Far from the herd

I was not trampled on Black Friday.* Nor was I at risk of being trampled. As is my habit, I was far from the shopping malls and casting on a river with my buddy Jon.

With the advent of the internet, my time in stores is thankfully limited. If I can't get something online, I can at least pay for it and pick it up at the store thus sparing myself aisle wandering and endless waits in checkout queues. If I can't do it that way, it generally doesn't get done. This, of course, frees me to wander a river somewhere while the masses struggle to find a parking spot at the mall.

Our post-Thanksgiving ritual is a tenuous thing. More often than not some weather spirit descends to muck it up. Our first year was perfect. The weather gods made it cold and clear. The water levels sufficed for nymphing the Housatonic with a variety of successful flies.

The second year things were entirely fishable save for a howling wind. I have a picture in my mind where Jon, Don and I are standing in the current, backs facing upstream into the gale, with our fly lines flagging in the wind, waiting for the gusts to subside so that we could make a quick cast. That day was grueling. I don't even recall if we caught fish.

For the past few years, we've had trouble with rain. The Housatonic, our traditional lair, fishes well at around 800 cfs and we've found to be well above 1,500 or even 2,000. Of course, some of our Plan Bs have worked out okay but getting back to the ritual was something that I was eager to do. Rain a couple of days before Thanksgiving sealed the fate of the Housatonic.

After a spate of cancelled affairs, Jon and I decided to fish the Farmington. Neither of us has fished it much this year and thus we don't know its moods and habits but it would be a day afield and that was better than practically any alternative.**

Small flies, midges down to #20, seemed the thing though we learned later that Caddis were up an about in the morning so perhaps something larger would have been better. We fished our midges and found it hopeless.

I switched to swinging a purple Wooley Bugger after a hour or so of watching a lifeless indicator. I did forget to cut my leader back to something stouter than 5x. A trout reminded me of this when she struck and stole the rig.

Snake Brown

Upstream with Jonny, I rerigged with a sinktip and a new fly. I worked a run and on the first cast managed the only fish of the day - a twelve inch, snake-thin Brown.

With a couple of slow hours of fishing and a nip in the air we adjourned to the banks for some french press & fruitcake. The remains of yesterday's meal jammed between two slices of bread rounded out the feast.

The Jetboil has revolutionized the stream side coffee. Once the realm of lukewarm swill poured from Thermoses, the Jetboil will whip up fine, fresh black gold in a jiffy. When coupled with Thanksgiving leftovers and a bit of Fruitcake, it makes one feel almost civilized. I suppose at some level this is the antithesis of that which we seek but we all draw lines somewhere. Some fish beads, some don't. Some drink crap coffee. I don't.

Further upstream we fished the fishiest hole on the river with no result. It got to the point where the fruitlessness of it all drove us to shopping - at the fly shop down the street. There we learned not only about the hatch that we had missed, the aforementioned Caddis, but also about the morning specials that were no longer available to those who were tardy.

I hope the visit to a place of commerce doesn't wipe out what little mojo we have for Black Friday fishing. I'm already looking forward to next year's trip. But between now and then there's a whole lot of good fishing, especially as the weather warms. Until then, I'll be bundled up, happy to be on the water praying for a tug.

A little bit of civilization

Notes
* Don't even get me started on shopping on Thanksgiving day proper. Madness. Let workers have a friggin' day off.
** Though a few come to mind.

Healing Waters

Got out fishing today so I didn't write anything. But you can check out a guest post I did over on The River Damsel.
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Update Nov 27: I've pasted the complete text of the guest post below.
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Last week, Emily's husband, David, received a kidney from his sister. I pray that all is going well for both of them and that they'll be back at something resembling normal soon.

Writers often wax poetic about the healing powers of our sport. The syrup that is poured on the topic would put a six-year old sugar junky off the thing. But there is something to the notion.

I find that time on the water helps me physically distance myself from the stressful noise in my life. It's more difficult to stop the mental machinations and it can take several consecutive days before the voices in my head turn from work to fly selection and reading water; eventually my head emerges from hunched shoulders.

Efforts like Casting for Recovery and Project Healing Waters take folks wounded by chance and by war and introduces them to the things that most of us find each day on the water. While I'm sure it's not everyone's game, I bet some wounded find the connection to that something we all know and move forward.

Last weekend I stood in the sleet and snow in Pulaski, NY. After two days of Indian Summer, the weather turned to what most know as typical Steelhead weather.

The morning started out gloomy. Just before the weather turned almost a dozen anglers stood under gray skies in the run below where Jonny and I were fishing. Everyone was doing their best to put in the time when the bite was clearly off. While I didn't feel crowded by the other anglers, it was clearly different from the normal, solitary existence of a small steam angler.

As the weather shifted and the sleet, hail, and snow fell I was shocked to see the masses scatter. Aren't Steelheaders known for their hardiness? Within fifteen minutes we had the entirety of the run to ourselves. Far too much water for one to fish but very pleasing to have to one's self.

All that was left was the rhythm of the cast, the rush of the water, and the sound of pelting weather on my jacket. The only thoughts I had were of fly selection and sensing tension on the line. In the next hour I caught nothing but released much. If not for the clock running out on this trip I could have done with a bit more casting and stepping through the healing water. And I wouldn't have minded another tug by a fish-shaped, nickel-bright object.

Life is busy right now. Demands both personal and professional seem to have peaked and there's precious little room for anything else. Like most of you I will continue to tuck away quick trips to the water; to find and preserve that something else that exists.

Some days it is just fishing. But mostly, it's something else.

A nudge is as good as a wink

Not a word.....

Black Friday

It took me a few weeks to write the following story and by the time I got around to putting it in print the season has passed. So I saved it for today. Black Friday is coming.

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I think that most non-anglers would be startled by the amount of my brain capacity that is allocated to fly fishing rumination at any given moment. I suppose this fixation on trout, the stream and the experience, is largely due to how relatively rare a trip to the river is when compared to my opportunities to attend conference calls.

I imagine it's the same for most anglers, heck, for most anyone with a passion for anything. But like most hard core athletes it is the pre-game visualization that is the most critical -- What flies? Which pools? How will I play the "big one"? Will there be fruitcake?

I don't like fruitcake but Black Friday means fishing on the Housatonic with Don and Jon and that means that Jon will bring along his wife's fruitcake for us all to sample. My lack of love for fruitcake finds its genesis in a) dried fruit being the antithesis of fruit and b) my parent's wedding cake.

Deep in the dark recesses of my childhood home a freezer held a brick of fruitcake indelicately wrapped in tin foil. This remnant of a 1960 wedding was brought forth every couple of years and pieces of dark, freezer-burned cake were chiseled for us all to sample. I still get chills thinking about it.

At the risk of having more fruitcake foisted upon me, I admit that Jon's bride's cake is entirely edible, bordering on enjoyable. It's more of a bread than a cake and this may be its secret. Of course, spending a morning in the middle of a river being buffeted by a nor'easter’s winds make my palette far less discerning that it might otherwise be.

Prior the last year’s fruitcake trip I was in full visualization mode. The USGS streamflow charts and weather reports are bookmarked. If the combination of streamflow, weather and fishing reports were to be believed this could be the best Black Friday trip ever.

If there’s an emotion that is more fundamental to the sport of angling than hope, I don’t know it. That deep feeling of expectation drives the next cast, the next trip, the next season. And so I hoped Tuesday’s storm would be mild.

Wednesday brought a harsh reality.

We scattered to our various Plan Bs. Jon elected for fishing the salt on Friday. Don threw in the towel. My brain was set on trout so I called a guide I know up in Massachusetts. I booked a boat for my youngest, Sam, and I on Saturday. Hope was restored.

That is until Dan’s text message late Friday evening. "Technical Difficulties" and then "Call u in five". Short Story: Dan had to work a show on Saturday. If fishing trips were fairies Tinker Bell would be dead; I no longer believed they actually existed. I went to bed in a funk; but with a inkling of an idea in my head. Perhaps I could still will her back to life.

I had received some intel on fishing upstream from a certain bridge on a certain small stream that should have been running clear by morning. It was. Sam and I packed one rod and traveled light. We took turns casting to all the likely spots. The first Brook Trout came on a caddis pupa. We fished upstream through pockets and riffles. We hooked a couple and landed half a dozen; all Brookies.

We talked continuously about nothing in particular and everything in general. We investigated industrial and domestic wreckage along the river bank. We talked about fishing and rigging flies and lone moss colored rocks. We let the deep mud of marshes suck at our wading boots. We sat on rocks and watched. We grabbed hot chocolate on the way home.

I very much missed the Black Friday trip. The camaraderie and tradition are a treasure. But the weekend could not have turned out better. I was restored in a way that only flowing water can accomplish and I shared it with someone I deeply love. And through all the disappointments and surprises of the past week I discovered that what I desperately wanted wasn't what I really needed, which, I suppose, is the miracle of this season.