Surprise Rejuvenation

40 years ago, the boy, walking, heard it, saw it for the first time. Not a model anymore, hanging from the dusty ceiling; but whistle-roar barrel-rolling real, scintillating in the living sky.

I wrote that today for a little tweet I posted about N951HB. What is it, you ask? Indeed, aircraft call signs are generally unromantic. And if you've never seen a Steven Spielberg film, then maybe there isn't even anything I can do to help you. If, however, you've watched Empire of the Sun or Saving Private Ryan you probably have enough to go on. This scene from Empire of the Sun encapsulates pretty much how I feel about it:

I kind of felt the same way as Jim did, this past May (the 10th, to be exact), when I heard something outside... could it be? Naaaah! But I went out on the balcony and spotted; what. A plane. For sure WW2 vintage. It was so far away, but I ran back in excitedly to grab my 300mm lens to click a few pictures. By then it really was too far away, but when I zoomed in on the shots, there was the unmistakable silhouette of a P51-D mustang!

What? How? 

I'm still unravelling that story, for now. But it has been flying around here quite a bit. This past weekend, I finally snapped a decent shot of it, which you can see in the leading caption to this entry.

The best "irony" for me is of course that early May is one of my favourite times of year, not only in general, but especially because a completely different kind of shiny chromium is available in our rivers. Steelhead! With a new P51 Mustang flying overhead, it's literally double the chrome!

This year, I almost feel like we are preparing our kids, nieces, nephews for taking up the torch once we've passed it on. Olly brought his daughters on a couple of trips, and I had the pleasure of spending the day with my nephew Mathieu - already a solid addict of these wonderful creatures. There was lots of a piscatorial diving, cartwheeling, barrel-rolling to be oggled at this year, as we ventured out in the worst (i.e. best) weather, before the heat rolled in to spoil the season. 

A few pics as I leave you for now!

p.-

3

Dust on the blog. It happens. Life, the quintessential river, flows to and from everything. Even as we get older, we're growing all the time, learning, making mistakes, redressing some of them; others are like little black seeds that will sprout shadows later.

One such seed is here. An accident; I googled "the average steelheader" and saw a date. 2016. My kids went from saplings to young trees in that time. Taller than their mother, they are catching up to me; or are we coming down to them? Probably both.

But it's a gap, no doubt. A little ironic négligence, disrespect toward a space where I often meditated and cast a mirror back on myself, my adventures, and this passion of mine for everything steelhead. In a way, then, a disregard for that passion. Yes, I am busy - very - but discipline demands an outlet, permits it, encourages it, makes it mandatory.

Three years is a long time. Relationships are forged and lost in that time. Entire human beings come from nothing, and grow big enough to swat lamps off coffee tables. Little kids turn to adolescents. Beer bellies turn to guts. And six - count them - six steelhead seasons have marched past without so much as a wave from my keyboard.

Thankfully, it's s short time too. Three years or thirteen, or thirty. Yes, in the enormity of time, they're worth the same. But also in the power of an enduring passion. Love's not time's fool. The blog is like an old friend sitting here, waiting for me. A warm fire in the hearth; cold beer on the armrest. Soft creaking of La-Z-Boys as we reminisce.

Too much to tell, really. Good days and slow days, as usual. Days alone and days with company. I want good company, so I don't tolerate abuse anymore. Not even from myself. Mistakes are opportunities to learn, not reasons to get frustrated or angry with others or oneself. Mistakes are often the key to new doors. Where fishing is concerned, and indeed life in general, these should never be discarded!

Did I choose the wrong morning to spend the lone hour I had to fish, this week? Yes - but what else is here, now? Dishpans in the shallow water will hold hungry trout when the flows rise later; crowded beaches tell me where I can save time, too. Visit elsewhere. What is the wind saying? How is the Lake answering? I can watch, and reflect, and learn from this wide open book of Nature that is always unfolding its cryptic, deeply rewarding lessons.

And now I can't shake this giddiness. The end of October is here. Christmas for steelheaders. Bright, brand new, untarnished silver electric slabs of living lightning; leaping, swirling, shredding through rivers and white surf foam, as they compel strained fishing line to sing against the wind.The line will point east, but the fish will already have gone west; high performance, scintillating freshwater Ferraris of the piscatorial world. Strike when the Chrome iron is hot: the time is now!

Ah well...

Reality check: I don't know how many opportunities I'll have. The usual, I suppose. An hour here, two hours there; perchance a day, a whole day - but other forces than Nature will move that calendar and shape the dates. So who knows what the future holds. Regardless, for the next month or so, it's time... To quote the great William Yeats, from "A Dialogue of Self and Soul" :

I am content to follow to its source

Every event in action or in thought;

Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!

When such as I cast out remorse

So great a sweetness flows into the breast

We must laugh and we must sing,

We are blest by everything,

Everything we look upon is blest.

p.-

Rainbow's End

It went like this. At first, when the float slipped under the surface, I thought it was bottom. When I gave the line a little snap, my rig came up easily. I checked the bait: it might have been mouthed, or not. It was hard to tell. I drifted to the same spot, and the same thing happened again. This time, the bait looked somewhat mouthed, but I still had my doubts. After all, one gets inured to bad luck, and it had been a long time since I'd hooked into any kind of steelhead!

Little did I know, late last November, that the smallish 3 1/2 pound male that was yielded to me by a Lake Ontario tributary, would be my last for several months. It feels like years, aeons! This feeling is exacerbated by the fact that I've had a good many full days out, on several rivers all over the province and NY state, without a single fish to hand. But with my little family always in the back of my mind, each day on the water is very much a luxury - and lack of success just makes the "expense" more extravagant.

Bad luck itself can have a flare for the extravagant. For example, lightning can strike twice. I never thought I'd see the day when I would head up to the Saugeen and come back fishless, much less my good friend Mike B. - and yet we made two trips up north to absolutely no productive avail whatsoever. We moved around a lot and covered miles of ground and water, but all our efforts went for naught. The same went for an earlier trip that Khalid had joined me on, in early November. Legs tired, arms fresh: never the combination desired by any angler!

Then, early in February, I took the opportunity to float the Salmon river with Oliver, expecting a firm turnaround to my dire misfortunes - or "our" misfortunes, to be exact. But that was a laughable expectation. I should have known better. Our run of strange luck continued. In fact, it was almost worse than worst. Believing we could call a cab to pick us up at our pull-out & drive us back to Olly's truck, we only brought one vehicle. Imagine our consternation, when it turned out that there is no more taxi service in Pulaski! Luckily, the legendary Skeeter Scoville is an acquaintance, and he happily volunteered to help. As we waved good-bye

at the beginning of our drift, our morning's interaction resembled something like an NHL trade: one ride, roe bags, beads and advice for 20$ US, 3 cuban cigars and some good old fashion canadian conversation, eh.

Even Skeeter acknowledged that the fishing is no longer what it was. Whole sections of the Salmon are, according to him at the time, virtually devoid of fish. And of course, our luck happened to carry us through a couple of these. At the end of the day, Oliver seemed to turn the tide - a strike! or what he felt was one, which saw his rod bend quickly; and then just as quickly relax and go straight. Frustration mounting, we ended our day with our traditional stop at

Five Guys in Watertown, joking half-heartedly and scraping up as much humour as two luckless anglers could muster.

Certainly, two successive winters where most of Lake Ontario, Georgian Bay and Lake Huron froze over had their effect on the food supply of our favourite fish. Numbers are down everywhere, from the famed Salmon river, to the little tricklets close to my home, to the great Saugeen and Beaver rivers up north. But it's not like they've disappeared altogether. Such a run of apparent ineptitude as I've miraculously been able to put together, makes no sense. Sure there are fewer fish, but this is ridiculous! With a deep-souled sigh: enter despondence. 

After that February trip, I gave up. I turned my mind and heart homeward and tucked my rods and tackle away, resigned to the fact that with tough times in the rear view mirror, tough times were still ahead. Why suffer them with pointless hope? Paying greater attention to Laura and the boys made the winter more palatable, and I gently pried my thoughts away from my ongoing piscatorial futility. It was a good thing, too, since quite a bit of drama hit us on the home-front (and continues to leave a mark), which would have completely derailed any fishing plans anyway. 

So it was almost as an after-thought, this past Saturday, that I finally found myself on a river bank, after a late wake-up, with virtually nothing prepared on time; wondering for all the world if maybe, just maybe a slightly mauled roe bag might mean more than just a close encounter with an errant rock or two. Robotically dismissing hope as pie-in-the-sky, I put on a fresh sac and kept drifting, covering water in different depths and lines as I went. Then when the float tipped down again, to dislodge my offering from the bottom, I quite carelessly flicked the rod up; to feel; a pulse. Oh sweet, massive pull-and-pull of a heavy steelhead, shaking its head in surprise!

Surprise! That was the word of the day. If the poor fish was shocked, then I was doubly so. I was like an actor who forgets his script: was this supposed to happen? What are my lines? Do I just... wing it? Somehow, my arm and my hands remembered what to do, if my brain didn't, and within minutes the bright, glistening steelhead lay at my feet. It was sluggish from the freezing runoff, or the battle would have lasted much longer. 

As I stared at it in disbelief, a thought started entering my mind for which only reflexion would bring words: that this single, redemptive fish, scintillating in the late morning light, signified the end of a chapter. I'd reached the pot of gold at rainbow's end, at last. And though I had further success afterward, I will always remember that single hen as a small symbol of hope, and the repeated truth that even the worst of droughts can come to a swift, sudden, glorious end.

p.-

Follow your Bliss

I still remember a kind and patient John Kerr, in the old offices of Ontario Out of Doors at the corner of College and Bay in Toronto, trying to explain to me what it would take to get an article about steelhead published in his magazine. As I look back on it now, my arrogance was quite spectacular and I dare hope that he was at least amused - if not bemused - by it. I also hope that my passion for steelhead fishing, then as now, helped smooth over that little failing of mine...

That was 1995.

Twenty years later, almost to the day, I can prove that I understood, finally. If you happen to subscribe to the mag, or see a copy at your local news stand, turn to page 42 of the Nov/Dec issue. You'll find my first Ontario Out of Doors article, sitting there quite humbly amongst many other fantastic contributions. 

It's a little dream come true, for me as I've always wanted to contribute something to OOD. I owe a debt of gratitude to the centrepin crafters who gave me their time, to Ray Blades (Managing Editor @ OOD) and to Mike Borger (friend & publisher of Canada Fishing Guide) without whom I would still be waiting for this cherry on the cake. 

Regardless, it was one of the purposes of my little fishing blog to help me get something published someday. I always knew it would be good practice, and how else do you show what you can do if not by actually doing it? So I've always striven to provide some form of quality in my posts and in my pictures that would, someday hopefully, attract the attention of serious publishers.

It doesn't end there. The beauty of it is that the old saying is true: "it never rains but it pours." 

Not only have I finally published an article in Ontario Out of Doors, but I've also contributed to "Steelhead and Salmon Journal", which is a western US magazine published out of Oregon. My discussions with Pat Hoglund, Chief Editor of the magazine (as well as "Steelheader's Journal" and "Traveling Angler"), began over an old picture of jumping steelhead that I'd posted on a forum & quickly progressed to writing. So, I'm doubly blessed this month with articles in the Nov/Dec issue of not one, but two magazines.

Finally, there are two valid ways to see this: Santa came early (since this all happens in December) and whatever your bliss: persistence pays off. No matter how long it takes, don't despair and never quit. Sooner or later, at the very least, you'll look back and be pleased with your accomplishments. 

Thanks for reading!

p.-

Where have I been? - Petit photo-montage

Time for a new post! 

It's been an inordinate amount of time since my last entry, and there's been a lot of water under the bridge. Part of my silence is due to the fact that I've got some fishing articles coming out soon, and I can't really talk about it here until some time after they've been published. So, since the things I'm writing about are usually what I like to talk about on my blog... it's lead to this awkward "ahem" type of absence on this space. 

Still, tons of things have gone on and, since I'm also honing my photography skills (and having a lot of fun doing so),there's no better way to broach that vast compendium than through a photo montage.

Shortly after my last post, here is an image that represents the last few minutes of a great way to warm up in the clenched, frozen jaws of winter. Cheese fondue! We enjoyed the real thing, with grated Vacherin and Gruyère, Kirsch and Fendant. It is such a lovely feast that one almost pines (almost, but not quite) for the return of Winter!

My favourite hockey player, on a break, flying up centre ice! I never get tired of watching him as he progresses and continues to excel. He's a major reason why this space may continue to be skinny, starting in September; he's gone and made the rep team again, and that means sleep, eat, drink, dream, smoke, breathe (etc...) Hockey!

Then the thaw took place in earnest, and I took time to check out the local Spring steelhead run...

... things were spirited, as usual! The run actually snuck up on me a little bit, since I learned that the fish had been running in much greater numbers at least a week prior to these photos being taken. 

No. I don't really get tired of watching them. This can be an exercise in patience for those accompanying me. They practically need a crowbar to pry me away from the river!

Finally, there was a little bit of this, though most of it was spent on the road, getting material for my professional writings. 

Then, of course, the Khalidian Dynasty continued. This is his personal best, and the only regret I have is that I wasn't there to snap this pic! Awesome fish, my friend!

There's no better tonic for the "few fish" blues than a trip to western New York. Here, a drop-back hen rests up after a spirited fight.

Muscle cars anyone? At the Bowmanville Summerfest.

Oh wait! How'd that get there??? Hmmm....

Trip to the Bluffer's park. Enjoying a brief dose of sun and sand.

An excited Samuel overlooking his first Blue Jays game. Justin Smoak popped a homer that landed little more than 20 feet from where we were sitting. How cool would that have been, at your first ever game!

And now, for a floral break... (Ahhhh! I feel rested!)

Dawn on Rice Lake... and...

...bass on Rice Lake. 

Giggles at camping. Isaac saw something funny on his iPad.

A golden Lake Ontario sunrise, on a calm early-August morning. We were canoeing. It's quite an experience, when the lake is this calm and glassy. Look closely at the buoy and you'll see a tern sitting there.

A visit to a friend's cottage, to strengthen the quadriceps. 

Subsequently, Sam's first time ever water-skiing. Apparently, he's a natural!

Children fishing off the dock in the quiet evening. 

 Charter fishing on Lake Ontario. Sunrise on the canadian flag.

 My newest Cellphone background :).

 Magic with a wide-angle lens. 

 A competitor deploys his array, off the bow, in the easy morning.

 Success! 

Another fine catch for the day. All in all we landed 8, enjoying an almost unusually calm, hot and sunny day out on the lake. I can't tell you how many times it popped into my head to jump into the cool water, inches from my feet...

An image bereft of sound or fury, signifying everything! This is indeed an older pic, but one that neatly symbolizes the end of that hot day out on the boat - as well as wraps up this little post :).







More to come!

p.-