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Article Title:
Catcher in the Wheat
GoFishSC Member Name:
James Yates
Search phrase:
My Favorite Fishing Trip
Small explosions
of dust marked each step as I ambled slowly towards
my destination, some half mile distant down the dry,
hard pan dirt road. My right knee felt as if a
couple of mad carpenters were furiously grinding
away at the bones forming the joint with sheets of
forty grit sandpaper. The knee squeaked audibly and
each step instantly sent a high intensity pain
signal to my cerebral cortex. At least, these aches
let me know that unlike some of fishing buddies, I
remained alive, still able to look deeply into some
trout’s maddeningly unfeeling eyes. Inspired by the
fact that I was left to catch some fish for them, I
pressed on, making myself a mental note about making
an appointment with that son of a bitch orthopedic
surgeon who had told me, none too subtly, that I
would be back sooner or later, for a knee
replacement. The trout were getting more difficult
to reach physically, but remained within easy reach
in the library of my sweet memories. I can only pray
that Alzheimer’s doesn’t steal the key to that
lifetime of preserved joys.
The summer sun fell hard
across my face, reminding me of the wife’s
admonitions to wear a hat and extra high UPF
sunscreen. She rightly reminded me of the three skin
lesions Doc Underhill had removed from my face this
winter past. They turned out to be something he
called squamous cell cancer. “Too many days out in
the sun chasing those trout around, I suppose.” he
had theorized. “Be more careful, or I may have to
whack off half your face next time!” he warned.
“Not that anybody wants to look at the
face I have now”, I remembered thinking as I mumbled
some appreciation for his concern.
My right hand bore
an ancient fly rod case crafted from a sturdy piece
of oak and some canvas and string. It had been
constructed when TR was in office, I had eventually
discovered. The rod within had belonged to my
great-grandfather. He had been the intellectual
type, a college professor teaching English Lit at
one of those ivy covered schools in the northeast.
Fly fishing for trout seemed to be an appropriate
pastime for men like him and he took to it like a
big brown to a caddis fly. When he finally moved on
to that eternal stream where the fish are all large
and take flies just often enough, he bequeathed his
precious rod to his son. John, however, showed no
interest in it. Neither did his son, who left it in
a dark corner of a basement until the natural
progression of time led to it being placed in my
eager hands.
My own vocation was, in
a way, similar to that of my forebear. I had been
consumed from youth by a desire to understand how
the universe had been designed and the principles
that bind it all together. For forty five years, I
had spent the biggest part of my life in the
research lab, seeking to unlock some of nature’s
biggest riddles. My work had been interrupted only
by visits to the nearby stream to try to solve the
equally difficult riddle of getting trout to eat my
creations of feather and fur. I found casting to be
relaxing, almost meditative, often opening my mind
to a sort of left brain activity that I hoped might
connect the dots in my right brain to answer some
question of theoretical physics I was wrestling with
at the time. There seemed to be some correlation, as
I had noted a certain similarity between
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and my trout
fishing- I found that I could be sure of the
location of a given trout , and what fly might be
necessary to imitate the insects hatching at the
moment , but I was unable to predict both
simultaneously.
Sunlight refracted
off the waist high wheat in the fields alongside the
old road as I marveled at the uniformity of each
stalks’ height. It looked as if some Middle Eastern
rug maker had snipped all of them at the same
length, creating an undulating, living carpet of
lager colored grain. As I walked on, I noted the
antique split rail fence separating the wheat from
the livestock around the barn. It was obviously very
old. Its surfaces were coated with lime green mosses
and grayish lichens. An occasional mushroom
sprouted from its wood, softened with age and
countless rain storms. I guessed it must have been
at least fifty years old, but nonetheless, the
Guernsey cows that grazed within its borders
remained properly restrained, unaware of the ease
with which they could have simply walked through the
mostly rotten wood.
A short distance away,
the rails led to a battered old barn. Its walls had
long since been bleached by the sun to a grayish
white color not unlike that of my beard. Some of the
boards were loose, one end forlornly dangling
towards the ground. Its tin roof sported large
patches of rust and a few areas were devoid of metal
altogether. The door and window hinges appeared
rusted shut and unusable. The entire building leaned
precariously to port. I did a few quick calculations
mentally and guessed the entire structure might
collapse in another four and a half months.
A loud creaking
sound filled the air when the farmer, appearing
nearly as old as his barn, opened the side door.
“Sorry if I startled you. I need to put some oil on
that hinge”, the old man remarked as I neared him.
“No problem”, I replied. “I thought maybe it
was my worn out knee”. “Gonna try them trout again
today?” he inquired. “I get lucky with ‘em once it a
while”, I responded as I continued my journey. Our
vectors diverged, his to his beat up pickup and mine
towards the stream where I hoped to land a nice
brown today.
I had studied the
hatch charts and checked the weather conditions the
previous evening. A cloudless sky with a slight
breeze from the southeast had been predicted by the
Weather Channel. This time of year, I might expect
the wind to deliver a few hoppers from the grasses
lining the stream and so I tied on a medium sized
foam hopper pattern. It was just the right shade of
green and even had a bright white piece of foam tied
its most upper section. I figured it would be a
triple threat- conditions called for hoppers, the
foam fly would float high, and the white patch would
make it easy to see, even for my now failing
eyesight.
A blowdown jutted into
the stream from the opposite bank. I knew there was
a deep pool just beyond the downed tree. It was the
kind of place a brown trout dreams about, and the
kind of place I was dying to float a hopper over. As
I assembled the rod’s bamboo pieces, I marveled at
how wonderfully constructed this wood really is. Its
strength to weight ratio is remarkable, and it is
used in the Orient for everything from chopsticks to
scaffolding for high rise construction. The fly
rod’s wood remained sound, but the antique agate
guides clearly showed their age. Frayed tags
extended from each wrap where I had done my best to
super glue them back into place without destroying
the rod in the process. The reel seat was worn and
loose, and had required re-gluing last year, but
overall, the rod was still quite functional. I
yearned for a new boron rod, with its superfast
action and completely indestructible guides, but
that idea had been vetoed by the wife. My well
conceived, logical arguments about a lifetime
warrantee being such a good investment fell on
unsympathetic ears. I secretly continued to lust for
the high tech rod, and had even clandestinely
brought a fly fishing catalog along this morning, so
I could fill out the order form away from prying
eyes.
Hopper in place, I
lofted the century old bamboo into the nearly still
morning air. Its action was not unlike watching a
movie shot in super slow motion. I could almost take
a sip from the brandy flask in my hip pocket while I
waited for the back cast to unfurl. But, when the
rod was brought forward, the line unrolled into a
slow, smooth, tight loop that could bring a tear to
the eye of any true fly fisherman. After a single
back cast, I let slip the weight forward floating
line bearing my offering to the Trout-God.
Weightlessly falling, the fly seemed to defy
Newton’s Law as it alighted ever so gently on the
water, barely disturbing the surface tension.
The hopper moved
as one with the current, no telltale drag to be
seen. The attached fluorocarbon leader belied its
true intent, winking at the fish beneath the water’s
surface, while inviting them up for a delicious
meal, free for the taking. A flash of brown,
interrupted by black and red blurs, appeared and
disappeared simultaneously. The hopper was gone. The
old bamboo rod bent over, almost begging in its
agony, for me to let this big fish run for now. I
complied and the big brown raced down current,
seeking to relieve itself of the hopper and its size
10 hook. Unlike most browns, this one proved its
athletic prowess by leaping high into the morning
sunlight, to my very great delight. I doubt that the
rod had seldom been called on to handle such a
challenge, but it performed flawlessly. I tried to
calculate the bending moments being placed on the
rod, and the tensile strength of bamboo and tippet,
factoring in the rod’s age and the effect of its
being wet, as well as the angle of the line to the
water, but finally gave up and fought the fish by
feel. Each surge was transmitted to my hand, and I
used this tactile feedback to put what pressure I
thought appropriate to bring the fish to hand.
Slowly, I began to win, but was careful to let the
brown have it his way when necessary. The bamboo
groaned and maybe even creaked a little, not unlike
my worn out old knee, but never gave in. The
softness of its action allowed it to flex deep into
its length, all the way down to the handle,
providing at once a challenge and simultaneously the
deep satisfaction of control without exerting total
physical domination. I delicately guided the fish
ever closer.
After about ten
minutes, I held in my net a magnificently colored
brown, weighing some eleven pounds. I
carefully released back to its home what was easily
the biggest fish of my life.
Shaken, I noticed
the stump of a cut down tree. It made a convenient
stool and I sat down to savor my experience.
Reaching into my pack, I pulled out a Cohiba, sliced
off the end, and lit up. After a deep draw, I
retrieved my flask and enjoyed a sip of my favorite
brandy. After a few minutes, I noticed the catalog
order form for the new rod where it had been neatly
placed in my day pack alongside the Cuban cigar. I
quickly grabbed it, inspected it briefly, then
crumpled it into a ball and stuffed it into my pack.
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