Creek Hopping with a Friend

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?

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

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

“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

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

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 this is what
the fool
- now fisherman -
was waiting for.

The Scouring of the Shire

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.-