wadin' boot
03-31-2007, 09:55 AM
“My uncle has a country place, that no one knows about…” (1)
Beyond Uncle Jed’s pride of monkey puzzles, windmill palms, and his now looted Koi pond, there’s a rolling lawn that stretches nearly to the ocean. Now that Jed’s dead, the lawn’s going wild, blown and tangled like olive dub. (2) It ends in a fringe of magnolias that block some of the view. Their pink petals have fallen and oxidized brown, blasted off by yesterday’s shelling of hail. The Magnolias face a zone defense of varied Japanese maples, their trunks worn and scarred, their crooked branches just now budding. And winding through the garden there’s a gravel marching path, its borders marked with weed-invaded mulch, green-hooded tulips, the sentinel blades of hostas, covert callas and blood-stemmed peonies. Look close and the pistils of daffodils seem to follow when you walk by.
The path winds through the glade to a trench that leads up railroad-tie steps, anchored by rebar, onto a small berm where the native front line holds vigil. There’s a tangled rampart of old growth cedar, stunted hemlocks filled in with blackberry bramble, sword fern, nurse logs and spike-leaved Oregon grape. Some of the deadwood is camouflaged with thick moss, windswept and dried teal, like the beard on a forgotten Copper John. Those winds are nothing more than a breeze today, and on it, balloons of emerging midges float.
Up on the final berm there’s a bench, and on it my rucksack. From its canvas depths I pull the waders out, a tired looking pair patched and mended with various experiments, shoe goo, neoprene, duct tape, a Replacements patch. Boot foot waders, the boots a moldy and sad looking affair. When my foot sinks their depths a dank smell combined with a gas-cloud of foot powder is pushed out, unpleasant to anyone who isn’t a fisherman. The smell is soon flooded by the pleasant miasma of mid-tide, creosote, and decomposing kelp.
From up here you can look down onto the point. Sea stacks stand in the straight to the North, and just East, and below is you see a crescent-moon bay of relatively still green water, bordered with a pebble beach, and ripped on the northern end by a strong tide, some of it spilling in whitewater eddies and curls off the point’s rocky spine.
It’s a helluva view, the birdcrap on the bench attest to that. The birds, a mix of Bonaparte gulls, Caspian terns and back in the shallows, sneaky Ravens, aren’t interested in looking though, they’re at work on the schools, visible as a brown smudges, now you see ‘em, now you don’t, in the jello-green water.
The birds hovered up about twenty yards out from the point, beyond where a solitary Madrone anchored into a well-drained rock knoll. To Uncle Jed the Madrone was the saddest and most noble of trees, their serpigineous orange and green trunks draped with falling bark, shellacked with blood red and brown saps, frail yardarms jutting out their white flowers and vinyl leaves over the deep waters.(3)
“What’s a Madrone?”
“They’re the ghost trees of the Coast. They’re all painted and worn. They pick the best view, the sunny spots, they’re optimists, they like to hold up soft cliffs. It’s the most noble of trees…”
“You sound crazy again Jed.”
“I’ve taken up gardening.”
“And some percocet apparently. Why gardening? I thought you were a fisherman.”
“I was. I am. But after a while a man realizes there’s more to life than pulling fish out.”
“Gardening’s boring. It’s what old women do.”
Jed looks at Will and laughs.
“Yeah but Will, the thing is, you quit drinking, you got to replace it with something else. For some its twelve steps and god and all that. For some it’s a chance to be who they shoulda been all along. A dad, or a husband.”
He waits a while, an intern is drawing blood from his arm, threading a fat needle into one of Jed’s thin veins. He winces. Jed’s dying, a big cancer in his brain, a butterfly glioma. Will O’Brien’s the only relative he seems to care for. There’s no spouse, and his friends, tough old bastards, war and drinking buddies, move only in stories and memories. He’s philosophical now, as though the tumor connected paths that left him able to see his place clearly, meanwhile everything else progressed towards an inevitable confusing conclusion.
“For some its fishing. I already got that. I’m not one to make peace with my past or with some higher being. So it was either gardening or …”
“Quilting. Two bucks says men who tie flies would be good at it.You’d be good at too.”
“You got your mother’s wise ass in you, thank god, otherwise you’d be a serious little shit. No-one likes serious little shits.” He stares at the intern, who blushes.
“See gardening’s nurturing, its growing, its watching, waiting. Cultivating…. You did a good job on drawing that blood Dr S----.”
He rummages through his bedstand drawer. Cigarettes, electric razor, black notebook, a janitors feast of keys on a big steel ring.
“Will, I want you to take this.”
He takes a skeleton key off along with a Jerusalem prayer keychain, throws it to Will.
“What is it?”
“Keys to the kingdom. It’ll let you into the beach shack. Out back you’ll find my garden, and beyond it, there’s a fishing spot that will bring you peace.”
“I don’t need peace Jed. I just need something to look forward to. You got a spare?”
“Key you mean? No. I’m not leaving the VA, we both know that. Dr S---- knows it too. By the way Will, you sound like a whiner.”
The intern is blushing again and makes a quick exit. She’s adorable when she blushes, blue eyes and a bob-cut brunette with a palette of freckles over her nose and cheeks. We watch her swish and leave.
“Apart from the fried chicken, She’s the only thing beautiful in the VA. How can you stand this place?”
“She’s a doll.” Jed winks, “I’ve got her half convinced I’m a multi-millionaire, and that I’ll marry her like that old oil snake and Anna Nicole Smith. She can have it all, you heard it here first. And if she won’t take it, it’s yours. Think of it as my legacy. A garden, a beach shack, some old bamboo rods, take the car too.”
The birds dive and call. This must be their version of heaven. Below them there’s a cauldron of tail slapping, boiling water. A deep school pushing bait up to the surface, sand lances perhaps, or maybe some early herring looking for the runoff stream that made its way out of a black and green algae bog, partially trapped behind the last pebble dune.
The fishing would be good so long as the tide held and the bait remained cornered. To hammer the point home fish were leaping now, like some underwater god threw them, rugby style, out of the water.
“The fish trap the bait against the gravel bar, you got about an hour before the tide change, then they’ll go. Sometimes Coho, sometimes searuns, and if you get deep enough, below the open swimmers, reef fish too. (4) If you’re lucky they’ll be back with the tide change, when the water starts to get rough. Watch out for the seals though, they know it’s good too. On the rarest of days you see the Orcas smash in there too. Those days are the unforgettable ones.”
There were lots of unforgettable days between that conversation and today. My father, Jed, Jenna- all dead now. If I was stupid I might conclude that bad things come in threes. But there’s no end to bad things, I learned that in Iraq and it was pounded home here.
What did the Madigan chaplain say- “there’s a thin line between skeptic and cynic, and when you cross it, it’s hard to come back.” I told him to fuck off, called him a “deceiver mick.” (Jed liked that for a fly name, thought it should be shamrock green, dressed with gold thread and used exclusively on St Paddy’s day.) He didn’t seem to mind, his provocation was made and he knew he struck a chord. I regretted calling him names. I didn’t need him, I just needed time.
And here it was, at Jed’s place, recovery time. The scar from where they took my spleen was healing well, though casting and driving still hurt. Spleen. What’s spleen anyway? If you can do just fine without, what’s the point of spleen, appendix, tonsils, adenoids?
Maybe contentment and peace came from understanding how to remove the baggage you were given, that you were obligated to- family, friends, work, home and winnow it all down to the critical minimum. Maybe that was all wrong, maybe the contentment and peace comes from leading others to function better. Altruism. How does a soldier reconcile with altruism? Maybe the only thing worth doing was teaching children right from wrong. My god, I was thinking like a gardener, a cultivator, what magic of Jed’s had tricked me to think like him?
I tied on Jenna’s attempt at a chum baby, though more greens than brown.(5) She never was one for straight duplication. Tied with what she had, tried to mirror exactly what she saw rather than what the other guys did. This was the only one that made sense here. Look in this box and you’ll see random nymphs and dries, tiny stimulators, unproven ones that never managed a strike. Garish Fred Meyer gift flies from well-meaning family. This was the last fly of Jenna’s I had, the rest were so good they were lost in the way that flies were meant to be. There wouldn’t be any more coming my way.(6) My selection left me undergunned.
The beach makes a popping sound under boot. Half-crab carapaces and bullwhip stems of kelp are strewn about along with bleached driftwood. Massive logs, many with bolts sticking out, or ax-cut plank holes from last century. Slow paces, trying not to think of Jenna, of Iraq, of Jed.(5-7) I concentrate instead on the birds, on the school below, on how to scramble down the spine of the point to the ledge Jed told me about.
“Make your way down the ledge, some of the Madrone roots hang, hold onto them, there’s good. You can make out a small path there.” He’s sketching a little map for on the back of a VA menu.
“You can’t be drunk and do it. Otherwise you’re going in that water. When you reach the ledge its about two foot wide, I call it the butterknife, if you step either side of it there’s deep water, but on the fat blade you’re OK You can swim your way out if you fall towards the beach, it gets shallow quick, but if you fall towards Canada, that current’ll take you to the Kraken.” (8) He makes the stations of the cross in the air with his pencil.
“You cast just about anyway you want you’re going to hook something. It’s magic Will, you’ll see what I mean.”
The ledge path is loose gravel, knuckles white on the madrone roots, and soon I’m on the butterknife. Boots probe the water, I half expect them to be slippery, but Jed was right, it was solid and the grip good. Stubborn barnacles held the worn soles well. I made my way to thigh deep water, the pressure of the water reassuring, the shoe-goo still holding out the Pacific.
Line is stripped, long and confident, towards the birds, and back, and with one more push, the fly slaps just beyond the boiling water. The retrieve is directly through the mess, and if you were lucky enough to feel the line or hold that rod you’d feel the bump and take of fish, your wrist pulled and Jed’s Bamboo rod bowed. Some of the glue’s come dry between the splines and when it bends, it creaks. But Will doesn’t set the hook, it’s too easy almost, and the Coho must know it’s not real, they spit the bit quick. He draws the line in, hand over hand, loops sinking towards his feet, and scouts follow it, one darting over top of the other, right up to his feet, just before they scare off. It was magic.
I check the hook point, it’s dull, but rather than sharpen it, I cast out again, this time to the left of the birds, into some slack, shallow water where you can just see the boulders and stones. Again there are bumps and takes. I retrieve, cast again and define the right border that contains the fish. Here then, were the living.
Another cast into the mess, right where a slick of oil and blood was forming. This time the hook sets and a silver is set in motion. He runs deep and out towards the San Juans, the Queen Charlottes.
And there, snuck up like a ghost hulk on a falling tide, right in front of Canada is the massive black hull of a trident sub, making its way from Bangor to places unknown. In the parapet there are four or five guys, one has binoculars and they flash the sun and I know they are watching me. One’s giving a thumbs up. The Silver’s drawn towards it, but it’s along ways off, three hundred yards or more. In that interim space though, the bow wake is heading my way. The silver doubles back and I can’t reel fast enough, instead I play him like a small trout, using the line alone, the stripped loops falling at my feet. I’ve got him now, he’s tiring and he comes to hip easy.
When I lean down that dulled hook has fixed hard and it takes some work with the forceps to pull, it won’t come easy even though it’s barbless.
Here’s what you would see if you were sitting at the base of the Madrone. To the right you’d see the dull hull of a massive war machine carving through the straight. From it, corrugations of the Sub’s wake move on the point towards Will O’Brien. He’s holding the fish against his waders and fumbling with the hook. The one foot surge takes him by surprise, he overcompensates and his rod is dropped, as is the fish, now free. He lunges for the rod and as he does, the fly box falls from the open vest and slips into the water, into the Canada side where the water is deep and the current strong. He’s at an improbable angle for standing, and there’s a look on his face that shows not fear but surprise. The birds seem to halt their feast to watch, just as the crew are, pointing, four pairs of binoculars looking. The sub moves on though, otherwise oblivious.
I am just about to fall, the loops of line caught around my boots, but the wake dies off and the grip is good again. My flailing attempt at balance has pulled my scar and it hurts tight. In the water I can see the fly box, half open now, a foot down, spinning. The aluminum tray bright against the deepness, parallel sun rays move down through tiny particles of krill or plankton. The flybox silhouette looks like a black butterfly.
I reach for it but there’s too much risk. I take Jed’s rod and probe with the tip, trying to catch the box between its wings, and I’ve got it and then it slips. Maybe the fly will catch it and I reel in fast as it sinks still further. It seems like the hook is trapped in the hinge, but when I pull the box won’t budge, it’s trapped, maybe on a shelf. Or I’m snagged. I can’t see it anymore I pull harder and then there’s the pop of the fly off the leader. The butterknife has won, Jenna’s fly is lost.
The ravens are nodding, approval. And for the first time in months, years, I feel alive again. Jed was right. There was magic here.
(1) Red Barchetta, Rush, Moving Pictures, Island/Mercury Records, 1981.
(2) http://www.washingtonflyfishing.com/board/showthread.php?t=37357&highlight=uncle+jed
(3) http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.talesfromurbanforests.org/photos/11/madrone.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.talesfromurbanforests.org/readMore.php%3FID%3D11&h=525&w=680&sz=87&hl=en&sig2=pfZhmGasObThe7tPPdJ_2A&start=10&tbnid=n970Qb3S49M2nM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=139&ei=1fANRraKB8zwiwHEmMypAw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmadrone%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3 Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG
(4) An Open Swimmer, Tim Winton Picador Books 1982. (I have read and re-read this book about ten times and it still remains a favorite. Winton wrote it when he was 21, an amazing feat and it belongs in lists of great fishing fiction.)
(5) http://www.washingtonflyfishing.com/board/showthread.php?t=37983&highlight=sculpin+god
(6) http://www.washingtonflyfishing.com/board/showthread.php?t=38664&highlight=augustus+tubbs
(7) http://www.washingtonflyfishing.com/board/showthread.php?t=38266&highlight=iraq
(8) http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.pantheon.org/areas/gallery/folklore/folklore/kraken.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.pantheon.org/areas/gallery/folklore/folklore/kraken.html&h=460&w=270&sz=56&hl=en&start=12&tbnid=4fPyTB8P3BjTqM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=75&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkraken%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3D en%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG
Beyond Uncle Jed’s pride of monkey puzzles, windmill palms, and his now looted Koi pond, there’s a rolling lawn that stretches nearly to the ocean. Now that Jed’s dead, the lawn’s going wild, blown and tangled like olive dub. (2) It ends in a fringe of magnolias that block some of the view. Their pink petals have fallen and oxidized brown, blasted off by yesterday’s shelling of hail. The Magnolias face a zone defense of varied Japanese maples, their trunks worn and scarred, their crooked branches just now budding. And winding through the garden there’s a gravel marching path, its borders marked with weed-invaded mulch, green-hooded tulips, the sentinel blades of hostas, covert callas and blood-stemmed peonies. Look close and the pistils of daffodils seem to follow when you walk by.
The path winds through the glade to a trench that leads up railroad-tie steps, anchored by rebar, onto a small berm where the native front line holds vigil. There’s a tangled rampart of old growth cedar, stunted hemlocks filled in with blackberry bramble, sword fern, nurse logs and spike-leaved Oregon grape. Some of the deadwood is camouflaged with thick moss, windswept and dried teal, like the beard on a forgotten Copper John. Those winds are nothing more than a breeze today, and on it, balloons of emerging midges float.
Up on the final berm there’s a bench, and on it my rucksack. From its canvas depths I pull the waders out, a tired looking pair patched and mended with various experiments, shoe goo, neoprene, duct tape, a Replacements patch. Boot foot waders, the boots a moldy and sad looking affair. When my foot sinks their depths a dank smell combined with a gas-cloud of foot powder is pushed out, unpleasant to anyone who isn’t a fisherman. The smell is soon flooded by the pleasant miasma of mid-tide, creosote, and decomposing kelp.
From up here you can look down onto the point. Sea stacks stand in the straight to the North, and just East, and below is you see a crescent-moon bay of relatively still green water, bordered with a pebble beach, and ripped on the northern end by a strong tide, some of it spilling in whitewater eddies and curls off the point’s rocky spine.
It’s a helluva view, the birdcrap on the bench attest to that. The birds, a mix of Bonaparte gulls, Caspian terns and back in the shallows, sneaky Ravens, aren’t interested in looking though, they’re at work on the schools, visible as a brown smudges, now you see ‘em, now you don’t, in the jello-green water.
The birds hovered up about twenty yards out from the point, beyond where a solitary Madrone anchored into a well-drained rock knoll. To Uncle Jed the Madrone was the saddest and most noble of trees, their serpigineous orange and green trunks draped with falling bark, shellacked with blood red and brown saps, frail yardarms jutting out their white flowers and vinyl leaves over the deep waters.(3)
“What’s a Madrone?”
“They’re the ghost trees of the Coast. They’re all painted and worn. They pick the best view, the sunny spots, they’re optimists, they like to hold up soft cliffs. It’s the most noble of trees…”
“You sound crazy again Jed.”
“I’ve taken up gardening.”
“And some percocet apparently. Why gardening? I thought you were a fisherman.”
“I was. I am. But after a while a man realizes there’s more to life than pulling fish out.”
“Gardening’s boring. It’s what old women do.”
Jed looks at Will and laughs.
“Yeah but Will, the thing is, you quit drinking, you got to replace it with something else. For some its twelve steps and god and all that. For some it’s a chance to be who they shoulda been all along. A dad, or a husband.”
He waits a while, an intern is drawing blood from his arm, threading a fat needle into one of Jed’s thin veins. He winces. Jed’s dying, a big cancer in his brain, a butterfly glioma. Will O’Brien’s the only relative he seems to care for. There’s no spouse, and his friends, tough old bastards, war and drinking buddies, move only in stories and memories. He’s philosophical now, as though the tumor connected paths that left him able to see his place clearly, meanwhile everything else progressed towards an inevitable confusing conclusion.
“For some its fishing. I already got that. I’m not one to make peace with my past or with some higher being. So it was either gardening or …”
“Quilting. Two bucks says men who tie flies would be good at it.You’d be good at too.”
“You got your mother’s wise ass in you, thank god, otherwise you’d be a serious little shit. No-one likes serious little shits.” He stares at the intern, who blushes.
“See gardening’s nurturing, its growing, its watching, waiting. Cultivating…. You did a good job on drawing that blood Dr S----.”
He rummages through his bedstand drawer. Cigarettes, electric razor, black notebook, a janitors feast of keys on a big steel ring.
“Will, I want you to take this.”
He takes a skeleton key off along with a Jerusalem prayer keychain, throws it to Will.
“What is it?”
“Keys to the kingdom. It’ll let you into the beach shack. Out back you’ll find my garden, and beyond it, there’s a fishing spot that will bring you peace.”
“I don’t need peace Jed. I just need something to look forward to. You got a spare?”
“Key you mean? No. I’m not leaving the VA, we both know that. Dr S---- knows it too. By the way Will, you sound like a whiner.”
The intern is blushing again and makes a quick exit. She’s adorable when she blushes, blue eyes and a bob-cut brunette with a palette of freckles over her nose and cheeks. We watch her swish and leave.
“Apart from the fried chicken, She’s the only thing beautiful in the VA. How can you stand this place?”
“She’s a doll.” Jed winks, “I’ve got her half convinced I’m a multi-millionaire, and that I’ll marry her like that old oil snake and Anna Nicole Smith. She can have it all, you heard it here first. And if she won’t take it, it’s yours. Think of it as my legacy. A garden, a beach shack, some old bamboo rods, take the car too.”
The birds dive and call. This must be their version of heaven. Below them there’s a cauldron of tail slapping, boiling water. A deep school pushing bait up to the surface, sand lances perhaps, or maybe some early herring looking for the runoff stream that made its way out of a black and green algae bog, partially trapped behind the last pebble dune.
The fishing would be good so long as the tide held and the bait remained cornered. To hammer the point home fish were leaping now, like some underwater god threw them, rugby style, out of the water.
“The fish trap the bait against the gravel bar, you got about an hour before the tide change, then they’ll go. Sometimes Coho, sometimes searuns, and if you get deep enough, below the open swimmers, reef fish too. (4) If you’re lucky they’ll be back with the tide change, when the water starts to get rough. Watch out for the seals though, they know it’s good too. On the rarest of days you see the Orcas smash in there too. Those days are the unforgettable ones.”
There were lots of unforgettable days between that conversation and today. My father, Jed, Jenna- all dead now. If I was stupid I might conclude that bad things come in threes. But there’s no end to bad things, I learned that in Iraq and it was pounded home here.
What did the Madigan chaplain say- “there’s a thin line between skeptic and cynic, and when you cross it, it’s hard to come back.” I told him to fuck off, called him a “deceiver mick.” (Jed liked that for a fly name, thought it should be shamrock green, dressed with gold thread and used exclusively on St Paddy’s day.) He didn’t seem to mind, his provocation was made and he knew he struck a chord. I regretted calling him names. I didn’t need him, I just needed time.
And here it was, at Jed’s place, recovery time. The scar from where they took my spleen was healing well, though casting and driving still hurt. Spleen. What’s spleen anyway? If you can do just fine without, what’s the point of spleen, appendix, tonsils, adenoids?
Maybe contentment and peace came from understanding how to remove the baggage you were given, that you were obligated to- family, friends, work, home and winnow it all down to the critical minimum. Maybe that was all wrong, maybe the contentment and peace comes from leading others to function better. Altruism. How does a soldier reconcile with altruism? Maybe the only thing worth doing was teaching children right from wrong. My god, I was thinking like a gardener, a cultivator, what magic of Jed’s had tricked me to think like him?
I tied on Jenna’s attempt at a chum baby, though more greens than brown.(5) She never was one for straight duplication. Tied with what she had, tried to mirror exactly what she saw rather than what the other guys did. This was the only one that made sense here. Look in this box and you’ll see random nymphs and dries, tiny stimulators, unproven ones that never managed a strike. Garish Fred Meyer gift flies from well-meaning family. This was the last fly of Jenna’s I had, the rest were so good they were lost in the way that flies were meant to be. There wouldn’t be any more coming my way.(6) My selection left me undergunned.
The beach makes a popping sound under boot. Half-crab carapaces and bullwhip stems of kelp are strewn about along with bleached driftwood. Massive logs, many with bolts sticking out, or ax-cut plank holes from last century. Slow paces, trying not to think of Jenna, of Iraq, of Jed.(5-7) I concentrate instead on the birds, on the school below, on how to scramble down the spine of the point to the ledge Jed told me about.
“Make your way down the ledge, some of the Madrone roots hang, hold onto them, there’s good. You can make out a small path there.” He’s sketching a little map for on the back of a VA menu.
“You can’t be drunk and do it. Otherwise you’re going in that water. When you reach the ledge its about two foot wide, I call it the butterknife, if you step either side of it there’s deep water, but on the fat blade you’re OK You can swim your way out if you fall towards the beach, it gets shallow quick, but if you fall towards Canada, that current’ll take you to the Kraken.” (8) He makes the stations of the cross in the air with his pencil.
“You cast just about anyway you want you’re going to hook something. It’s magic Will, you’ll see what I mean.”
The ledge path is loose gravel, knuckles white on the madrone roots, and soon I’m on the butterknife. Boots probe the water, I half expect them to be slippery, but Jed was right, it was solid and the grip good. Stubborn barnacles held the worn soles well. I made my way to thigh deep water, the pressure of the water reassuring, the shoe-goo still holding out the Pacific.
Line is stripped, long and confident, towards the birds, and back, and with one more push, the fly slaps just beyond the boiling water. The retrieve is directly through the mess, and if you were lucky enough to feel the line or hold that rod you’d feel the bump and take of fish, your wrist pulled and Jed’s Bamboo rod bowed. Some of the glue’s come dry between the splines and when it bends, it creaks. But Will doesn’t set the hook, it’s too easy almost, and the Coho must know it’s not real, they spit the bit quick. He draws the line in, hand over hand, loops sinking towards his feet, and scouts follow it, one darting over top of the other, right up to his feet, just before they scare off. It was magic.
I check the hook point, it’s dull, but rather than sharpen it, I cast out again, this time to the left of the birds, into some slack, shallow water where you can just see the boulders and stones. Again there are bumps and takes. I retrieve, cast again and define the right border that contains the fish. Here then, were the living.
Another cast into the mess, right where a slick of oil and blood was forming. This time the hook sets and a silver is set in motion. He runs deep and out towards the San Juans, the Queen Charlottes.
And there, snuck up like a ghost hulk on a falling tide, right in front of Canada is the massive black hull of a trident sub, making its way from Bangor to places unknown. In the parapet there are four or five guys, one has binoculars and they flash the sun and I know they are watching me. One’s giving a thumbs up. The Silver’s drawn towards it, but it’s along ways off, three hundred yards or more. In that interim space though, the bow wake is heading my way. The silver doubles back and I can’t reel fast enough, instead I play him like a small trout, using the line alone, the stripped loops falling at my feet. I’ve got him now, he’s tiring and he comes to hip easy.
When I lean down that dulled hook has fixed hard and it takes some work with the forceps to pull, it won’t come easy even though it’s barbless.
Here’s what you would see if you were sitting at the base of the Madrone. To the right you’d see the dull hull of a massive war machine carving through the straight. From it, corrugations of the Sub’s wake move on the point towards Will O’Brien. He’s holding the fish against his waders and fumbling with the hook. The one foot surge takes him by surprise, he overcompensates and his rod is dropped, as is the fish, now free. He lunges for the rod and as he does, the fly box falls from the open vest and slips into the water, into the Canada side where the water is deep and the current strong. He’s at an improbable angle for standing, and there’s a look on his face that shows not fear but surprise. The birds seem to halt their feast to watch, just as the crew are, pointing, four pairs of binoculars looking. The sub moves on though, otherwise oblivious.
I am just about to fall, the loops of line caught around my boots, but the wake dies off and the grip is good again. My flailing attempt at balance has pulled my scar and it hurts tight. In the water I can see the fly box, half open now, a foot down, spinning. The aluminum tray bright against the deepness, parallel sun rays move down through tiny particles of krill or plankton. The flybox silhouette looks like a black butterfly.
I reach for it but there’s too much risk. I take Jed’s rod and probe with the tip, trying to catch the box between its wings, and I’ve got it and then it slips. Maybe the fly will catch it and I reel in fast as it sinks still further. It seems like the hook is trapped in the hinge, but when I pull the box won’t budge, it’s trapped, maybe on a shelf. Or I’m snagged. I can’t see it anymore I pull harder and then there’s the pop of the fly off the leader. The butterknife has won, Jenna’s fly is lost.
The ravens are nodding, approval. And for the first time in months, years, I feel alive again. Jed was right. There was magic here.
(1) Red Barchetta, Rush, Moving Pictures, Island/Mercury Records, 1981.
(2) http://www.washingtonflyfishing.com/board/showthread.php?t=37357&highlight=uncle+jed
(3) http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.talesfromurbanforests.org/photos/11/madrone.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.talesfromurbanforests.org/readMore.php%3FID%3D11&h=525&w=680&sz=87&hl=en&sig2=pfZhmGasObThe7tPPdJ_2A&start=10&tbnid=n970Qb3S49M2nM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=139&ei=1fANRraKB8zwiwHEmMypAw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmadrone%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3 Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG
(4) An Open Swimmer, Tim Winton Picador Books 1982. (I have read and re-read this book about ten times and it still remains a favorite. Winton wrote it when he was 21, an amazing feat and it belongs in lists of great fishing fiction.)
(5) http://www.washingtonflyfishing.com/board/showthread.php?t=37983&highlight=sculpin+god
(6) http://www.washingtonflyfishing.com/board/showthread.php?t=38664&highlight=augustus+tubbs
(7) http://www.washingtonflyfishing.com/board/showthread.php?t=38266&highlight=iraq
(8) http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.pantheon.org/areas/gallery/folklore/folklore/kraken.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.pantheon.org/areas/gallery/folklore/folklore/kraken.html&h=460&w=270&sz=56&hl=en&start=12&tbnid=4fPyTB8P3BjTqM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=75&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkraken%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3D en%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG