Bemused

The eddy line where everything either gets swept under a low overhang of cedars or gets slammed by the whole of the main run taunted me from the moment I waded into the pool at 5:00 in the morning. I had cast into that magic suspension of currents, using at least three different strategies, for at least a half hour. Before you start accusing me of buggy whipping the hole, I'll say that at 5:00 in the morning its dark enough to cover most of my miscues (if any), and I gave pause enough for any beast to feel secure enough to venture forth.

The previous night I had held the canoe for a client in the press of the run so that he could skate a fly through the eddy line in hopes of moving a least one good fish. This place always holds good fish. However, it hasn’t produced anything for a number of seasons—not even a “drive-by," "how-are-you," or "No-I’m-not-interested.” I have reasoned over the years that when good spots stop producing, a big fish has taken over chasing out all rivals. This theory has shown some validity when big fish are caught from these previously quiet places. Usually big lake run browns. We worked the fly for a good half hour before we strung up the rod and headed down stream and into the night. So I returned after a few hours sleep to try and reconfirm the theory.

I stood and watched the eddy slowly push the foam up to the top of the eddy and then slowly swing it down along the undercut bank and back down to the end where it met enough of the push from the main current to start it cycling through again. Bemused by the movements of the river, I may have fallen sleep on my feet or somehow had one of those strange experiences where you find yourself loosing any sense of the passage of time. Driving to work comes to mind, where you discover yourself at work, but you’re hard pressed remembering the drive. A hot shower can spend time for me. What I thought was a few minutes turns into a cold shower wake-up.

The bump of a canoe hitting a rock at the top of the run brought me out of my trance. Surprised not by the canoe that was yet to make the turn into the final part of the run before the pool, but the sunlight pouring through an opening in the cedar canopy. What had been a dark, shadow-shrouded hole was now fully illuminated by the low angle of the sun reaching the over the top of the valley. Rocks, woody tangle and the sand spout of a bottom spring shown clearly. The shadow of the cedars had moved out into the run with the edge of the shadow hovering over the sweet spot of the eddy: the current break between the main thrust of water and the cycling turn of the eddy. How had I missed the transition from the nether world of the half-light before dawn to this? The canoe bumped another rock. I glanced up the run. As my head turned, I glimpsed, out of the corner of my vision, a large silver shadow dart down the eddy line, flash brightly through the sunspot on the bottom of the eddy and slide under the undercut and dissolve into the mystery of those velvet thoughts that are marked by the revolving question: Did I really see that? Or was that what I wanted to see?

I am pretty certain I said hello to the canoeists as they slipped by and rounded the next turn. The sound of the rapids rushed through my head for the whole of the trip back to the car. The rest of the day was bemused by the movement of water.

Keep a tight line,

Steve Therrien

Waiting

Fly rodding involves a lot of waiting. Waiting for the just the right conditions: light, stillness in the air, humidity, time of day, feeding activity. I am always taken back by what appears to be. A stretch of river absolutely lacking in feeding activity can come alive in the course of a few minutes. Wait a few minutes and things can change. Where you'd think there couldn't be a fish-one appears.

I sit and drink tea while I wait. Will the wind settle down? Ponder the state of man? Did I remember the bug juice? Sip tea. Fight the urge to fish the water. Did I choose the right pattern? Sip tea. Check the sky. Not dark enough, yet. Wonder about whether I locked the car. Too bad, I'm not going back to lock it anyway. Stretch the shoulders. Think about who won the ball game. Check out the fish that rose next to the log upstream. Watch the mink as it snakes its way downstream, ducking under branches, submerging then emerging next to the moss covered rocks. It scrambles up onto the trunk of cedar that has grown curving out from the bank. Shaking its body body in a quick blur, the mink clears the water from its fur and moves on nosing its way through the ferns and sweetgale. Sip tea. The wind is calming. Mental flossing directs your attention to those occurrences that happen all about you. A mosquito flies off so heavy laden with my blood that it nearly drops into the river before it gains enough altitude to fly off--I usually feel their faint sting.

First Brown Drake spinner of the night takes its clumsy flight over head then others appear, followed by more. Its getting darker and more still. Did I mention that I drink tea while I wait?





The first fish takes a spinner as it struggles in the surface film. I watch another fly flutter an inch, writhe, then disappear in a swirling rise that looks like a miniature toilet flush. Other fish join in. Each has its own distinctive take and sound. Splashy and bold, soft with a distinctive sipping sound, gentle dimpled ring. In the course of a few minutes there are more than a dozen fish actively feeding. I've waited long enough.



I've been away from the computer fishing the June hatches and guiding. The keyboard is foreign to the touch and being indoors is starting to feel confining. I gotta get out again.

Keep a tight line,

Steve Therrien

river trails

always narrow, weedy and mud slicked
boot polished smooth and sun baked hard
twisting through willows thick,
dip and shinnied around skin barking stones
crossing hot meadows and wind corroded snow
through cedar shade cool

in blackberry tangle grab
low under the alder rain drip
over wire fence cautious straddle

woven roots in the well worn
way looking
at
the direction of the imprints
of familiar souls

the path wear
points the way to where we came and
the other to where we can go


Keep a tight line,

Steve Therrien

quiet water

quiet water

under
the shimmering lace
the blooming transparency and

mesmerizing flow
a tail shadow flies over
illuminated sand and gravel

dissolving in momentary
feathery whorls of
shadow cast one on

one to break as
the surface rolls and pushes,
divides and plunges into

darker quiet water

and in it
its ability to tell lies
and to reveal truth

finds comfort honestly
evades us easily
even though we traffic in

the best of human guile
they elude us
in the reflective glare

we are mere imitations
water ghosts locked up in
windowless rooms of our own reflection
bound to strong currents


Keep a tight line,

Steve Therrien

They're here!

Opening weekend and Hendrickson hatches have always had a special place in fishing the seasons of the trout calendar. Everything about Hendricksons speaks to fly rodding for trout or at least what I envision as fly rodding for trout. Trout will feed activity on all stages of the insect's life cycle. I have even caught fish using a size 22 egg sack pattern--a tiny ball of yellow dubbing! Some of my fondest memories of opening weekend have been because of these storied of mayflies.

This past weekend, with the wind howling down the river, E. subvaria (old school latin name) came off at about two in the afternoon despite the wind. Many of the duns skated on the surface like iceboats racing with the wind until they fluttered off lost in the gusts. The number of insects coming off would have made for a perfect hatch by fly fishing standards enough to keep the trout looking up but not too many to make imitation an impossible feat. Mysteries of the behavior trout won out again. With abundance of available fodder and no fish feeding--not on the bottom either, I could see them still and lock jawed--the hatch continued for an hour while I looked on. Some times it is better this way. Waiting in humble silence, contemplating in the moment, knowing full well that fortune is a harlot.... It was a beautiful day filled with blue sky and clouds and small flights of ducks and the occasional flash of a spooked fish or those that drove by to have a look. Most of it familiar yet it still refreshes the memory.

After the hatch let up and with just a few bugs popped off the river, I moved down stream to a run that is some times the haunt of other fly fishers. Some that I have known for years. I am of that age that I can say that and envision a good hand full of people. A few of whom have passed away. Their presence is still sensed there and at times I can hear them as they back cast or wade slowly to the next position closer to the feeding fish. The local cemetery is just a hundred yards away so I am sure there may be a few haunting this run even as you read this.

The remains of an old bridge still stands on either side of the run as I looked up river. As the river glided around the bend and narrowed in front of me I thought I could hear voices up stream. It happens to me a lot lately. Running water speaks its language, and I forget where I am and suddenly I am hearing conversations that took place years ago, but only in bits and pieces. I even mistake them for voices that I believe are actually speaking in the here and now but are masked from recognizing because the rush of water over rock confuses my hearing...or the voice gets muffled in a gust of wind.

There was a truck parked in the space where we all have parked our vehicles at this place. I stood looking up stream for awhile listening to the bits and piece of the conversations trying to recognize the voices. Then I heard it. The sound of a wading staff hitting a rock. Faintly at first then steady like an angler moving back down stream, wading through the run not fishing. The figure appeared at the top of the run, and I took him for the driver of the truck. I hoped that I would recognize him. He appeared ghost like in the shadows. "Well, it's all over they've come and gone. You 'miles well wait until dusk and see if there's a spinner fall," the shadow spoke in a loud and familiar voice. "Did you come with some one or are you by yourself?"

He stepped into the yellowing light of the afternoon sun and smiled. It was Dave, the fly tier, an old fishing friend. He said that it was his first time out, "Would you believe it?" He shook my hand with a familiar wry smile on his face and climbed the bank.

"I do," I said. "You're retired and don't have to pound the water like the rest of us on the weekend's"

"I gotta go to church. Michelle said I had to get out of the house for awhile," he added putting his rod down next to the truck. Dave is serious about his fly fishing and his Catholicism. "I've been retired nine years now and there isn't a retired person that I've met that doesn't pray." He paused and faced the river holding his hands above his head in praise, "Thanking God, for the time to do stuff like this. Opening weekend, for a few hours at least. I can go anytime, you know, but opening day..."

"Maybe there will be spinner fall."

"If the hatch has been on for a few days, it's possible and if the wind comes down. I gotta go," he replied

We chatted for a few more minutes about what we saw on the river and if we had seen or heard from any river people we knew. I didn't tell him about the voices I been hearing lately.

As he drove off, I thought about the possibility of fishing the spinner fall. I had heard voices in the water, then Dave appears. There are all sorts of emergences on the river. I let the spinner fall and fishing wait for another time, another opening day.



Keep tight line,

Steve Therrien

Temptation

walking the river on the edge
of someone else’s trout boundary
temptation gets the better
so I cross barbed wire
pulled tight by hoist and muscle

ignoring the sign

makes the bending wire hard
complicated by fly rod
the hole widening in a fence line
becomes a wrestling of two egos:

those that build
those that want through

if the bending isn’t done right,
standing too soon...
a hand slips...
a tangled rod tip ...
a rusted point could catch your waders
your skin
with righteous indifference
could make it nasty later
scratch
cut deep
puncture
but the wound
wouldn’t be much
to the thing that drives
the crossing of fence lines

laying on to the pulse of the forbidden
the effort and the risk of it
when someone slips through strands in a fence
then looking back over
where you’ve been
to
what is
that is there

heart throb that
hums when the wind whispers through
the wires
and ripples the surface
of the transparent mysteries
that tempts us

that speaks through it all
below the surface
finning through the lacy eddies
that hug and caress river rock
ambivalent to the trespasser’s boot





With the opener (just around the corner), I hope this greets you well. I pulled this out of an old folder. It was from a time when my enthusiasm for the "quiet sport" would sometimes blunt my ethical governor. Today, I imagine the ghost of my former self beckoning me on from the other side of the wire. We all confront the sign sometime.

I hope you all encounter the tight lines we all dream on...

Keep a tight line,

Steve Therrien

river crossings

become well marked by
the river of boot soles that
have for the seasons marched
with collective calling
and necessity

then the path submits to
muscular wrestlings of river
water and rock and trees
and the complexities that
mix and boil the possibilities
and the uncertainty of flux

a good crossing makes suckers of us all
a slow submersion can quickly disappear
in the midstream weight and
toe tracing boulders
unsettled footing erodes the sandy gravel
roils out from under felts and studs
and deepening press toward down river
baptism and transformation
cloudless blue
then emersion
mixed and bound
to river music
until the next fishable run

there are those where
“returning were as tedious as go o’er”
that squeeze time out
into those few moments when
we can embrace solitude by
making the other side
of mayfly emergence and
ants on the wing

in the small places
nothing is new
otters chew brook trout heads
steelhead crash the alders
but for the passage
of few whorling eddies

we

inward turn
possibilities open
when we cross over
to something or from something



Keep a tight line,

Steve Therrien