Appenzell Redemption

“Long ago as a kid, my grandfather taught me to fish in this same water.  He took me out for a day and taught me to read the water, and then stepped back to let me learn what he couldn’t teach. “

I heard and felt the spittle from the slash at almost the same moment.  “Monster” looked up at me with a bit of pain and fear in his eyes. His fishing rod, still in his hand, was braced on a rock under the water. “You alright?” I called.  I could see him wince a bit as he stood up and shake it off, “It hurts, but I’m ok.” I was pleased.

I grew up on a trout stream forgotten by the followers Whitman and Grey, missed in the great trout awakening of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  The stream that joins the famed McMichaels and eventually the Broadhead, has largely been forgotten.  All  the better for me. I have fished “my” stretch of it for the past 30 years and know each hole and riffle like the curls of my wife's hair. This part of the stream is mine, and on this day I shared it for the first time, with my oldest son.

The stream flows from the west, and in the early evening the sun was just reaching the top of the neighboring hills, beginning to cast its shadows on the branches and brambles that enclose the water.  Shaded in the mid-day, the water reflects the long yellow fingers of evening sunlight that slide sideways under the foliage.  Gurgling clean and clear, jumping through the freestone channel, the water is beautifully right.

Monster fell in the water just as we started upstream.  I had hoped he would, and chose a path that would almost guarantee it.  I wanted him to get the feel for wading and the jitters out before we got to the fish holding water.  I also wanted him to learn that falling in, when the stream is only 12 inches deep, wasn’t a big deal. We worked our way west, upstream, into the sunset, stopping along the way to make a few casts. The stream lit yellow and white flashes, by the setting sun, as the overhanging trees blocked the deepening blue of the overhead sky.

Fishing has it mechanics and its technique, but it also has art. Monster knew the mechanics, some technique, today was his first lesson in art.  You know you can’t teach art. It has to be felt more than learned, experience turns technique and mechanics into the beginning of art, passion and love do the rest. So I used the time to teach him a bit about the water, how to read it, where I knew the fish liked to sit. You can read a stream, the wave and ripples tell the story like the face of an withered old man. Each  line distinct, each eddy a nuance. It will take Monster a lifetime to master the text of the stream, to perfect the art.  I gave my son the basic tools, a brief lesson, I found some bait while he made the casts. Satisfied he had worked through all the jitters, we moved upstream.

Low to the water, crouched, hemlock leaflets falling in our ears (very Shakespeare) we approached the hole from the lower riffle and made our way to the bank.  A large boulder sits half in the stream like a crashed Volkswagen and under it, a depression carved by the current. A small smooth gloss lives just  beyond the depression,  just before the rapids at the end of the pool.  Overhead more hemlock and river birch keep you and your casts low. 

This is commando fishing at its finest. 

Crouched beside me, Monster has his knees in the water, I whisper “There are always fish here, but you have to make the right cast. I want you to cast across the current toward that tree and let it drift down.” “What tree Daddy?” The babble of the stream makes it hard to hear a whisper. “That birch, but watch out for the overhang.” “What?” “Ok, watch me, cast like this.” With that, I sidearm a cast just where I wanted it, and let the bait drift into the trout lair….”See how I let it drift, with the bail off and the rod tip…..” I never got to finish the sentence. The fish hit like a train.  This wasn’t supposed to be my fish, it was his, that cast wasn’t supposed to catch a fish! I tried to let the fish take line, but Monster saw the hit, he knew he hadn’t hooked it when I handed him the rod. 

True to its nature, the trout swallowed the hook and Monster landed it readily.  Despite holding a 12 inch trout on his stringer, I could see the look of disappointment on his face.  I was shattered, and felt like a giant ass.  It is not my job to catch the fish, it’s my job to teach him how….damn!

The last spot on “my” reach of the stream is one of the more complicated fishing holes I have ever experienced, but it was my last chance.  With a gentile curve, the upstream riffle pushes on the far shale bank.  Stone so steep and loose that every now and again bits of rock summersault down the face into the water.  The pool is smooth bottomed and has little cover, save a river birch defiantly growing through the fractured shale, leaning out over the pool.  This lone tree guards the fish and has over the years collected tackle and line one cast at a time.  The near bank is grown in with thicket, branches resting in the water, the slightest twitch sends the resident school of suckers into fits. It is impossible to sneak through, if the suckers get spooked they rocket back and forth in the stream scaring the trout off the bite. 

The only way to fish this place is to skulk up the middle making long casts ahead to upstream facing trout.

I pulled Monster off the water and filled him in.  This was a hard hole to fish, but he was going to do it.  I told him where the fish would be and let him know I would be there to help, but the rod was his.  As I checked the knots on his line and gave him some fresh bait, I scanned for a good place to leave my rod….I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Monster lead, as we slowly worked our way up the pool. Thanks to the glare from the setting sun the fish could not see us, the suckers remained cool.  We made it to the edge of the thicket, just downstream of the headwater riffle.  “Monster, cast long over the riffle, aim for the rock.  Then let it drift down…..careful casting upstream is tricky, the fish bite….” “Ughhhh, I know Dad! Can I just fish?!”

He was right, it was his turn, so I stepped back to get out of his back cast.  The cast was ugly, but perfectly placed right where it needed to be, and I watched the line.  Nervous, I saw the steady twitch as the bait bounced on the bottom, tick, tick, tick. Then a subtle but telling quickening of the twitch to t-tic t-tic and the line went slack. Monster turned and looked at me, I knew he had a fish, he didn’t. “Dad, I’m stuck!” “ Ah hu” is all I could muster, the trout seemingly aware of the conversation, waited for that moment to run. Surprise, shock and finally excitement washed over his face as he watched the rainbow trout hurl itself against the tension of the line, the force of its trajectory and the action of the rod carrying it out of the water where it hung long enough for me to become worried about the knots Monster tied and the strength of the leader.

I became aware that I was yelling a string of directions to the boy “Tip up, tip up! No down, ok let him run, pull reeeel, keep him in the water, pull, rod up….” Thankfully he wasn’t listening.  Monster played the fish well, and as I fumbled for the net I heard him yell with excitement.  Monster beamed with pride when I handed him the net, in it was a beautiful 15 inch rainbow.  “Can we keep it?” “He is legal, but it’s up to you, you caught him!” He knew it too.  This was not an empty win….he did it all and he was proud.

Elation!

Likely stocked a year ago, the fish made it through the winter and grew fat and colorful in the rich waters of the Appenzell. The time in the stream imparted the distinct pink color and delicate flavor, romanced by kings and literarys the world over, to the fish’s firm flesh. Oven poached with vermouth and fresh herbs, he was part of our evening meal, and never has a fish tasted so good.

In this lifetime I have caught thousands of fish, distinctly remember only a few of them. Although this isn’t my fish story to tell, I know it will remain one of my favorite memories, not so much for the fish itself but for the redemption granted by the stream, and the smile on my sons face.