Fishing Journal 2006
by Kelly Heim
19 April 2006
from the tracks on the old rusty railroad bridge where the Ompompanoosuc and the Connecticut merge, I could see the rocky bottom through a very clear current. I cast a plastic tube worm and let it sink. Recalling all the afternoons i’d spent fishing here last summer with no outcome more debonair than the perch that managed to be smaller than the lure on which I’d taken it, I wondered what kept me coming back. There is an odd serenity amidst the rusty drums, old Waldron’s Dugout containers, beer bottles and the sentence Nick Charyk takes it in the bum spraypainted on the end post of the truss. There was tranquility here where the smell of creosote hangs in the air, and where the meaning of life can be held on the barb of a one-inch hook. The sun swelled in the west and began to dismember its yellows and reds onto the water. There was a faint breeze on my bare back as i sorted through a repertoire of tackle I’d laid out on the side of the railroad ties. A lethargic train occasionally comes through here and on midsummer afternoons, teenage kids would take turns jumping off the truss's upper chords, effectively scaring the crap out of every fish within a hundred yards. Every now and then a kayaker would pass under and ask me if I’ve caught anything. Not yet! The thing is, I come here and whatever is or is not happening, I never feel I ought to be somewhere else. There is abundant introspection and silence and seldom any talking other than an aggravated monologue with a knotted line, and material acquisition seldom exceeding a damned yellow perch that managed to be smaller than lure i'd used to catch it. I come here with no pride, no responsibilities, and no expectations. And the landscape holds me with its mottled arms, singing its quiet songs, breathing life into my work-weary soul, extracting my sadness with its radiant lushness and the possibility of outsmarting some of the biggest bass in the Upper Valley.
Today I was privileged with Fred's company and a rare patience while retrieving the lure as it snagged along the bottom. I'd picked up some leadhead tubeworm jigs at Chapman’s in Fairlee last weekend. I paid attention to the direction of the wind and the water and changed my position. In doing so, my line got tangled in a gnarled hobbit of a tree. Reaching and struggling to un-snag it, I felt a sudden tug from the other end. It was something I’d never felt--a robust, heaving pull, much like that of a laborador retriever yanking a stick from your hand. Realizing there was a fish—a very, very large fish—on the end of my line, I focused on negotiating with the tree. I heard a gigantic splash diagnostic of a trophy smallmouth. A river bronzeback! I finally untangled the line and stumbled down to the bank. The fish was fighting, and i knew the 6-lb test line was about to split. I kept letting out drag and bringing him back and coaxing the line. Don’t break, please don’t break. Then I saw it. It was the biggest smallmouth bass I’d ever seen. Just then the line snapped. I threw my arms into the water and was able to grab the sucker with my hands. I grabbed the gill plate and lifted him up. The fish was about 22 inches in length. This is the kind of moment to which all of my great moments are compared--out on some sparkling river in the angle of a retiring sun, hollering in some modest triumph over nature.
Below: Brook trout from Tanner's Falls. Left- female; Right- male.
30 April 2006, Sunday
I went to the D vs Harvard baseball game. The atmosphere pulled me in and rattled me. Harvard won. It was nearly an hour until sunset and I picked up a pizza and drove my jeep up route 5 to the old railroad bridge to fish. The water was bottle-green and still as glass. Lately I’d had no luck with the yellow jig that hooked that legendary smallmouth. I switched to a more natural color, jerking it along the jagged bottom. At seven o’clock a young Asian dude showed up with a can of worms and dangled his line off the midsection of the bridge. Every night he goes up and down the train tracks with a huge bucket and spinning stick and catches perch after lousy perch and goes home and eats them. He stood there, pulling one crumby perch after another out of the water. I was after bass. Suddenly my line stretched and took copious drag. It was not a ballistic pull like a smallmouth—-this was a lazier, rolling, heaving pulse. It felt like a toilet seat on the end of my line (I wouldn't have been surprised if it was). I jumped down to the bank. My heart raced and my hands shook as I fumbled with the drag and reel on my ultralight, almost frightened of what was about to come up out of the water. I reeled it closer. Suddenly its body curled up from the depths and for a second I beheld its entire length of silvery scales just below the surface. Its big eye gleamed eerily like a hoary marble. A walleye— the first I’ve ever even seen outside of saturday morning ESPN fishing shows— of approximately 20 inches. I pulled in six more inches of line. then it happened—-the line snapped. I reached out to grab the fish’s tail, but it slipped out, and in a split second, it was gone. “Goddammit, the bastard, I had him, I had him!!” I stared into the green depths, which had nothing to offer aside from a reflection of my intense expression. The Asian fellow, witness to this paroxysm, stared from the lower chord of the bridge. “Beeg one. Probably too feet long. How yoo do it?" I told him about plastic worms. Not only do they catch bigger fish, but you can take them to work and slip a few into the spaghetti trough at Cafe North (funny nobody seems to notice the taste difference). The sun was setting, and everything— the bridge, the rocks, and the water— took on a delicate champaign hue. Walleye are nocturnal feeders, so walleye happy hour was probably just starting. But somehow i left, mostly due to hunger, hoping there would be other chances.
5 may 2006
friday
Night fell on the river. Songs of a thousand northern peepers rung out from the marshes like a magnificent ensemble of finger bells. The air was warm and between cumulus clouds, stars flickered against a thickening purple firmament. Venus was low in the east and a quarter-moon reclined like an eggshell on the rusty trestle above me. The fish had eluded me tonight, but the pink veil of twilight that hung in the west justified the trouble I'd taken to get here.
7 may 2006
sunday
I stopped at Baker’s general store to buy a Vermont license, and made my way in serpentine fashion to Tunbridge and south along the main branch of the White River. From S. Royalton to Sharon, I pulled over at every roadside pull-off to check out the action in deep pools. At each stop I saw several other fishermen with spinning sticks, but no fly rods. These guys weren’t from Dartmouth and there were no Orvis waders with white oxford shirts. These guys were farmers, mechanics and plumbers in holey jeans and dated Chevy pickups, with a rod in one hand and a six-pack of Coors in the other. Today my strategies were confined to an ultralight spinning rod and a box of little Mepps spinners. Some were simply a blade, beads and treble hook, while others had pink, red and yellow skirts. Sometimes they can be highly effective on rainbows and brookies in the White, especially in the spring. As I waded and cast the six-pound fluorocarbon line across ebbs and pools, the hours slipped faster than the current. Soon the western sky grew pink with a sinking sun, dissolving behind dark evergreens on the western banks of the river. The water clarity revealed the grays and greens of rock below. From afar, the green shallows outlined deep rocky holes as black as india ink. Some of those pools were at least 8 feet deep, and I lacked the proper sinkers to probe them for hiding trout. I stood quietly, eyeing the water for signs of fish. There were no rises, and only one sighting of an average-joe smallie. I focused on drop-offs and deep pools, but bites were not forthcoming. It didn’t matter. There was something spiritual and poignant in these waters. A fractal of my soul spun like a leaf in the runs and rifts. I thought about asking the other men the classic question that a smart angler's ego should never forestall. What are they biting on? But my quietness got the best of me. I continued my casting, switching spinners, changing locations and altering retrieval patterns. I know so thoroughly and intimately of their colors, their breeding and their anatomy, like pages in a textbook. But will I ever understand the secret desires of trout?
25 may, 2006
A can of worms sits on the middle shelf in the refrigerator, next to the cheese. Sometimes when I bring bait to work in anticipation of a clandestine afternoon outing, I place it in the lunchroom fridge on top of somebody’s salad or hummus or something. My female colleagues never fail to vocalize an amalgamation of amusement and repugnance! Today it was 70 degrees and the sun was about to set. I grabbed the worms and some flies and dinner for myself-- bread, cheese, wine, gathered my rods and tackle and tying the boat onto the Jeep. I drove down to the lake in a race against the deepening western horizon. Perforating the surface of Post Pond were hundreds of rising trout. Flyfishermen stood out on their boats amidst a piscatorial wonder of almost biblical proportions. I’d never seen anything like it. Not wasting a second, I unloaded and set out. The call of a solitary loon echoed against the toad trills and a deafening ensemble of northern peepers. The soft zinfandel sky attenuated to deep lilac, then to black. Soon unable to see anything other than lonely streaks of porch lights on the water, I rowed in. As I lifted the boat out, I heard two magnificent splashes about twelve feet from shore. Then another, and another....
to be continued Spring 2007
I see only a summer's transparency,
I sing nothing but wind;
While history creaks on its carnival floats
Hoarding medals and shrouds
And passes me by,
and I stand my myself, in the spring,
Knowing nothing but rivers.
Pablo Neruda