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.
