that run as well. So I had shortened my drift to what I hoped was an appropriate length, high enough to avoid snags but deep enough to come within the striking range of any fish that might be lurking there. Before the time could reach 5:10:30 - which is when the alarm would stop - I was fighting a 5lb male.

Not knowing the bottom of this river very well (yet) I had an interesting time landing this fish, but it was finally done. After a few quick pictures I released the beautifully coloured fish, wishing him success on his quest.

Part 2: Fishing with Wallacio and Exploring the New River.

Slush. Big gobs of slush, floating down the river seemingly consciously trying to grab our floats and wreck every attempt at producing a decent drift. That, and frozen toes seemed the order of the morning.

I was fishing with Wallacio, which was as fun as always (except for the above listed nuissances), and we were attacking as well as we could, one of the better pools on one of our favourite rivers east of Toronto. Although it was cold at the time, we knew that it was going to warm up significantly later on in the day.

Either way, our jaw muscles were not cold. They were well warmed up, as we kept the conversation going most of the morning. Among the subjects that were broached, Wallacio predicted that the slush would only disappear around 11 O'clock, when he had to leave. I told him I was optimistic, but as it turns out... I was optimistic. The slush hung around until 11, although it did start to relent around 9:30am or so. I find it, therefore, ironic that all the fish we caught were landed and released well before that time.

I was the first to get action. My float went down somewhat after the end of my drift, and it turned out to be a lovely little "shaker" which I quickly unhooked and released. We fished for another little while, and I got another hit. This time, the fish was much larger. After 5 minutes of the "Michigan Dirty" I managed to land another nice male steelhead. Wallacio snapped a quick picture and the fish was released unharmed. Both fish had hit in the same spot, so we decided to walk 10m or so downstream and fish it more seriously.

Not much later, it was Wallacio's turn to get into the game, and he didn't disappoint. After a good fight, I tailed the fish for him and we got ready to take a picture. It was a beautiful 7-8lb female, who bore proof of having benefited from catch and release: Wallacio's hook was on one side of her mouth, while on the other she bore a small wound which had obviously been given her by another angler's hook. Both of us are C&R advocates, so it was nice to be the recipients of its effects. Anyway, worried that ice might form on its gills while it was out of the water, I dunked the fish into the flow for a second. But only for a second; she was still very energetic, and with a powerful flick of her tail she slipped from my grasp. We watched her go, as she sped off into deeper water. Oops!

After Wallacio left, I fished for another half hour or so on this river, getting one bona fide hit but failing to connect. I decided that I should head homeward, but that I should also take a look at the river from Part 1 again: I really wanted to check out the mouth, and what the river looks like at the lake.

On my way to the river mouth, I saw a group of three fishermen. One of them seemed quite a bit younger than the other two, and I did a double take. In fact we both did. Having only ever seen pictures of eachother, it wasn't immediately obvious to either of us who the other fisherman was... but here was definitely Silvio from the Ontario Fishing .Net forum. We shook hands and said hello, and he shared a picture with me of a monster male Steelhead that he landed at "My Pier" that same morning.

I was not disappointed with my visit to the mouth of the river, even though it wasn't piscatorially successful. I did miss another good hit, though, again failing to connect because I wasn't paying attention. There was too much surf for me to fish it very well, and I knew that the time had come to go home.

On the way, I saw this fantastic creature and took a picture of it. Zeus himself, witholding bounty until my next allotted opportunity on the rivers!

p.-

2009-03-10T00:20:00.004-04:00

Sorry. For once I have to apologize about using French material. That's only because the clip is from "Highlander," which is an English movie, and in my opinion few translations ever do justice to the original. Highlander is a conspicuous example of this... By misfortune, I couldn't find an English version of the clip, and this is about the length I was looking for. If you took French in school, but have forgotten most of it, maybe you can practice comprehension...

Highlander is a 1986 movie starring Christophe Lambert and Sean Connery, and it's one of my favourites. I posted the above clip despite the unfortunate dubbing, because some of you will have seen the movie and may remember this scene. Where Ramirez asks MacLeod to "feel the stag, his heartbeat," particularly reminds me of Spring - and it matches a recurring theme for me, which is the coming of Steelhead once the rivers have broken free of ice: sometimes it seems that one can almost feel it all happening, the rush and rumble of the water, the passing upriver of the fish.

Beyond the scene in the above clip, where the two sword wielders on the high cliff cannot possibly be Connery and Lambert, there is some pretty interesting goofiness in the movie. For example, consider the odd fact that a Scotsman, who has a thick Scottish accent and is posing as an Egyptian with a failed Spanish accent, is teaching sword fighting to a Frenchman, who himself has a thick French accent but is posing as a Scotsman with a (miserably) failed Scottish accent. What the ... is that? This really pushes Tolkien's concept of "suspending disbelief" to the max. Notwithstanding, the storyline has always held a lot of meaning for me. I especially appreciate the way the film treats "true" (a.k.a. "immortal") love calling out, via the symbolic invention of Immortals, the limits of love which consequence - or finally death - imposes. The symbolism of the Immortal becomes that of the memory of the beautiful thing that was, which in effect our children will eventually carry with them. And I believe that it's this symbolism that attracts the film's cult audience, to this day, in a similar fashion as "Romeo and Juliet," if of a lesser literary pedigree.

Anyway, the rivers have truly burst their seams. I've seen several today, and all of them are high and muddy, and the trout are fighting the currents even now...

p.-

New Links & Fly-Fishing Women

2009-03-05T14:24:00.007-05:00

Somewhere in the ether, where the hearts of all fisher men meet, at that specific point where reality dictates that their fanaticism must segregate them from women forever, where there had been incalculable woe there is now singing and rejoicing.

In other words, for all those Steelhead bums who thought that they had to quit fishing to avoid a life of loneliness and celibacy, there may be some salvation after all...

When I recently decided to update the blog links that I have posted on my site, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that an old stereotype that had somehow lodged itself inside my thick skull - namely that women who fish are few and far between - is completely unfounded. In fact, it appears that it may be ridiculous in the extreme to think that women could not enjoy fishing as much, or more, than men do. In the case of a specific woman, I can't say... but the basic truth, that women can fish just as well and as hard and as successfully as men can, is to me a very happy one. In fact, a lot of the blogs I've added are written by fly anglers of superior knowledge and skill.

In my search for new fishing blogs to list on my site, I came upon no fewer than 6 sites - and I have no doubt that I'll discover more and more of them, and so I will keep looking and keep adding any one that I find. If you know any good ones, please drop them in my comments. Once I've looked it over, I will post your comment & link the suggested blog into my site.

Please take some time to visit some of these blogs. Some of them are truly excellent, offering a insightful commentary, professional grade photography and engaging and evocative story-telling. I've also added some pretty good "male" blogs, which are equally worth looking over.

Enjoy!

p.-

"New" Waders

2009-03-03T20:39:00.012-05:00

For those of you with the patience to have been following this space for more than a few entries, you may remember the issues I recently had when I purchased a pair of Chota bootfoot waders.

To make a long story short, they leaked up and down the inside seams after only a few trips, and Chota wouldn't support them on the basis that they were "close-outs" - which is just a term that someone can use to say "we built a piece of worthless crap on which we would still like to make some money, at your expense." Even though I did manage to salvage them with an entire tube of aquaseal, a short year later my heel had eaten through the lining in the right foot and now they are pretty much garbage. I might hold on to them and lend them out to guys I want to play a joke on.

Anyway, since the demise of my Chotas I've had quite the conundrum. I still have a pair of Orvis Silver Labels, which are about 5 years old and have stood me in good stead, but they are also creeping nearer wader heaven. I've combed the internet, looking for a deal on quality and shying away from anything that says "close-out." Once bitten, twice shy. I saw some fairly good deals, but nothing I could justify in light of my little family's situation. And with therapy bills to pay for Isaac, and no help from our friendly albeit socialistic government, $450.00 to $500.00 US for top-of-the-line waders is not in the cards.

Enter Ebay. By some fluke, I found an ad for a pair of used Dan Bailey EZ-Zip Waders (pictured above) that were exactly my size. According to the ad, a guide was selling them during the off-season, for cash. At this point, "used" sounds much better than "close-out." At the very least, it most likely means that the seller bought them off the rack, brand new and NOT in the bargain bin. He'd worn them only a few times ("once or twice" which I took to be a slight exaggeration) and they were otherwise as good as new. From the pictures he posted of them, the only real worry I had was that he claimed that the zipper was great for when you needed to attend to nature's call. I wasn't sure how crazy I was about wearing a used garment that might have even trace amounts of some other guy's tinkle on them. But they are clean as clean: I got them last week, and I'm sitting in them now as I write this.

Yes, I'm wearing them right now. I know. Laura says I'm a geek, too. She didn't clue in to the pee thing. They look clean...

Hopefully most of you already know that I'm a bit of a weirdo, so you won't be too shocked... But I also mention that I'm already wearing them, like an excited kid on Christmas morning, because that's how good these waders seem to be. It's gotten me very excited. These are top-of-the-line waders, made by one of the most respected wader manufacturers in the US, and probably in the world. Simms are the only company that I can think of who would be acknowlged as superior, without much debate.

The waders themselves still smell new. They have a few dirty spots on them, and the gravel guard on the right foot looks like it might have briefly visited the underside of a boat bench (it has a small perforation that doesn't really need patching) - but otherwise, they are literally as good as new. Plus they have tons of neat features, such as fleece lined hand-warmer pockets combined with several smaller pockets for gear and tackle; the waist belt is built-in; legs are articulated & have no seams at the knees ; neoprene booties are form fitted and feature an abrasion resistent sole; and the waterproof zipper allows for easy entry and exit as well as being a nice way to cool down when the weather warms up. Oh yeah, and they are easier to pee from :).

The real kicker for me, though, is that the final cost was well under budget!

Time will tell if they are as good as they look, or if the seller left me a few pin holes to patch up. But by all appearances I have an excellent set of waders on my hands, which should alleviate "wader stress" for the next few years.

I can't wait to try them out on the rivers.... might be time for a NY State foray... hmmmm...

p.-

Short-term Fix

2009-02-16T22:20:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I think that the only reason I enjoy fishing to so high a degree, and the reason that it always feels so remedial, is because I just don't get out much. Sure I always feel great, elated, after a trip. But, so what? I'm like a country bumpkin who comes back home from his first trip to the Oshawa Centre, expanding over a bottle of hootch on the architectural and artistic grandeur of that place, to which he must now surely remove the exact three-dimensional point of the centre of the Universe.

Still, there is something to be said for innocence, mixed in with the annual, winter's-end de-flowering of the yearly renewed steelheading virginity. It does in fact recall those times when to have a fish-full pool to one's self on a trickle - albeit an amazingly healthy and robust trickle - such as Wilmot creek, granted one such success (one or two fish landed) that it perched one atop the list of all steelhead anglers, like a demi-god; drunk on the hootch of being alive.

Not that I felt like that yesterday, really, but I was happier than I've been over missing a trout for as long as I can remember. Partially it's because I only fished for about an hour, in waters that weren't entirely familiar, and because I appeared as conditions were deteriorating due to the afternoon's increased thaw. The water was fairly dirty when my float started to go "boing-boing-boing," somewhat as a bobber does when you are fishing for sunfish. Perhaps it popped up and down five or six times before I remembered that I wasn't fishing over any kind of bottom structure or composition that could account for the slightly schizoid activities of my float. I set the hook, much to my satisfaction, into what must have been a 6 or 7 lb fish. I shared a smile with the fellow next to me, admitting that my steelheader's reflexes had not yet been activated, and then promptly lost the fish.

There was no heartbreak. I still feel perhaps a little bit of doubt that if I'd set the hook sooner, or waited for the fish to drag the float down firmly, I might have landed it but... I've been to better places than the Oshawa Centre, and I never thought that $29.99 was a good deal for a pair of Joe Boxers.

i.e.- I went out to see if I could tempt a fish to take an offering. Mission accomplished, and in sunshine that clearly foretells Spring. To complain would risk the ire of the Steelhead Gods and, so, it would be very unwise. It would also, luckily, be false.

p.-

Joke on the Water

2008-11-29T08:44:00.006-05:00

It's almost the end of the fall season, so it was time to gather up some lieu time and go fishing with Mike. It's become my bi-annual lament that we don't get to fish together much anymore. It has something to do with being married and having *insane* twin sons (almost 3 now); but I can't quite put my finger on why so much river time has vanished "like a fart in the wind."

I'll keep working on it. I'm sure I'll figure it out. I will some day be visited by illumination. Until then me grunt. Me keep fishing!

Now, Mike and I really weren't sure where to go on this day. Should we go east? Should we go west? Things were pretty mixed up. In the west they'd gotten a fair bit of precipitation and snow melt; in the east there had been much less, but this meant that a few bigger rivers were ready to be fished. We went east.

There's no point second guessing ourselves, now. Really there's never any point in second guessing yourself when you go fishing, or have gone. You merely learn from the mistake, if it can be called that. No one can predict these fish 100% - otherwsie it wouldn't be as much fun, I guess. This season has taught me that flawlessly: there's no point invoking more pain. So many times this year, I've been to river A when I should've gone to river B. This day was to be no different, except for one thing:

Borax Eggdiyev.

"Hello I am Borax Eggdiyev. I like Roe. You like it too?"

I guess in the boring minutes between rivers, as you search for fish, your mind wanders and you come up with some odd things. No rum and no coke were involved in this quirky figment of my imagination.

More ice? sure. Thanks bud.

Oh... where was I? I am lamenting needlessly about not catching fish. We did catch some, but not that many. And the thing about fishing for Steelhead in NY rivers, where they are so heavily stocked, is that the whole point is "quantity over quality." Catching the numbers we caught on this day, anywhere in Ontario, would have been rated a very good day. So it follows that Silvio - who really wanted to come with us but was saved by fortune and had to spend a short afternoon on an Ontario river - caught the best fish of the day by a country mile.

Still, Mike and I made the best of it, and spent most of the time laughing, sharing funny stories and making up weird stuff like Borax Eggdiyev.

In the end, we caught mostly brown trout, with a couple of steelhead thrown in for good measure. At one of the rivers we visited, the one with the most fishermen, the eastern Ontario jigs turned in a very good performance. They are tied by a local friend of mine, and they are mostly white with a bit of sparkle on the body & "gunsmoke" tint on the jighead. The browns loved 'em. He gave me the one the I used, but now it looks like I'll be purchasing a few from him in earnest: or else when I lose this one, I will probably cry.

My only issue for the day is with myself. I continually underestimate the strength of my rod. At one point, after landing a brown trout, I failed to check my hook and didn't see that it was pointing upward at a 90 degree angle. I ended up missing about 4 or 5 excellent takes because of it... so ostensibly, the fish count could have been that much better! Doofus.

Tchinkwi! I hope you have like this my entry into Blog "the Average Steelheader." I liiike! Next time we eat feesh, yes?

p.-

Tetralogy in Steelhead minor

2008-11-20T21:09:00.012-05:00

I've been hopelessly remiss with my blog. Partly because I've been keeping busy, but also because since my last outing the steelhead gods haven't really been paying me much attention. I always look forward to November and the two or three trips it always affords, where 10 or more fish are landed; but this year has been different. I suppose this is why so many of us are so completely addicted to the sport of steelhead fishing: no matter how well you think you can predict your catch, nature and circumstance continually contrive against you - and the glory of a good day, when it finally comes, is only sweetened by the interlude of bad fishing.

Anyway, I've been out four times (hence the "Tetralogy") and results were mostly minor. Instead of boring any of you (whoever is still so kind and patient as to read here regularly) with four entries of nothing-going-on, I presume that a short, four part piece will better suit most appetites.

Part I : "Clear Water"

This turned out to be a day of discovery, as I fished the lower end of a nearby river, and ended up going quite a bit further downriver than I'd ever gone. The water, as the title suggests, was clear, it was slow, and it was a bit on the low side too. These are excellent conditions in which to spot fish, and I saw quite a few. In fact, one of the pools I fished must have had at least a dozen or more, but they were very skittish and avoided the very sight of my float. The wind was horrible, gusting to 50km/h at times and making each drift an exercise in patience.

In all I managed four fish. Two of them were on the small side, and the other two were quite a bit bigger. The biggest was a 9lb male who chose a most inopportune time to take my jig. I happened to be cursing the wind at the time, because it had caused a good length of line to simply coil off my reel. For whatever reason, I looked up from the developing mess to see my float well underwater. Grasping the tangle in one hand, I set the hook, then frantically fumbled away at the loose line - which almost magically straightened, allowing me to fight the fish.

He fought hard and long, and he showed me that the pool he'd been hooked in was quite deep: at least 9 feet, and possibly more. He dove down a couple of times, and both times I had to haul him out.

After the battle, he paused for a quick picture, and then he was gone.

I was disappointed with only catching four fish, but I should have known better...

Part II "Defeat in the North"

Does the title give it away? What turned out to be my only full day of fishing so far this fall, also happened to be my worst day in a long long time. The only saving grace was that I got to spend a good part of the day with my brother-in-law (cum brother-in-steelheading) Richard. Richard is always a cheerful and engaging companion, and we tend to laugh a lot whenever we get out together.

We fished two Georgian Bay rivers together, from sun-up til noon - to no avail. It appears that we had arrived too late after the recent rains to even see many fish caught. The wind was relatively calm, but the surf was so intense that fishing in the lake - the only spot likely to hold many fresh chromers - was out of the question.

After noon, once I had parted ways with Richard (we both opted to hit rivers closer to home) I finally got the chance to take a look at a stretch of the Nottawasaga river that I'd always wanted to visit. The water here was also low, however, and I managed only a small parr.

I also managed a beer, and a couple of mildly interesting pictures of fall vegetation.

Walking back to the car, through a forest of mature hardwoods, I made a mental note to bring my father there some day. He will love it if only to take a walk in the woods. Certainly, it offered a pleasant end to my fruitless day.

Part III : "Too much Rain"

You bet! My rain-starved rivers finally received a burst of precipitation that, for once, exceeded the local forecast. More than 30mm must have fallen as all the rivers, even those that clear fastest, were blown for the entire day. In that sense, it was lucky that the only time I could head out to fish was in the afternoon. At least, some of the more likely streams could descend a little.

My first likely spot turned out to be completely mud-choked. Luckily, I met up with my friend René at that spot. He was there with a couple of friends, and we exchanged some tips and tricks, and they advised me that their day was pretty much over: the water was just too dirty.

After they left, I was still undecided, as I thought I might be able to find productive water regardless. I did, but barely. One of our nearby rivers offers quite a stretch of in-season water, and my hunch, that the upper end might be marginally fishable, was correct. It was still pretty dirty, but there seemed to be about 8" or so of visibility. Enough to give it a try.

There must have been quite a few fish up there. I actually kicked one accidentally, while crossing in a shallow section of the river. It spurred me on, anyway, and I targeted mostly the slack water and a few of the slower seams I came across.

Finally, my float went down gently, and I had something on. It didn't fight all that hard, but it had some heft - maybe 2lbs? maybe 1 and a 1/2? I caught a flash of purple on its corselet as it splashed at the surface, and saw that I had hooked a brown trout.

It was a lovely little specimen. I took a few quick pictures, then left. It was getting close to 4pm, and I wanted to give Laura a bit of a break by getting home earlier than expected.

She was happy to see me, and so were the boys :).

Part IV "Emerald Waters"

This tetralogy ends where it began, at the same river, fishing the deep pools of its lower end. This time, I walked as far as I could, almost right down to the lake. It was a goodly walk, and I did it only because the fishing was horrendously and inexplicably slow!

Again, I managed a few fish, a small one and a big one - but the cornoccupia that I still eagerly await did not materialise. I think, under normal circumstances, that I would have been quite elated with catching a couple of fish, and narrowly missing another, on most days - because that is often all one can expect of this river. But it being late November, and exactly the right amount of time after a heavy rainfall, I was perplexed and frustrated at not finding even a fraction of the numbers I expected and had hoped to find.

Both fish, actually, came from spots where you might not normally expect them to be. This leads me to believe that they might have been scattered a little. When I left the river, I noted that many locals were arriving: perhaps they fared better than I did - if the fish were scattered and out of the pools all day, it would explain why I didn't do so well; and if they dropped into the deeper water at the end of the day, well, ..... oh well. Not my day!

At least, I got some nice pictures on this day. The smaller fish posed for me with just enough sunlight to give his scales a slight emerald sheen, and the larger hen was extremely fresh; she hit my offering with decisive aplomb, leaving me with no doubt. And she fought beautifully. She leapt, zigged, zagged, spun, dove, ran, ran again, leapt again and ran again. I had to let the rod do its work, hope that the hook held (it practically dropped out once I got her to shore) and gave her line when I needed to.

The last thing to happen to me before I left was to see my float go down, even more decisively, only to have the roe bag torn off on the hook set. I had to duck to avoid hitting myself in the head with the bullet-like float!

Coda : "Way she goes"

To quote Ray, Ricky's father on "The Trailer Park Boys": that's the way she goes. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't.

The season will be winding down, shortly. There are roughly 10 cm of snow outside right now, and a small warming trend is forecast for next week. Soon, the cold will snap itself in, and it will be a long wait til Spring.

A long wait, and maybe time enough to see the silver lining - or the "chrome" lining; at least I was out fishing. It's better to do something you love and fail, than to succeed at something else that you hate doing!

p.-

Periodic Continual Temporary Insanity

2008-10-31T15:51:00.007-04:00

My wife says that I'm crazy steelhead. She says chromer that I have one foot in reality fishing and another in the rivers with steelhead the Steelhead. She doesn't rainbow even understand trout how much I give up roebag to be with her jigs. jigs and floats. Every Spring rainintheforecast and every fall gottacallMike she says the same thing steelhead: "you fish" chromer chromer chromer "too much!" Which is not true steelhead, and I can prove it fishing. And when floatdown I do in fact prove it fishon she tells me instead that I steelhead think too much fishing about fishing. I don't know rod&reel where she gets theriverisready these crazy ideas. I might steelhead think a little bit too fishing much about it in steelhead October chromer and November fishon. And maybe again in hookset March, April steelhead and May huge chromer. split shot. pro-cure. But thinking about it steelhead too much? Whatever fishing!!!

I don't think castanddrift so!

steelhead.

p.-

Cold Wind, 20, the Keystone Steelheader and a Fat Cigar

2008-10-22T19:36:00.029-04:00

This evening, as I sat eeking out the last couple of hours of an eventless late shift, I was hit with a revelation. Fishing restores the mind. Yesterday, I went fishing all day. And today, no matter what the situation at the office, no matter what the emergency or the emerging political circumstance, my thoughts were clear, unencumbered by stress or fear.

For a long time, I thought that this happened only to people like myself who love fishing so much. But now I think it’s bigger than that. I think that fishing is good for anyone who tries it for a day, especially if fish are caught. The unhurried appreciation of time that fishing affords, in the context of a skill that one may learn at one’s own pace; in the presence of unfettered daylight, the sounds of water and wind, the earthy smell of falling leaves – all these things have been etched in the memory our genes, and they remind us and reconnect us to the deep wellspring of nature and the simple and pure joy of being alive.

But as usual, I am starting at the end. Yesterday morning, with the sun yet to rise, in the cool gloaming by the eastern shores of Lake Ontario, no such convenient wisdom was going through my head. Where are the fish? is all that I was asking at that point. The waves were terribly high and the sound of their crashing obliterated any other semblance of peace that the morning might hold. The gale-force winds that were forecast had as yet not entered the stage.

Finally, as the light grew brighter, the float gently rocked and popped, and I knew my first fish was.... gone. I’d had an extra large at Tim’s... don’t know why I missed that... should be awake by now... The float jiggled again, and this time I made no mistake. Still ensconced in darkness, the fish was probably as sleepy as I was. It did not fight too hard, which made for an easy release.

In the next hour or two, I caught three more. The last one was especially spirited, and my arm was quite sore after I finally brought it to shore. A quick picture or two of its lovely pearlescent raiment, and then it was back to the river. Suddenly, as though someone had flicked a switch, the wind started to roll in. Its cold searching fingers crept into my collar, down my back, through my own fingers. Soon, it was howling. I think it was the door of the seasons opening, Autumn slowly and surely engaging its metamorphosis into Winter.

I endured several hours of this nonsense, getting rained on and snowed on, alternating hands on the rod to warm them one at a time, while I continued fishing. At times, the wind was so strong that I had to lean forward when I walked against it, and I had to take my rod apart or have to control the wild contortions that the pugilistic gusts imparted on it. In all, I visited 4 more tributaries, essentially touring my “back yard” to get an idea of what was going on with each one. I survived to announce “not much” – yet – in the way of fish. They are all mostly low and clear, although the recent rain did give them all a measure of colour.

At one point in the afternoon, I almost pulled the plug and went home. There was a long stretch with no fish, and the wind was finally starting to make me go mad. I had visions of roe bags in birdsnests. What was that all about? Boredom makes you do funny things. I was getting pretty frustrated. Then, as I followed the bank of one of the rivers, I almost stepped on a little baby. I picked him up to examine him, make sure he was ok, take a picture. He was ok, but he seemed almost as dejected as I was. Small wonder, given the circumstances. I put him back where I found him and was on my way.

Finally, with an ending that seems to be repeating itself, the creek nearest to home – and also the smallest that I visited today – provided the biggest surprise. But it also must have made me look like a true-blooded idiot. Let me explain.

To achieve the level of bufoonery that I did, first: light a nice big cigar (that one of your considerate co-workers brought back to you from Cancun ... note the irony of lighting such a beauty on such a day as this). Then, as you are lighting it, start drifting. Flick your lighter several times, in your attempt to light this cigar. It’s a bit on the big side, and the wind is playing havoc with the flame, so keep trying. Finally light the cigar. Put the lighter in your pocket. Oh my god! Where’s my float? Set the hook, and behold a large fish. It is so large and the creek is so small that, every time she shatters the surface, she seems to grow. Before you get a good look at her, you’ve thoroughly drenched your eyes in smoke and she looks like 40lbs jumping around like that. She takes you down-stream and you pull her back up. You think “aha! she’s only about 8lbs, and looks like she’s almost...” SPLASH! Now, she has jumped up and landed in a logjam. She slips through the logs, with your hook and line in tow, and you are now cursing because you had this fish dead to rights. You curse again because a puff of smoke just got into your left eye. OUCH that stings. But it’s a brand new “Schtoaggie” and you don’t want to spit it out. You persevere. The fish is pulling away madly up river. Your line goes across the river, down through the log jam, then zags more than 90 degrees to veer upriver. Farther upriver now. You pull on the line, like an idiot, amazed at the strength of your mainline. It’s not breaking and the fish slowly comes back down. Now it’s under the log pile. You are going crazy anyway, with the smoke in your face, the wind howling this big fish beaten but out of reach, you decide to wade across to the logjam. Mistake? The fish seeing the giant legs of some unknown bloodthirsty intruder speeds away again and the tip of your rod virtually slams against the wood. You back-reel furiously, you let it run loose. You try this ridiculous "loogan" cha-cha several times until you finally get close enough to push and pull at some these logs and lo! one of them gives you about a half inch through which to squeeze your tired line. Jubilant, you move back to shore. You realize ....b- b- b- brrrrrrr I forgot to strap the cuffs shut on my jacket and now there is water down my back! You curse. You pull on the line. It’s still stuck. You go back in, you reach down deep along your line and find the obstruction, pull it all out; amazingly it drops into the depth and your line is free. You go back to shore. You get a fresh spill down your back, because you are an idiot (not you.... me...) You quickly now do up your cuff. The fish is loose. She is very tired and so are you. She pulls away down river and you follow. You kneel to lower your profile as much as to keep your rod tip from banging around in the overhanging branches. You wrestle now, and so does she, your shoulder says “uncle” and finally you have the fish by the tail. She is gorgeous. She is full of the symbolism of battle, of bounty, of life, of Joy.

But you curse again. You just noticed that the pin has fallen off your reel! Without the pin, the screw that keeps the spool secure to the backplate, your reel is useless and you can't fish anymore! You don’t panic like you did back in spring 2006, though. This time, you calmly put your rod down behind you and photograph the life force that you are holding by the tail. You cradle her and admire her while she revives. Soon, she’s off, and as the mud settles you see a shiny object just beside your knee. You reach down to pick up your pin. You give thanks as you push it deep into one of your pockets. Without looking, and as the cold starts to creep into your bones, you reach back behind yourself to pick up your rod.

Your hand squeezes only water.

You don’t even have the nerve to curse, now. It’s like being in an accident. You are in shock/denial. You turn around to look. The rod and reel are gone. No footprints on shore, so there was no thief. You begin to feel faint. The mud is still swirling a little. You wait til it clears. You still don’t see the “twins rod”, the one you won on FloatFishing.net the day your boys were born. You start scraping through the mud like a mad explorer looking for treasure in the sand. You feel around frantically. You call yourself names. If I am someone else watching you do this, I start laughing. But no such luck. Where did it go?

I finally risk standing up, knowing that my first footstep could snap the blank, should the rod have somehow sunk into the mud. I look around, I proceed as cautiously as possible. There it is. Twenty yards downriver, my gear has gone and entangled itself in another logjam. I am thankful again. I retrieve the rod, rince out the reel. Look around one last time. Ouch!

I had forgotten the cigar! It was still lit and had burned down right to the nub.

Twenty minutes later, I was at home with two two-year-olds hanging on me with smiles.

A little more than twenty hours later, I compose this entry and take a moment to agree with my wife who says wisely “you’re funniest when you’re not trying.”

If you just read this whole thing, ain’t THAT the truth!

:)

p.-

Slow Sunrise

2008-10-08T23:51:00.014-04:00

Last Sunday, I spent the morning looking at the sunrise. It was nice. I almost forgot that I was actually there to fish, since I hardly saw anything bearing a resemblance to one of those. I did see a fly catcher, who decided my rod would make a lovely perch for a few minutes. He sat there taunting me "go ahead, take a pic, make my day..." But he flew off just as I pressed the "on" button on my camera. Punk.

I had a nice chat with one of the other guys who was there, like me, just to drown a few salmon eggs and wonder at the calmness of the lake. You rarely see it this calm, this time of year.

Finally, I decided to head back home. When you have twins, radar kicks in at around 2 1/2 year old. They're 2 years and 9 months now. I had a definite feeling that they were running wild.

It had been a nice morning, but devoid of fish. A wise man knows when to cut his losses...

p.-

Lieber Zueri

2008-10-03T22:08:00.041-04:00

view from the minster bridge @ zurich switzerland Copyright Toni_V

st.peterCopyright Toni_V
in my memories
sitting on
a buttress outside Sankt
Peterskirche on a damp evening
listening to Chopin
Nocturnes tinkling
down
from someone's open window
to mix their melancholy notes
with the cool drizzle my
City still surrounds
me and

Muesch halt echli uufpasse, mir fahred jetz wider ab!Copyright Toni_V

i can
summon the metallic
sound and bell
of the No.7 as it rumbles
through Wollishofen not
the new rubberized digital copies
but the masterpieces with
the wooden seats the polite
riders their quiet
watchfulness

window with a fine viewCopyrightToni_V

i can take a walk
over Muensterbrueck and sit
by the fountain wherefrom
only the medieval stone
work can be seen all
around where on
Sundays mostly
one hears only the murmur of Limmat
and the mournful bells
of Grossmuenster, Fraumuenster, and
all the others in the distance
tolling a constant peaceful
neverending echo of proclamation
and demure worship

münsterbrücke @ zurich switzerlandCopyright Toni_V

some days
i am Frederick’s alter ego
for his was exile from
his birthright
where i am exiled to
the bitter country
of my birth which
eats its own slowly
resolutely

zurich@2007-12-27
Copyright Toni_V

so far from the
beautiful communitas
of Zueri uuf die See
Zurich on the lake singing
to me like
a woman sings and
teaching me the fallacy of
inheritance – that where one was
born does not imply
who or what one
will love nor
how deep
the loss

Uto-Quai ZurichCopyrightToni_V

Oof! It took me much longer to write this than it looks. I had to recode a lot of this entry manually, and I switched images several times.

Speaking of which, I owe a great deal to Toni_V for giving me permission to use his images from his photostream on Flickr. I accidentally ran across his work when googling shots of Zurich for one of my friends, and I was deeply moved and inspired by it. The very artful use of colour in his photography is to me very similar to memory and dream; where is your happy place? what colour is it? Toni's presentation of the city through HDR photography, capturing hues that are not possible in the drabness of real life, evoke fable and myth - one almost feels that a knight or an 18th century noble will come turning round a corner.

I'm not sure I like my poem very much... but it's what came out when I saw these photos. Longing, I suppose, more than anything else; for a place that is not only far away but, to me, lost in time. To the Zurich I learned to know and love, I can never go back.

If you have time, go to Toni_V's photostream and check out his collections. There are some truly stunning pictures there.

... and by all means, click on the pictures above to see the full size versions. The thumbnails don't do them justice.

Toni...Ich danke dir wider viel mals!

p.-

Fun with the little ones

2008-09-05T10:44:00.033-04:00

It's nice to finally have something to write about and have the time to write it (barely). Given our unusual child-rearing responsibilities, I guess Laura and I should stop imagining that we might some day have oodles of time in which to relax. Dream on! The more things change, the more they stay the same; so time is always at a premium.

Luckily, some things don't change that much - i.e. passion for fishing - otherwise this blog would already be in the dust. Nevertheless, I have to be more selective these days in how I spend my time, and it has certainly reduced the number of entries I will be able to post here. But spending a Saturday on a boat with my brother in-law, two of his daughters and my son Samuel, qualifies as time well spent. So that's what I did last week, and I'm glad to take a few moments to tell you about it.

One word: chaos. Or in other words, absolute, loveable, crazy, funny, giggly, fishie-thrashing, wormy-wiggley, goofy, loud, let me reel this in, let me reel that in, can you put on another worm, she did this, he did that, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, let's go tubing, let's go fishing (etc...) chaos! It was two adults vs. three kids, and I can't say that the two adults had the advantage at any point in time.

We all shared good luck, though: the fishing was incredibly easy, and the fisher-people were easily delighted by their success. Bluegill, Pumpkinseed, Largemouth Bass and Smallmouth Bass, all very little and very spunky, literally filled the boat. No need to anchor the boat, just drift with the gentle breeze & throw out a few lines rigged with jig & worm, on a lake that is roughly 22 feet at its deepest. The action rarely slowed down, but at one point I was lucky that it did.

Only one time during the whole day did my brother in-law and myself have the fishing all to ourselves. That blissful moment lasted barely two minutes when it was shattered by a heavy thump at the end of my line. It's been a long time since I fished with a closed reel on a 4.5 ft fiberglass rod, so I immediately understood that though it felt like a salmon, it was very likely not one. Not up here in the Kawarthas!

Once the kids realized that "papa" or "unco Paul" had something substantial at the end of his line, the atmosphere in the boat became positively tense and expectant. It was silence, blessed silence - and I had the big one on! ...Must be payback for all the fishing I missed this summer! I didn't have much doubt as to what it was, because it didn't really run or try to jump, although it was heavy and gave the little reel everything it could handle. It might have been a carp, but when I finally pulled it up to where we could see it, the white splash at the bottom of the tail, and the golden sheen on its side belied a Walleye. The biggest I've caught, actually.

The oohs and aahs from the children were a nice experience, after that. And when they saw the giant in the net, they all wanted to touch it. "Watch out for the teeth," I said. "Well, do we let it go or bring it home to Gramma?" The unanimous choice was that Gramma should get to enjoy one of her favourite meals: fresh, pan-fried Walleye! So a lesson ensued regarding how to kill a fish humanely, since we couldn't leave it on the stringer if we were going to be tubing later on. We laid the fish on ice, closed the cooler lid and chucked the tube in the water.

In the end, I was proud of my son, for liking the tube as much
as his older cousins and for getting over his squeemishness when it comes to touching the fishies. The little Largemouth Bass was a pretty good choice, too. It was a great way to spend what will go down as a memorable day for all of us. Samuel might be the only one with memory issues later on. He's not quite three yet... Do you remember anything from before you were three?

p.-

Interlude

2008-06-30T15:04:00.004-04:00

Ah the Steelhead seasons....

I have nothing to post right now, except I found this really neat function at http://www.photobucket.com ...

See? A small collection of fishies for your enjoyment!

p.-

It got better :)

2008-05-01T13:51:00.015-04:00

Little did I know, when I was writing yesterday's blog entry, that one of my wishes would come true today. I finally got to take one of my sons fishing!

Samuel was very good, only losing one of his boots in the river once, needing a ride on my back only twice, and generally following the river's activity with curiosity and his rambunctious 2 year-old attention span throughout.

His reaction to catching a 7 inch shaker was priceless & will certainly be one for my permanent memory bank. He also had quite a reaction when a large male, engaged in some territorial battle with a rival, darted from the cover of a logjam to swim right below us where we sat. Samuel wanted me to catch it, of course.

The camera died again, or I would have had better pics. But, regardless, I think he's on the right path :)

p.-

Ontario Trout Opener 2008!

2008-04-29T21:44:00.005-04:00

I like the trout opener. I don't always get oodles of fish, but I also almost never have to fish with the crowd. The weather is almost always good, mornings resonate with fresh birdsong, and rivers have a clean look to them that they only get this time of year.

The fish also have a special way about them. As beat-up as they often are by the ordeal of the spawn, they always give a good account of themselves once they start recovering in earnest. They leap more in April and May, and staggering downriver runs as well as electrifying changes in direction are commonplace.

As it turns out, this year's opener has proven rather ordinary. A long winter that seemed to promise a late spring warm-up was all but obliterated by nearly three weeks of bright sunshine in the 18 to 27 degree Celsius range. All the snow quickly melted under the pressure, and the rivers on the north shore of Lake Ontario dropped to levels close to what they had been last fall.

This meant that opening day was, for me, more of a social event than anything else. I spent it with my good friend Khalid (caption above) and my brother Dan. We didn't hook into very many fish, but we enjoyed eachother's company as well as making new acquaintances on the river. We ended the day by raiding our brother in-law's house, while he was away, and drinking some of his home brew. Thanks for the Weize, Richard - delicious as always :).

On Monday, while the boys were at daycare, I managed to get out for a few hours to inspect a local tributary. I managed a couple of decent fish - but still not that many. It's too bad I didn't have my camera with me, because a picture of the trucks lining the riverside is definitely warranted. I was astounded to see license plates from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Have they any idea what they're missing back home???

As for me, I was still waiting for my opener shangri-la.

And that came yesterday. The rain on Monday had a greater effect on one of my favourite rivers, than I'd expected. When I got there in the morning, the water clarity was perfect 16" to 18", high and moving at a good pace. Nor did I wait long before the action started. It would, as usual, subside a little during the late morning and early afternoon. But the blazing afternoon sun and clearing water conditions made the fish seek deeper, more shaded pools and runs, and I was able to put quite a few on the bank as a result. It's one of those things that happen this time of year.

The highlights of this year's opener were too many to count, but I can name a few. Fishing with Khalid and Dan after such a long hiatus, sharing cigars as we fished, beers at Richards, meeting up with my old friend Derrick (whom I hadn't seen in well over 10 years!), finding an old, salvageable shimano reel on the river bottom, seeing spring-time wild turkey for the first time, finding an 8 point deer rack close to the riverside, having large stretches of beautiful emerald water to myself, two fish in excess of 10lbs (and one over 12 easily), a 6lb or so fish that jumped no less than 7 times (one caught on film) and finally picking up two ecstatic twins at daycare at the end of the day.

It gets better: some day, I'll be fishing with one or both of them. Can't wait!

p.-

Spring, News and Updates

2008-04-08T10:02:00.007-04:00

One of the most avid of my faithful readers recently complained that I hadn't updated my blog in a while, so I guess I should. So far, this wonderfully late spring has been nothing but an anti-climax for your respectful Average Steelheader. Work, Chocolate-coloured water, East Winds, meddling (but well meaning) female relatives, rabid but cute 2 year-olds, ad infinitum ad nauseum, have all contributed to keeping my fish count low.

Sigh.

Speaking of the East Wind, it didn't stop my friend the Wallacio from padding his fish count with a lovely extreme-late-season brown trout, just before March turned into April. It was one of those inexplicable occasions where everything else seemed perfect. There were no crowds, the water was high and green, and we even had a few hook-ups in the morning. We knew that we would hook many more as soon as the slush cleared later in the morning. However, not only did we not land the few that we hooked into early, but by about mid morning a front passed through, the East wind picked up, and the fish turned off. The slush was gone, but so were the fish! This is the only "trip" I've had so far this spring, where more than half a day was dedicated to steelheading.

Oh it was a brutal one for me, especially since the highly touted "Siglon" line I was using, proved short-lived and unreliable. Toward the end of the day, I got fed up and simply peeled it all off my reel. I've never seen or used a wimpier line! I spooled it on last November and might have had it for a half dozen trips. That is far beneath the standard I had expected. So now I've spooled on some Raven. Let's see how it goes.... I wish I could find some Drennan Super Mono in Ontario!

I did have one short, freezing instant of glory on the Friday preceding the above re-telling. I stopped at the local watering hole for about 15 minutes. At least, I had intended it to take only 15 minutes, but some crazy fish decided to take my pink & purple "jiggy bugger" for its death ride. 10 minutes later an unphotographed 10lb hen lay glistening on the bank. I almost got frostbite unhooking her, but she swam away quickly for all that.

Wait, there is also the fact that I finally got to meet with Moosie, and I got to see my friend the Wallacio before his grand transformation. Transformed into what, you ask? Why, one of those most unpallatable beings, known for their soft-heartedness, worry, care-worn-ness and bleary eyes: a new dad.

Congratulations Wallacio! You're making a fine daddy already, I'm sure :).

p.-

Before the Storm

2008-03-18T19:35:00.013-04:00

Before it started to rain I thought to myself I should go fishing. I saw the river yesterday and it was green with delight, and I believed that she was hiding secrets from me. I came home and bathed my children and put them to bed. I told my wife that she should get some sleep, go take your bath love and leave all this mess to me. I will clean it up gladly. All the chores and the preparations for steelhead were done quickly - as are all jobs where there is no interference from others, even those you love. A sparkling kitchen, a clean living room and ready gear, tackle and fresh offerings.

I know my duty and how far I can seek my own time, and I know also which days are best. I knew that today wasn't and I also knew that I would go fishing. I woke up with my family and fed them, and I laughed with my sons a while. Two years old and full of curiosity, laughter, applause, light. I finally slipped out the door, with a wink to Laura, dressed for work, going to work, but making a pit stop on the way.

So I went fishing.

When I got there I donned my uniform; trusty old breathables, wading jacket and old woolen gloves. I set my rod up and trudged through the snow. And trudged back to the car. The river mouth was still covered with ice! But this is not where I was yesterday. Back into the car, back higher up the river. Here there is water. Cars are parked everywhere but there are no fishermen in sight. I try a little known stretch where the shy fish slink away and hug a granite wall. I cast and the float slowly cocks.

Sometimes a whole day happens in five minutes. In five minutes you have reached the apex of your day, and you may have accomplished what you had set out to do, though you did not know it at the time.

I mean two things. That the float went down, that this was the only time it would do so from a steelhead. And yet it wasn't a lost day or even a lost few hours. Now, as I write this, and it is night and the rain falls outside, melting walls of snow and flooding the rivers for a time; I am rather content. This is what I could not put a finger on, two weeks ago, one day ago, that was missing. Not the fish alone, but fishing. Fishing by a river pregnant with the threat and promise of Spring. Pulling from her her secrets, and keeping only the memory of having known them if only for a little while.

Anti Climax

2008-01-13T21:17:00.000-05:00

As much as I love fishing for Great Lakes steelhead, there are times when I really do interrogate myself: am I insane?!? This morning was a perfect example. With ice veritably inside my fingers and more than two hours' deep freeze on my toes, having as yet caught nothing, chipping ice off my (inactive) guides and watching a lake that was still far too choppy to be fished comfortably - not to mention the dozen or so other asylum escapees, only one of whom was regularly being restored to sanity by having his float pulled down by yet another steelhead ; do you see what I'm getting at? If anyone ever forced me to endure such hardships, as my father once said, it would be called "torture." I must be freaking crazy.

Ducks and geese? Did I get up at 5:30am to look at ducks and geese? We could all have waited til later in the day, when the temperature got better, to meet like this! Surely, there must be some fish around?

The water everywhere, except closest to home, was either low and clear or low and clearing. In all, I visited five tributaries today, and it was only the last one that offered me a chance at redemption. As usual, it was rather an after-thought. Oh well, I guess I'll take a gander at the back yard creek before I head home. (Get it? "gander" I kill myself!)

The fish were small, but lovely, specimens and they both ensure that I won't go fishless in 2008. Truly, the phrase "eastern Ontario tributaries" should serve as the equivalent to "feast or famine." And there are times on these rivers that the intervals between fish are so long as to make one wonder if there are any fish left at all, or will I ever get another, or more à propos "can I turn my brain back on, now?"

p.-

The Cure for what Ails

2007-12-13T23:20:00.000-05:00

Misery. Misery and abject disappointment. Everything was going wrong. For one, I was taking a vacation day when I really should've been taking a sick day. My voice, or what little croaking squeakiness remained of it, was comical at best, and now it was snowing. Not just a little dusting to tickle a dryad's toes, but a real dump with flakes that kept getting bigger and bigger, and more and more numerous.

Mike's knuckles where as white as the snow outside, as he gripped the steering wheel. Every now and again a moan of despair would issue from him, or an epithet: "if I knew it was gonna be like this..." Right. Apparently no one knew, because most of the regional weather forecasts, for the small geographical area in which we were now facing the probability of having to unwillingly prolong our stay, were in disagreement. Some called for snow, others for rain, others for ice pellets. Some called for lots of snow, others for just a little. As I looked out the window, it looked like those who predicted "a lot" were the ones to bet on.

But any storm meets its match in madness. And the madness that was (and as far as I know always will be) upon Mike and I was acute desire for winter chrome steelhead. We drove on, narrowly avoiding a ride home in a tow truck, and we reached our destination.

Our destination didn't look too great. The water conditions were not as advantageous as we'd hoped them to be. There was at most, as we looked down on the river's swollen flow, 10 inches of visibility. This is just barely enough, at the best of times; but this was not the best of times. This is mid December, and we are only a week away from the shortest day of the year. The water was surely freezing, and the fish were sluggish. We intoned the winter steelheader's mantra "oh well, we're here, so...." On came the waders and the coats, out came the tackle. One good thing: the snow had turned to rain.

Yes the pictures do give it away, but they are the ending and not the beginning or really even the middle. We searched for fish most of the morning with little luck. We went down, and then up, and then a little bit down from up. Down from up is at about 11am, a cold, wet - nay bone drenched - and despondent 11am. It was so wet that you'll observe several blotches on the shots I've provided. Also, Mike's camera gave out by 11:30am. Too wet. Too cold. Turn me off.

At least by then, we were on. And how on! Only restraint, brought about by mutual interest in eachother's catch, kept us from aspiring to a constant state of "double header." Our restraint, I might add, was also inspired by the fact that Mike and I don't get to fish together much these days. We work very different hours, and I tend to be busy with Laura and the twins on weekends. So, each fish we caught was truly shared. We both enjoyed the other's catch as much as our own.

Did I mention that the fishing got good? This is the elixir; which is anything you love to do, when you do it, it cures you. Bear with my grammar for a while. It cures you of despondency and of physical ailments. This steady stream of fish, some bright, some not so bright, cured us both respectively. So Mike's knuckles wouldn't be as tight on the wheel on the uneventful drive home, and the cold I've been sporting for the last week feels like it's finally going to fade away.

My voice isn't back yet, but I know some people who won't find that terribly disappointing!

p.-

laugh wise heart

2007-11-23T23:47:00.001-05:00

laugh wise heart

laugh wise
heart and always
seek again
the thing you seek
gentle little man
playful and kind
thoughtful sprite and
gift to us
gift to the needy too
freezies and baba
bunn-bunn and bath-time
hop and run skip
and jump
roll over us again
your light and your
kindness
heedless blessing
to the broken hearted
and even
the very happy
love is too weak
a word gratitude
too shallow
come now
time for walk
kick the ball and
the park swing is
waiting

i did not know

2007-11-23T23:20:00.001-05:00

i did not know

i did not know
what beauty
was before
you smiled or your blue
eyes opened and for
the first time
really
fixed me found me
father yours
lost like you are
adrift in your sea
just like you and
struggling
as you struggle and fight
to swim out
through confounding
currents and swirls of
unbidden cryptic
frenetic chaotic faces
only ever and rarely
finding harbour
peace
in your clear gaze
and your smile and
the hope that
you find it too
when i smile
when i laugh
with you

November's Bounty

2007-11-13T23:47:00.000-05:00

If I have to identify one theme from the past few days, it must be parenthood. Oddly enough, that's still not the title of this entry. Let me explain.

First, this past Sunday and Monday were an excellent reminder of how plentiful the rewards of November steelhead fishing can be. Second, as spending time with my sons often prevents me from venturing out, November happens to be my own father's birth month. So, it is a positive irony that I got to share Sunday fishing with the man for whom I must have cost many fishing days myself, as a tot. This month gives me a lot to be thankful for!

But now, about the boredom. It was excessive at times, truly. It's funny how the long minutes and hours of fishless drifting tend to vanish from our fishing stories. Very few trips are without a lull, where one starts thinking about lighting another cigar, maybe sharing a beer or switching spots, making a coffee run to Tim Horton's, remembering that last month's phone bill isn't paid yet, and what did I do with the remote for the DVD player because I'd really like to find... plop! the float goes down and our mind is back; usually too late as we swing a crushed bit of bait up out of the water and into the muck on the ground behind us.

In fact, my dad almost tripped on his own feet when it happened to him Sunday morning. His floundering and near dive into a patch of wet sand is what woke me out of my reverie. He missed the hit, but it was just as well since the fish eventually did make it around to visit us. We were fishing on an eastern lake Ontario tributary, and these rivers get like that: one minute you almost believe that there never existed a single fish in the history of the river, and the next you can barely keep them off your offerings. Once the fish rolled in, dad and I managed to land over a dozen chrome bright steelhead in less than an hour and a half.

Other than the fact that we pretty much had the entire river to ourselves, thanks to our patience, the highlight was shared between a missed behemoth that would probably tilt the scales at 15lbs and the stupidest NY escapee imaginable: he was hooked and landed three times (we recognized him by the strange upward angle of his snout and the diagonal scoring on his left cheek - he also happened to be the only dark fish of the lot). I will let you guess who missed that big one. But does it really matter? Both dad and I got a good look at it, and we both held our breath until it finally got free.

Sunday was different only because I was in Western NY, by myself (all my prospective fishing partners having had other things that needed doing), on a river that has a decided advantage in mykissian quantities and therefore offered more opportunity for donut redemption.

The morning was good, the late morning and early afternoon dismal and crowded, and the late afternoon was chock full of fish. I got to resume my photographic experimentations of actual fish, instead of (as above) floats lazily bobbing, or marsh vegetation (as below). About those lovely pictures, I snapped so many of them while waiting for steelhead on Sunday, that the batteries in the camera died on our second fish. Irony?

Another marked difference between NY and Ontario tributaries is that very few of the odd, truncated mutants that are often encountered in NY are ever seen in Ontario. One of the hens I caught on Monday was not only abnormally short, but so dark as to make me believe that she might already be mating.

Finally, though I spent less time hauling in fall steelhead than I did waiting for them and wondering where they'd got to, when they did show up they were available by the gaggle. Both rivers I fished afforded me stretches of good luck of the kind where, after unhooking one fish, your next drift had barely started before you hooked yet another.

These poor fish, these second, third, fourth and fifth comers; they are unfortunate. They can't fool you as you dream of them and wander in your thoughts with glazed eyes. You are ready for them, and your reflexes are warmed up. The float pops down, and you know exactly when to strike. Your nerves are charged for action, yet you are calm. You are excited, but you are very much at ease.

You are steelhead fishing in November, enjoying rich bounty.

p.-

Before...

2007-11-08T23:36:00.000-05:00

The last few days before a long awaited fishing excursion are like the scent of fresh bread. In some ways it is better than the moment that comes after you first shred through the new loaf and scoop onto a warm slice a melting glob of butter, to bite into the steaming, delicious flesh. The scent itself always evokes the first bite that springs from the dream idealism, although the bread is not fresh for long, can be too hot or not of the kind that its fragrance had promised.

I dwell in the scent of it now. Already the hours drag. The minutes eek each small tick as drops from some old tap, with a rust clogged, slow, slow drip.

The promise of the coming novemberine days is almost palpable; it is felt in the crenelations of the brain like current rushing under one's scalp: dreams of fish dancing like fish, who disappear from sight as soon as the fisherman's silhouette rises through the clear water.

Outside I hear the rain patter on the glass like impatient fingers tap tapping the ever nascent question "is it time now?" Is it time to wake up, now, to set the rod and tackle in their designated sacred space by the cooler in the trunk, and roar the engine to life?

Can the long awaited morning be here yet? And will there be enough rain?

Is it time now, to break out the sandwiches I made for lunch, to savour them and as I chew the fresh crust, ponder the brilliant morning that was and the memories that were made?

No. Not yet. The oven's just warming up, and the rods are sitting still, by the door, waiting.

p.-

Good morning

2007-10-28T22:40:00.000-04:00

As I sat watching the shadows in the moonlit pool, awaiting daybreak, I pondered that having forgotten my camera at home yet again might not be such a big deal. The shadows that I was watching were not mere shadows, but dark Chinooks chasing one another in the tail-out of a pool. The water in the pool was far, far clearer than what I had expected to find. After Friday's and Saturday's precipitation, I was pretty sure that there would be quite a bit of colour to the water. But now as the moon shone I saw not only the black, frolicking Chinooks but the white gravel underneath them: "Low and Gin Clear," words of doom for any Steelhead fisherman.

It was also my luck to be sharing this prestigious bit of low, clear river with six or seven local fellows, some of whom had waded over in their running shoes and were already flinging their bobbers at the elusive shades, cursing when they turned out to be logs. The honour of the quick flick at the end of every 8 foot drift is ubiquitous, and I hear it practiced around me in the gloaming. But when my float goes under and a chrome flash is seen, cigarettes drop from mouths agape, the whites of eyes glow like stars. Language erupts that is all "he just had one on," and nothing like "that was a nice one, bud," no acknowledging the stranger who just lost a fish and showed you that they are present. And so, soon, there is my float and about four others hovering over the short pool, and the evidence of my folly is now complete. I can't take the fishing pressure, myself; I start down the river well before the sun breaks the horizon.

A full hour of doubt elapses, as I work my way down closer to where my car is parked. What should I do? There are other options than here, and certainly the water must have better colour elsewhere. I am indecisive, so I keep fishing. I get into a rhythm, despite the low flow, the shallow current and my pessimism. I reach a straight section of river that I've never fished before and spot what looks like a deeper drift, but it's hard to tell from the angle at which I begin to fish through it. I don't know it yet, but there's a straight line down the middle of this pool. Drift six inches to the right, and your hook digs itself into a wiry stump, but drift six inches to the left and; the float goes down. It is not the expected snag, at least. But it's a Chinook. The heavy, powerful headshakes are telltale. I consider snapping off, then the fish leaps - big bright chrome Steelhead! She fights me up and then far down to the end of the drift, where I finally tail her and get to admire her rosy blush and her bright flanks like freshly minted nickel. She goes approximately eight pounds, and after a short breather sitting comfortably in the current, she smashes at me with her tail, a big boil and she's gone.

Less than an hour later, two good pan-sized trout also fall to my wares, and I almost succumb to the desire to eat them... but I don't. A Chinook also grabs my bait, but I have no interest in disturbing him so I snap my line off as soon as I get a good look at him. But all I can think about is that first Steelhead.

It's funny how one fish can sometimes make your day. Or rather, what that one fish can do to your day is what's worth considering. Later in the afternoon, I will catch three more fish, two of which are bigger than the gorgeous hen from the early morning, respectively weighing in at 10 and 12 pounds. The 10 pounder will leap five, six or seven times and attempt a little tail-walk before he is finally subdued, and the 12 pounder will take me about fifteen minutes to land and he will bend the 13ft Frontier as I have never seen it bend; but the beauty of the first fish, the unexpectedness of her, and the mythical time of day when I caught her, all leave a deeper mark. One fish turned my whole day around, magically going from unmitigated disaster to jubilant success.

I haven't smiled like that for a fish in a long time.

p.-

First Fall Chrome 2007

2007-10-17T22:39:00.001-04:00

I was wisely counseled not to start my 2007 fall season where I eventually foolishly went anyway. What is it with rash individuals that they must always be so stubborn? Anyway, it was off to Steelhead Alley that I went, with Richard in tow and very much in the game, last Saturday morning.

We arrived at our destination in good time, and early. But what met our eyes, as the sun rose, was not a river but what now looked more like a series of stagnant meres connected by dust-choked rivulets... It seems that the southern shore of Lake Erie, known for its temperamental, spate-driven rivers has been very hard hit by this summer's drought, and water levels are nowhere near what they should be. Later in the day, we would meet a gaggle of pennsylvania steelheaders, looking for all the world like shipwreck victims washed up on barren shores. They had a forlorn, regretful set to their shoulders, doubtful of their chrome fortune.

Anyway, despite the conditions that first met us in the morning, we bravely set bait to hook, and it is our good fortune that a number of fine specimens had indeed braved the unnaturally low water levels and were present to accept our offerings. But our luck would not last, as it turns out. A high wind, gusting to 45kmh started rising at about 10am, followed by a high pressure front - effectively ending our fun for most of the day. The wind blew so hard at times that it kicked up mini maelstroms of dust, and our floats were often blown back upriver, against the feeble "current."

Richard managed to find the hot button at the very end of the day, landing the fine hen in the caption below. But most of the rest of the time was spent smoking cigars, drinking beer, eating lunch and granola bars, making jokes; and brainstorming cost-cutting measures for our home economies, by planning amendments to our wives' and toddlers' diets, shifting them strictly to barley and corn (number 1 and 2 respectively on the calory per dollar ratio scale).

No fun whatsoever (when I announced the new diet to Laura the next day..hmmph! women!).

p.-

Huron River, Michigan

2007-10-08T21:59:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I wrote something significant about fishing. It won't be much longer, I swear.

Meanwhile, I took my entire little contingent on a trip to the Huron River, near Ann Arbor Michigan, last week. Well, not exactly. The Huron River was more of a side trip. We actually went to see Dr. Richard Solomon M.D. as a unit, for the benefit of Isaac. More on the Huron River follows, below.

We have heard about a lot of different therapies for children with autism, and Dr. Solomon was referred to us as one of the best in "play" therapy. We wanted to see him in order to get a different point of view as to what we should be doing for Isaac now, as well as how we could best apply play therapy to Isaac - and we wanted to hear about it from a proponent of that therapy, as there seem to be so few of them here in Canada.

The visit to Dr. Solomon's office did not disappoint, and I believe that it will prove to be a turning point for us in our battle with autism. Many things about the consultation impressed me, not least of which was the efficiency with which an information-packed two hours were conducted. We learned a good deal that I won't recount here, lest I start chapter one of a new book on the subject. At this point in our fight with Isaac's condition, we are well educated; but Dr. Solomon managed to shed light on many facets of our child's difficulties as well as teach us what we really needed to know: how can we, his parents and those who love him the most, best help him. No matter the challenges that lie ahead, sometimes all one needs to get underway is a clear road ahead. This is what Dr. Solomon helped us with most last week, and in my view it is a gift beyond estimation.

Now, about that river. It turns out that the Doctor himself is somewhat of a trout and bass fisherman - another trait that marks him as an intelligent man. But I'm not sure that he's aware of what he has almost right on his doorstep. The Huron River is a huge warm water river, that is stocked with roughly 35000 steelhead yearly, and it is known mostly for its spring run. I would have loved to have sampled it in October, nonetheless, but my passing there was so short that my interest needed to be mostly professional. I am pretty certain that what steelhead are in the river at this moment have not gotten very far up river, and I was as far is it is possible for them to go. In May, there should be throngs of them, but in this extended August I would not be bothered to rig up for mere ghosts of anticipation.

The stretch of river that I visited was deep and mostly slow. It flows rather somnolently in long bends over a weedy bottom, which looks to be a mix of sand and gravel - although it was difficult for me to tell, as the water was somewhat stained from a recent rain. Now and again, a riffle or two show up and the river dives into a pool. And its banks are heavily wooded, so that I would not suggest tackling it without your waders. In fact, in the lower stretches, boats are de rigueur for serious numbers anglers.

Beyond this, my observations are that there are a lot more deciduous trees in southern Michigan than what is commonly observed around Toronto and points north. And they are much larger, too. I used to live in Windsor, Ontario, so long ago now that I'd forgotten that oak and chestnuts trees could get so big. The area also seems to benefit from warmer weather, a later fall and an earlier spring, which would account for the size of its trees.

We have a return appointment with Dr. Solomon in February, so I may just pack my gear and bring it with me at that time. We will see. I hope I will!

Finally, here are a few more of the pictures I took during our visit to the Huron. Enjoy!

p.-

The Lords of the Lord the Rings

2007-09-09T22:34:00.000-04:00

It's been three years since the last installment of the movie trilogy of The Lord of the Rings was released on DVD, and I've finally decided to sit down and speak my mind about the whole sordid mess.

Some of you may know that I wrote my Masters thesis on The Lord of the Rings, the book, by J.R.R. Tolkien. This makes me more of a purist than most viewers of the three movies. It also means that I take certain thematic and literary aspects of the books a lot more seriously than most people. And all of this translates to a more critical view of some of the events and characters in the movie, how they were portrayed, as well as some of the really crappy substitutions that the screenplay writers made over what Tolkien had previously intended.

I don't blame the movie's writers, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, for trying to find directions for the plot that are more simplistic than what the books had achieved, especially since movie audiences don't tend to be as erudite as the reading public. But I do reserve the privilege to make comment on some of the aspects where I think they foundered.

Before I go on, I should mention that much of my consternation with the films stems not only from book-related mishaps, but also from the point of view of a movie buff. Almost anyone who loves movies has at least one, but usually more than one, favourite that they can watch over and over again. For example, I could watch The Empire Strikes Back, or The Shawshank Redemption, or Gettysburg - pretty much any time, and I would still enjoy those movies for what they are to me: really well produced, entertaining and meaningful stories. I don't find myself capable of saying the same for the Lord of the Rings movies.

There's too much cliché to them, I guess. One device that is used in the movies which really turns me off is the use of "what ___ ?" In linguistic terms, this is called "evaluation," which is the story teller's way of quantifying the importance of what is going on. Music in movies is a form of evaluation. For example, in The Gladiator, the battle scenes represent excellent musical evaluation. But in strictly literary terms, repetition, exaggeration and alliteration can all mark evaluative writing - such as in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" ("The horror! The horror!") or Shakespeare's "Richard III" ("A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!") An often overlooked aspect of J.R.R. Tolkien's writing is that he was a master of evaluation. It is also for this reason that his books read so well and that so many people, who otherwise don't read Fantasy novels, pick up his books and then never put them down; and his descriptions of Lorien and of the charge of the Rohirrim are among the great literary masterpieces of our time.

This brings me back to "what ___ ?" There are several instances of this poor evaluative device that pop up with irritating regularity, meaning to me that the screenplay writers were strapped for time & had no better device to fall back on. There is the instance where Frodo has just called Gollum by his rightful name, "Smeagol," and this latter responds with "what did you call me?" At the end of "The Two Towers," there is Sam's speech about going on with the fight, and there still being something to fight for. The music for that scene, and the cutting back and forth between Sam, the Ents and Helm's Deep is actually very nice evaluation - but Frodo's response, which is supposed to cap it all off, is like a flat balloon: "what is it Sam?" as though he wasn't about to tell us! In fishing terms this is like seeing your float strike downward from the vicious attack of a ravenous and frenzied ... old boot. Tolkien did not resort to this simple trick, in his books, and his portrayal of the scenes are vastly different.

But the movie is replete with these what? what? what? setups that don't exist in the book. It is very much like the blast of a hammer: the first time it is surprising, then it gets progressively less so until one just ignores it, or is bored by it. It reminds me of a critique that Mark Twain once wrote about Fennimore Cooper (author of The Last of the Mohicans), namely that:

Style may be likened to an army, the author to its general, the book to the campaign. Some authors proportion an attacking force to the strength or weakness, the importance or unimportance, of the object to be attacked; but Cooper doesn't. It doesn't make any difference to Cooper whether the object of attack is a hundred thousand men or a cow; he hurls his entire force against it. He comes thundering down with all his battalions at his back, cavalry in the van, artillery on the flanks, infantry massed in the middle, forty bands braying, a thousand banners streaming in the wind; and whether the object be an army or a cow you will see him come marching sublimely ...

This is very much the way the writers of the movie The Lord of the Rings approached their script. They hit us over and over with the same tricks, the same set ups and with the same mega-blast exaggerations of Tolkien's original. The Black Riders make creepy-crawlies slither out of the ground, the mountain troll in Moria walks into the chamber of mazarbûl and engages the entire kung-fu masters company in a brawl, the King of the Dead enters into disdainful scary-o discourse with Aragorn and Gimli and Legolas, Legolas turns into the mega atomic surfer dude snowboarding down stairs and extreme-skiing to death huge mammoths, the Ents turn into blithering idiots stupid enough to be tricked by Pippin the stupidest of all hobbits, etc... ad nauseum. In these (and so many more) scenes, the movies so misrepresent the books that anyone reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time must either find the real story bland in comparison, or be puzzled as to where the script writers got the inspiration for scenes that just do not exist in the book.

Finally, although I could go on and on, all of this forced hoopla mars the subtlety and poetry with which Tolkien had so painstakingly decorated his original stories; and I am left with the feeling, not so much of having seen something wonderful and artful, but more of having been to the carnival and having had a reel gud time.

And maybe that's all that Walsh, Boyens and Jackson had truly set out to achieve, when they sought to bring this massive beautiful and ungainly thing to the silver screen: just giving their viewers a good time. After all, it is Hollywood, and the name of the game is profit, above all else. Balancing the necessary flash-bang plot pyrothechnics with a sufficient amount of more deeply flowing literary matter is a very difficult and foolhardy thing to attempt, especially when your writer was J.R.R. Tolkien. And that is probably why the first time I saw the movies, it was a good time; but the second time, it was merely tiresome.

p.-

First Boot (Booted)

2007-08-27T12:02:00.000-04:00

There was one touch, a missed connection that came later, a nerve rattling taunt from the dark waters; but before that, there was one fine take that felt like a clump of weeds at first. There was a half-hearted head-shake or two, and it came in like wood. But the thing must have realised that something wasn’t right. It turned toward the horizon and sped off, a salmon or a submarine. It was hard to tell in the dark whether I was running out of line or not… I lost the game of chicken… tightened the drag… then a single strand of silk is willowing out in the waves; had to reel it in like an empty net, the lost glow spoon a fool’s offering easily paid for a warm night starlit, hazy with a red, setting moon over the ever clattering waves.

p.-

More on patching

2007-08-06T23:12:00.000-04:00

It's been a very busy summer of commuting and twins-raising for me, so I can't offer any significant or action-packed news of the angling variety. My sons are 19 months old now and getting big, which is not helping my lower back; although I can't remember my deltoids ever being in better shape. That's definitely because both of my boys love being pitched in the air, or jumping on "Papa" from up stairs. Kids that age tend to be rather persistent, so I get lots of repititions! Laura and I have been busy trying to organise and get funding for all the therapy that Isaac will require, and this represents quite honestly the largest part of our worries and our time.

So it was very much to let off a little steam that I turned my brain back to fishing, and some of the mini chores I left unfinished last spring. The salmon will be in soon, if they have not already buzzed some of the local piers, and my waders are still in need of repair. I can't even think of getting out on local rivers before I do a little fixin' up.

My last entry dealt with McNett's "Tenacious Tape." I also mentioned that McNett has a good deal more to offer when it comes to stopping leaks - for example, they manufacture Aquaseal, which is a staple for all those who put their waders through hell. As well, they make Gore-Tex patches that have an adhesive on the back and which can be used as a more effective, if much more localised, repair tool than Tenacious Tape.

Much to my surprise and satisfaction, I found out through regular internet google snooping, that Mountain Equipment Co-op sells a wide array of McNett products. MEC is a canadian outdoors company, specialising mostly in hiking, mountain climbing and kayaking gear - so they don't sell waders, for example. There's a big franchise location in downtown Toronto, on King Street West, and a membership (free) is required to purchase their stuff. I personally love MEC. It is a bit more costly than your regular outdoors store, but the equipment they sell is top notch; I've got a 13 year old Gore-Tex coat that's still kicking around, and which has seen and continues to see, its fair share of November days on the water. I fervently hope that they will someday make waders and wading jackets. Anyway, when you order stuff online from them, as I did just recently, it is delivered very quickly. My parcel was at my door in less than 3 business days.

What was in the parcel? All of the above, really, except the Gore-Tex coat - I'll have to wait before I get myself a new one of those! I will apply it all where I think it's needed and report, after a couple of fishing trips. Stay tuned!

p.-

Tenacious and a "D"

2007-06-12T22:29:00.000-04:00

I recently had the opportunity to test out a product that is new to me, although apparently not that new to many other outdoor enthusiasts. The product is called Tenacious Tape and it is produced by McNett , which sells oodles of similar products for all outdoor activities. I have permanently stashed my roll of Tenacious Tape inside my waders' zip-pocket, as my in-the-field go-to for whenever I might spring a leak. The tape is about 2.5 inches wide and you get 24 inches per roll.

I tested this stuff for an Ebay retailer, Discount fishing , from whom I had also bought a pair of Chota Tellico Shoals bootfoot waders, last summer. They were nice enough to send me a roll of this tape, along with replacement waders, when my Chotas began to leak prematurely after only very light usage. The caption above gives you an idea, but more on this later.

My mission with the tape was to see how well it could stand up to punishment. Although I was advised to put the tape on the inside of my leaky waders, I decided to really go for it and I stuck it to the outside seams. The result: I fished for 4 days out of 5 at this year's opener and only began to experience dampness on the 4th day - on which I walked well over 7 km's in the bush, tracking steelhead in a relatively small creek, festooned with obstacles as well as bank-clambering and climbing opportunities.

This may not sound so incredible, but for anyone who wades a lot it should jump out at you as outstanding. Although urethane sealants such as Aquaseal (ironically also made by McNett) are the most effective way to plug up leaks long term, they can take hours to dry; whereas the tape goes on in minutes, making it an invaluable stop-gap in the field. If your waders develop a visibile tear that doesn't accomodate a tractor trailer and a circus-troop of elephants, all you need to do is let the spot get dry, brush off any sand etc., and slap some Tenacious tape on. You'll be good for the day, at least, and if you put it on the inside of your waders you'll probably make the whole trip.

Now to the "D" section of this review: those Chota Tellico Shoals bootfoot waders. I was deeply disappointed to find that the seams on these waders lasted less than twice as long as the tape I used to repair them. Specifically, the seams inside the knees took about 8 or 10 trips to wear out. By comparison, I have an old 4 year-old pair of Orvis Silver Label bootfoot waders which are STILL useable and took well over 2 years of much more punishment than I ever gave the Chota's, to develop any kind of leak at the seams. To give you a better idea of what this means, the original Silver labels retailed for about 1/3 the price of the Tellico Shoals - and lasted many many fishing trips longer.

My disappointment did not end there. When I contacted Chota about these waders, the response I got was that they were discontinued & that I should go back to the retailer (i.e. Discount Fishing) - which I refused to do, based on principle: your product, your problem. No matter how much I argued, the reply was always the same: we won't replace this obviously defective product. Luckily for me, they did forward my complaint to Mike at Discount Fishing, and he resolved the issue of being wader-less on the eve of the opener, by sending me a brand new pair of Hodgmans.

The Chota's only avoid a complete "F" grade because they do have one redeeming feature: quick lace boots. I found these to be the most comfortable bootfoot design I've tried, the most stable and the easiest to lace up. I imagine that their wading boots are similarly practical. You basically just pull one lace, then hook it up to handy little notches on either side of the boots. Voilà, all laced up and ready to go. It's just too bad about the water that leaks in. That sort of thing does affect comfort negatively - especially in early March!

So if you're thinking of Chota waders, be warned! But you'll definitely need McNett's tape with them, because it's as tenacious as tape can get!

p.-

It's OK! It's OK!

2007-05-06T08:56:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like my camera will be ok, for now. Other than a few water stains inside the lens, I should still get some use out of it.

Also, the memory card that was inside the camera when it got wet survived. I include footage of my brother in-law in an epic struggle with a large male from the day after the opener, and less than an hour before the venerable Minolta Z1 was to take its impromptu mini-dip.

p.-

Opener 2007 or Fish, Camera, Hook!

2007-05-04T21:50:00.000-04:00

At the very least, the 2007 opener was better numbers-wise for me than 2006. A late spring and water temperatures that are still relatively low for this time of year, coupled with a decent rain the day before, made for very good opening day festivities.

I was lucky at every turn, where fish are concerned, as I had enough rain and room when I needed them. I fished four tributaries, and only one was low and clear when I fished it. Otherwise, the conditions that greeted me were always good.

I got to fish with my father again this opener, as well as my good friend Khalid for at least one day. We all caught fish and are very satisfied with our opener.

The only one that is not satisfied is my camera. My camera did not enjoy this opener as much as it normally would have, nor did my blood pressure or my centrepin reel for that matter. What? you say... Let me explain.

First, on day two, fishing the upper reaches of one of my favourite Lake Ontario tributaries, my reel began to feel as though something were grinding inside. As any good fool would do, I proceeded to remove the screw that keeps the assembly together, dipping the reel in the water to remove whatever grime was causing the problem, and dropping the screw into about 3 feet of fast moving water.

Panic!

I can't see down there because the water is still somewhat murky from Friday's rain. I move away a little and begin to peer into the water. I look and look and look - there it is! Excited, shocked out of the grief that had so tightly gripped me a moment before, I reached down into the freezing cold water and came up with the screw; got it!; and a pantfull of water. You see, I usually sling my camera around my neck & tuck it in my waders for safe keeping. But it's not that safe when the waders get water in them. Wet camera. Oh &*^%&^! The camera is still sitting on top of my fridge, all compartments open, in the vain hope that it will dry up and retain some of its functionality... more updates to come on that one!

This was not the end of my keystone routine. On Wednesday, the final day of my Mykissian odyssey, I had turned from the upper reaches of a Georgian Bay tributary and was headed home. I needed to make it to the car before 3pm, so I could make it back in time to pick up my boys at daycare. I was in a hurry and got careless, which is not a good thing to do on a river with a clay bottom, and a good, steep gradient.

SPLASH! CRASH! I find myself on all fours, covered in clay, with my face nearly plastered against my reel. I sigh. Nothing seems broken. I feel around with my nerves. Toes: ok. Knees: good. Arms: yep. Hands: uh oh. Uh oh is right. My left hand is having a problem. The palm of my left hand, in particular, looks to have a hook embedded in it. Yes. The hook is in there. Right. That would explain

THE SEARING PAIN! OOOWWWW!!!!!

...Which was being exacerbated by the fact that the hook had been holding onto the wire hook rest, near the rod's handle, but had been pulled through it during my fall; and it was now being pulled back hard by the tension in the rod. Talk about being shackled! I was covered with clay and very goofily caught in my own trap. Ugh.

It took a few moments to calm down, but I finally did. Then, I slowly unwound the reel to give myself some slack, cut the line with my pliers and rinsed off both clay-caked hands. It's a good thing that the water was cold, because it helped numb the area from which I had to - with a very quick movement - rip out the hook. It was just a small hook, with a small barb. Two days later, the barest little pinprick remains to tell the story.

There's always so much more to tell, such as the immense male from a very small eastern Ontario tributary, who jumped twice at least 4 feet in the air before prying himself free; a new spot to fish, nestled in high cliffs and adorned with cedar, pine and birch; my father's amazing addiction to Tim Horton's blueberry fritters and of course, as always, Laura's immense generosity for giving up her favourite helper for such long periods of time.

This season's done for me, except for perhaps one last trip. The next rain may find me bidding my little friends adieu in a way which they undoubtedly feel uncomfortable, but which restores me to myself, nature and the fish's beautiful
ways.

p.-

Casts 1000

2007-04-16T14:59:00.000-04:00

It is Saturday, April 14th 2007, and Mike is yelling at me from the parking lot. "Paul! Let's go!" The wide river moves around my waist, and before me it dives into a deep pool from which even the gin-clear water can't wash the pure and "foreboding" emerald stain. There are steelhead down there, I can feel it. They've been outwitting me for several minutes now - or maybe I've outwitted myself once again; but I know a fly that will make them come up, or maybe a single egg fished deep... "Paul!" I reel in quickly. It's 6pm after all, and I'm hungry too. Tomorrow morning we will leave without fishing, lured by an early arrival home. With quiet regret I turn and walk out of the Manistee river, perhaps for the last time.

Apologetically, I have to admit to my three trip companions, that I was only being facetious when I agreed to go to the Big Manistee. We had discussed it as one of our options ad nauseum for over four hours, knowing we were going to fish for steelhead 'somewhere' in Michigan, and I found myself wanting resolution more than prospects more solid (as I imagined them). And anyway, I was still not over the rain-ruined trip to Ohio that had originally promised so many fish, so it no longer mattered to me what our ultimate destination would be.

But Mike found a passage in one of Bob Linsenman's books describing some of the pools on the Manistee as "dark and foreboding." This phrase was repeated several times during our debate, like a mantra, and it guided us in our choice.

My first impression, when we finally arrived at around noon on Friday the 13th, was not very good. Enormous parking lots sit on both sides of the river, from which countless anglers descend daily to sound its great flow, like gamblers at roulette. From the dam at Tippy reservoir down at least 2 km, there is no stretch wider than 15 yards without a rod and reel dredging the depths for silver. It's even worse on weekends. Make it 5 yards on weekends. And past the first bend, a veritable armada of drift boats divvy up the deeper pools of the river's heart.

When we get down to the water, I'm immediately put off by the "combat" fishing arena that presents itself. Anglers stand shoulder to shoulder up river, down river, as far as the eye can see. Mike, Andrew and Dave move up river. I move down. I find a relatively uncrowded bend, with a couple of attractive seams knitted at its surface, then wade out and begin float fishing. Time goes by. Nothing. Up and down the river, the rods swing like clock pieces, straight, unbent and the faces of the people are blank. Patient. My float spikes down suddenly, and up comes my rod - straight. Nothing. A crushed roe bag now hangs from my hook. This happens once more, then the mysterious creature that did it lies still. Maybe it has fallen asleep.

This summarises my Friday the 13th. I don't even recall if I hooked a single fish, so powerful was the spell that held me in its grip. Call it what you will, disappointment or bad luck, the steelhead gods had turned their collective heads and smiled, instead (as you may have guessed), on my friends. But mostly, as usual, they gave all their love to Mike.

With disturbing regularity, Mike's rod would suddenly leave the senseless, uniform, back and forth tick-tock of the masses to perform a ritual all its own. It dipped and bent, jiggled, was jarred, bucked in his knuckled grasp. Sometimes the dance stopped abruptly, and other times a brightly coloured steelhead was coaxed to shore. Above "the Coffer" Mike was expounding the virtues of the steelhead Gods, and all within eyeshot and earshot took notice. In such a crowded place, with fish so pressured, I have seen no finer performance. The next day, we found out from one of the locals that he was "that guy who's been catchin' all the fish." I knew it to be an exaggeration, but it wasn't a big one.

What I didn't know was that the river itself had begun its work on me. Mike was only a small ingredient in her enchanted brew, her counter-spell to my deep funk. Great vistas open themselves to the eye, in the valley through which it flows. And the Manistee itself flows like a necklace of jade, emeralds and diamonds at the bottom, rich with pools and shoals. It has a powerful, melodious voice that calls the spirit down to its cold, generous caress. I was being called down, down into the valley and down the river.

I think I landed 1 fish all weekend. 1 measly fish. Actually, it wasn't measly. It was a gorgeous hen, which three of us felt compelled to photograph. But she's the only one I landed. Though I am not totally bereft of my own little piece of fame...

On Saturday, after landing that hen and hooking several others (that all got off) I heeded the call of the river and walked down her banks. This is how crowded the Manistee is: at the end of one of the parking lots, there's a large, roofed platform for handicapped anglers. There's room on that platform, for at least 6 anglers - and there are six there when I begin fishing slightly downriver from it.

My float strikes downward on the first drift, and a brightly coloured male leaps from the water as it snaps my tippet. Enthused, I re-tie and send another offering roughly in the same area.

I drift and drift again. On the fifth pass, the float comes down and the river makes its statement. It is a strong statement. It follows me up river and it crosses. It moves up the current and then back down. It flashes at me white chrome blasts of light that halo the deep green water. My rod, I see, is shaman-dancing. It wants to break. The line moans under the pressure. My arm and my shoulder begin to wither. Down the river goes the fish. It flashes again, and I feel the head bending in great, powerul sideward thrusts. I pull and gain an inch; the rod pulses and throbs; I pull again. The fish turns and again I must pull hard, and my shoulder feels like it is filled with ink, and my arm is a piece of driftwood on fire. The head shakes again, and again, and again; and again I winch it upriver, and she pulls (I can see now that it's a big, chrome hen); the hook comes free - and I am freed from my funk, and I hope -

I pray -

I will go back there someday.

p.-

Broke Back Chrome

2007-03-27T10:12:00.000-04:00

I hate to say it, but the picture in the caption depicts a fish that was not released and ultimately (merely) contributed to my bait can.

It's a long story and I hope you can stomach it.

Last Sunday, I was supposed to join a couple of friends to lay chrome waste somewhere south of Canada and Ontario. But perhaps it's a sign of aging, that we didn't feel too inclined to go freeze our nether regions to such a degree, and the trip was called off. I still managed to do a little bit of fishing in a local spot, but it was to be a big skunk for many of the foolhardy who showed up to de-ice their guides on that day.

This past Sunday, however, was a different story and an example of how fortuitous compromise can sometimes be. The compromise of course was to let Laura choose the time of my foray into chromeland; whilst I had already chosen the ground, a nearby tributary that allows for a quick return home at need.

This was lucky, because it was likely one of the least crowded rivers in the East on that day, and by all accounts it had still been on the boring side of unfishable in the morning. By the early afternoon, there were about 6 to 8 inches of visibility in the water: just enough to fish by. The time and place were right, the water was high and the fish were in. And to compound matters to the good, despite a parking lot brimming with cars, one of the best pools on the entire stretch was devoid of fishermen.

Less than ten minutes into the adventure, I hooked into this little fellow in a riffle at the head of the pool.

In short order, I had another fish on & lost. Then a few minutes later, the strangest steelhead I've landed in a long month of Sundays, lay feebly twitching on the river bank. At first, since it had fought so sluggishly, like a log with a piece of ribbon pinned to it to look like a tail; I thought the fish must already have been caught & released.

But then it looked to me as though some other less powerful fish's musculature (maybe a sunfish?) flapped beneath the skin of her aft. The rear of the fish, instead of enabling it to launch itself into the air even from a prone position, served merely to wave bye-bye and twitch like a puppy's tail. The tail fin was misshapen (though neither this picture nor the one in the head caption really show this), with the upper part at least 1 1/2 inches shorter than the bottom. I felt badly for the fish, which I assume was a NY hatchery byproduct, or had suffered from debilitating injury or disease. But I felt good for myself. Back home, the roe supply in the freezer was dwindling...

Things did slow down, during which time I hooked 2 more, and landed another chrome bright hen. This one was in fine shape, gave me a good rendition of wild chrome early spring steelhead, and darted back into the water as soon as I had her unhooked.

The best photographic opportunity of the day occurred when a fellow from Bolton asked to fish beside me. I knew he was not from around here because he actually asked! The locals don't normally attend to such formality, although if they are feeling good they may magnanimously apologise only if by some accident (which happens too often) or lack of skill their float ends up caught in your line.

Anyway, the 12+ lbs fish gave a good account of itself, given the close confines of this relatively small creek, and the fact that it had a 15' Frontier to deal with at the other end. I asked its gentlemanly captor if I could snap a pic of the beast before he set him free, and was most graciously indulged.

All in all, it was a nice way to spend an afternoon, and finally achieve success in accordance to what I was used to before I was "papa." And it's a long story for just a couple of fish; but what the heck. It's been pent up for a while!

p.-

in Just spring

2007-03-16T16:32:00.000-04:00

As the world outside resumes for a short time its slumber, like a lazy riser snoozing on the alarm clock, I think about Spring. Spring is so close I can see it over the horizon, sailing on the ever brighter crimson blush of winter sunsets.

And I am excited about this Sunday, when I will join up with a couple of chrome-hound buddies to finally launch my first true all-day assault since last November, upon a lucky creek somewhere. If I close my eyes and concentrate, even as I type this, I can feel the current around me and the soft fins of timorous steelhead brushing at my ankles and my calves; I am standing knee deep in them, in enormous "Chromocupia." Or maybe that's just cabin fever + caffeine (I just polished off a tripple espresso)? Mike says I'm passionate about steelhead, and I guess I am that, too - and such long abstinence, if it does not kill passion will transform it into wanton, reckless zeal.

But now I realise what it is that has been humming in my head these last couple of weeks. Not just the prescience of March chromers and steely April droppies, or the pulsing quickening of Spring, but a poem. By e.e. cummings, my favourite poet. His poem went so far as to infiltrate my last entry, and it is the name of this one. If you did in fact read my last entry; if you are one of those poor souls whose lives are so barren that they had nothing better to do; I extend you just a little less sympathy than I do to myself (who actually wrote the darned thing): and I wonder if you detected the bits of poetry that slipped into the otherwise monotonous blabla.

In any case, if all goes well and the Chrome Gods smile upon us, I shall update this space again quite soon. In the meantime, I leave it to cummings and his bright, beautiful poem. I hope you enjoy it!

in Just- spring

in Just-
spring      when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles      far      and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far      and      wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
   the

     goat-footed

balloonMan      whistles
far
and
wee

e.e. cummings

Ice Ice Baby

2007-03-06T21:18:00.000-05:00

March is here, and the march on the rivers is on. A little pre-maturely, in my case, as I am mostly motivated to stay close to home these days and most nearby tributaries are all but choked with ice.

It's ironic, really, because after last Wednesday's rains I expected more spring-like conditions. And although I travelled far and wee I found nothing that could be described as "mud-luscious" and only one tributary had any significant ice-free stretch of water.

There were a couple of fish rolling in one of the sections of open water I found, but neither roe, nor pinkie, nor woolly bugger tickled their fancy. Either because of the frigid water or ample fishing pressure, belied by the numerous footprints in the riverside snow (most with toes pointing into the water), I went fishless.

Then the cell phone rang.

Samuel's air-siren shrieks were audible before I could even say "hello," clearly signalling the reason for the call. Yes, Laura's sanity is more important than any tangible success on the river: my fishing day was over.

Nonetheless, as ever, the simple exercise of stalking a river, looking for open water and fish; and then finally drifting a float for an hour or so, left me feeling refreshed and renewed. My blood pressure has tangibly improved; and the powerful benefit of reconnecting with the simple, primal occupation of the predatory "I," still inhabits my very cells.

My prophetic soul mentioned in my last post that hours on the river would now be more precious than ever, and it has proven true. Maybe in a week, maybe in two; whenever the merciless grip of this latest deep freeze is loosened by the soft urgings of Spring, I will venture out again.

Please stay tuned for the next update!

p.-