Intoxication of Simplicity

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon on the Salmon River.  The afternoon sun had just started to cast the golden yellow light of late afternoon, illuminating the stale green and slightly red tinged maple and sycamore leaves of the surrounding forest. Losing the reflective sheen of overhead light, the water became transparent, and for the first time an angler could make out slippery freestone bottom and the submarine like salmon alternately dashing and resting as they relentlessly migrated upstream.  I'm generally aware of all of this as I sit down among the tall fragrant weeds of early fall, and push open my fly box. Just a few steps back from the water you realize how loud the stream is when you are standing in it all day, like the din of city traffic, you notice it most when it’s absent. Din is the wrong word, streams babble or thunder, din just isn’t organic enough. I had just landed and released a King Salmon, the umpteenth of the day, and I sat down to re rig the pole and replace the fly destroyed by the fish as it fought.

As a child you fish to catch fish, it’s about filling the stringer and the taste of the fillet. For some people that’s all that fishing ever becomes, a race to bragging rights or a full freezer. I’m not judging, and to be fair, to an extent that never really disappears. The men who I fish with keep an informal score, comments reserved for a subtle jab over lunch, fish stories over beer, maybe a small side bet, but the score is never serious enough to keep a good fish from being complimented or a rod cast aside to help with netting.  For us, fishing isn't about limits, it’s about the experience, and the process. Fishing is about forgetting.

All fishing has a rhythm,  I find this to be especially true of salmon fishing.  The trick is to find a seam in the water where the fish regularly run, then settle into the rhythm of cast to 11 o'clock, follow the drift to 4 o’clock, real, repeat, repeat, repeat…..  Discussion is brief, and generally frowned on, we are not on the water to chat, we are there to fish, forgetting whatever else in life.  Polite conversation between friends can have drastic consequences. “So Jack, how is your family?” Boom! Rhythm wrecked as the man now refocuses on reality; it’s like ending a massage with a surprise balloon popping. Rhythmic, Hypnotic, Intoxication of simplicity. There is nothing left to do but focus on the line, the fish, and the ripples on the water.  As close to Zen as middle aged, family riddled, type A personalities, who eat meat ad drink beer can get.  There is no Hummus in Pulaski.

The fly box that began the trip as a well-organized but tightly packed collection of feather and hook now resembled the discount rack at Marshals.  Tattered, bent, destroyed flies haphazardly stuck into the foam with bits of line and knotted leader still attached, evidenced the success of the previous 4 days of fishing.  By now the jitters and excitement have worked themselves out and the fishing is again second nature, the mechanics are just muscle memory.  As I sat and marveled and the disarray in the fly box, I found I had only one suitable fly left. One pink Mr. Mabou streamer in a size 4…..

In and of itself there is nothing special about the pink Mr. Mabou, except that 4 days ago he had 47 untattered friends in the fly box….and today he was alone. The realization that I had fished through the fly box wasn't all that transcendental, but it broke the mental silence.

The sun was warm but gentle on my face and I could clearly watch my companions as they alternately thrashed the water, broken now and again a low liquid rumble as a fish realized it was hooked. The fish I just released did the same.  He rumbled and the water boiled, then fell silent and sulked in a hole in the current.  Holding the rod higher and backward pulled him slowly out into the current and he  jumped clear of the water, landing head first, he bounded downstream. Pulling line from the real and forcing me to give chase. I had to turn the fish before he made it to the downstream riffle.  Placing my hand on the spool the buzzing of the drag stopped, and I pulled the 12 foot rod in a tight arc, parallel to the water. The taught line sings and whines like and old TV.  I can feel the rod flexing under the cork handle. Above it all the rod quivers with each stroke of his tail. Forced to turn, the fish makes two more leaps, low and long like an Olympic  long jumper, he arcs back to where he started.  As he jumps I can see the bright pink of the fly anchored in the corner of his mouth, and the brown gold color of the fresh king Salmon.

The fish is tired and but not beat.  Slowly raising the rod, and reeling down, again and again, I manage to pull the fish within 6 feet of the net; twice, and twice with a splash he returns to the current. It’s a test now of the fishes will power against the fiber of the rod and the strength of the 10 pound leader.  Eventually exhausted, the fish slowly works himself closer to shore, and is netted.  The hook tight in the corner of his mouth is almost straight from the 20 minute battle the once clear fluorocarbon leader is frayed and stretched to the point of looking like used dental floss.

An excellent fish, over 25 pounds with great beaked nosed mouth, toothless except for two lower upward pointing fangs.  He was released to complete the gauntlet of other fishermen, rapids, exhaustion and spawning.

When I caught the fish, I didn't know it would be the last, but if I had, nothing would have changed.  Watching the water but not really seeing it, the smoke drawn from my pipe lingers in the tall grass, I know that I’m done fishing.  I have caught my last Salmon for the trip. I was done, satisfied in every sense of the word, happy and relaxed. Mission accomplished, it was time to go home.

I sat there for a while more, lulled into bliss with a fine draw of the pipe and sips from the flask. The pink Mr. Mabou, size 4, was returned to the company of his mangled brethren and I slowly disassembled my rod, unwound the line from the reel and packed my bag for the 2 mile walk back to the car. My companions watched in disbelief, wondering why I was ending the day before the sun went down. Maybe when they read this they will understand.  It was not about how many, but about the process, the mindless rhythm, the perfect fish; this is as good as it gets.