Early June. Matters beyond our control had kept us away from camp. Although large fish had been chasing smelt for the better part of May, most had receded back into the lake, replaced by fallfish. It rained through the night, continuing on and off through the morning. After a mug of tea and a bowl of Corn Flakes, I slid boots over my waders, buckled a pack around my waist and cinched the hood of a rain jacket over a cap stained with grease and oil.
Driving over a familiar logging road, I turned down a two-track and after a short while stopped beside a narrow opening in the verdancy. Water sprayed across my parka as I brushed against the branches of conifers flanking either side of the trail. The scent of balsam permeated the damp air as I passed blueberry bushes growing beneath the shade of the softwoods while delicate lady slippers hid among ferns, bunchberries and bluebead lilies.
My stride quickened when I heard the sound of the current, and as I stepped onto the bank, a raven’s raspy croak echoed across the river, its secret plans foiled by my unexpected arrival.
Shrouded in mystery, the river’s name is rarely mentioned by local guides. Its reputation for large fish, massive brutes eager to take you into your backing, is only whispered after a third beer at Sparky’s Tavern. That’s why I carried my 9-foot rod built to cast a 6-weight line and a long-handled net, the one that spent much of its time in the back corner of our cabin’s porch.
Having been away from the river for several seasons, I was relieved to discover only moose and deer tracks embedded in the gravel shoals as I worked my way toward a favorite pool.
I scanned the pool’s rain-dappled surface, hoping to spot a rise or some other sign of fish, but all was tranquil, as it so often was when I previously fished the river.
I chose a favorite pattern, one with a few brown barbules forming a tail, matching slips from a mallard feather for wings and a string of gold tinsel wrapped over fur dubbed along the hook’s shank. Like a veteran actor about to take the stage, I felt anticipation tempered by anxiety as my fingers fumbled, knotting fly to tippet.
My initial trepidation was quickly replaced by confidence when the line slid smoothly through the guides, the little wet fly wafting down like a bit of pollen onto a dark seam that slipped shyly beside the far bank.
For the next 45 minutes, the long-handled net leaned idly against the trunk of a white birch while I released two fallfish and, after a brief but spirited fight, a palm-sized brook trout.
Squalls continued to race across the valley. As with every previous cast, anticipation built as the fly sank along the edge of the far bank, sweeping unseen into the back of the pool and across the current where it rose into view just beneath the surface.
And then I watched as a fish’s maw rose through the tannin-stained surface.
While my hand trembled, my inner voice cautioned: not yet, not yet, not …
When I set the hook, steel pierced bone, followed by a flash of scarlet as the trout’s massive shoulder turned, its raw power transmitted from the frail tippet up the line and through the throbbing graphite.
What followed were several heart-pounding runs, one majestic leap, a mumbled prayer and more than one attempt to conclude the match with the long-handled net.
I replayed it all later that night in the dark of the cabin’s bedroom.
It’s hard to describe my emotions afterward as I stared down at the brook trout finning in the plastic webbing of the long-handled net. A fish whose ancestors have called these waters home for more than 10,000 years.
Was it satisfaction? Elation? Joy?
Or perhaps the same glee I experienced as a 9-year-old when a 3-pound carp swallowed a doughball from the bottom of a polluted stream not far from our home in suburban New Jersey.
But there was also affirmation, as there always is when a fish rises through the surface with your chosen fly between its jaws.
There was the incredible rush of adrenaline you feel only when connected to an especially large fish. Then later, if one of the many things that can go wrong does not, there is the satisfaction of releasing what only moments before you so urgently sought.
It is an offering of sorts, an expression of gratitude for the opportunity to spend one more day on the water and for a memory you’ll savor when your legs are too frail, your arms too weak and your fingers too swollen to cast a wet fly across a favorite pool, one tied with a string of golden tinsel wrapped through a bit of fur.