Do a Little Homework

I like fishing with Bill. Damned if I know why. Together we can't catch shit.

Okay. That’s not entirely true. We’ve had our good days. But not recently. Not this year. This year, after every outing, we’ve come off the water exuding the unmistakable aura of polecat. Three trips. Three doses of putrid aroma therapy.

But the skunks don't tell the whole story.

Our first outing was an early spring foray up the local reservoir feeder to assess how the recent spring flooding had altered the waterway and if, perchance, the white bass had started their run. They hadn't.




Our next expedition was to some new waters, to further explore what appeared to be some fine carp flats, to see if 'dem golden bones liked the area as much as we did. They did, but we couldn't figure out, at the time, what they were eating.

Yesterday, we pointed the truck down east, towing the skiff south of Wilmington to check out and chart the spartina grassed edges of the intercoastal waterway. Redfish country.

Our timing was crap. The tides were falling as we arrived, sending the reds from the shallows, driving them into the channel so as not to be stranded in the lush, soft flats as they were sucked dry. We did get a couple of late shots at some tailing procrastinators, but, for the most part, we missed it.

Bad timing, yes, but, as the saying goes, the best time to fish is when you can, so we made the most of the day by motoring up the small creeks, pitching at the grass points and edges, and watching mothership-proportioned yachts cruise up and down the intercoastal. More importantly, we parked the skiff and walked the now dry flats, learning the bottoms and the patches and the edges of the soft, salty floodplains - looking at brown waterlines on spiky green stuff, nodding our heads and muttering to ourselves.

There's immense value to checking out the lay of the land when the water is low, whether it's the salt marshes, local river, or neighborhood pond. The fishing may be temporarily poor, but the knowledge you accumulate while exploring the exposed streambeds is golden when conditions recover.

Where are the dropoffs, undercuts and deep channels? What's the bottom composition? Is there hidden cover? You can scope out the best wading approaches and confirm where you'll float your hat if not careful. You can see what the fish see for a while and become a more effective angler in the process.

So be willing to hit the water when the conditions suck. Be willing to leave the prime lies and check out the gnarly channels for a while. Be willing to throw the weird stuff from the back of the fly box, just to see what happens. But mostly, be willing to sacrifice a day's catching for a day's learning.

Do a little homework. It'll pay off, big time, further down stream.

That's why I like fishing with Bill.

In Phase

I wait for the full moon to get high overhead and light up the pond like a Wal-Mart parking lot.

It doesn’t cooperate.

Midnight. One-o’clock. Two. I wait. But it plays it cagey, hugs the tree line, spotlighting occasionally through gaps between the massive oaks, poplars, and hickories that ring this watery basin. Mostly, it lies low, completely hidden behind the dense summer canopy, poorly lighting my way only obliquely, reflecting off the thin clouds that drift dreamily across this deep hole in the forest. I might have known that it wouldn’t rise to a zenith, but, in my defense, it’s not every night I’m up at three to see, let alone observe it from a wet float tube seat, mid-pond.

John Gierach recently wrote, “The line between having a little adventure and making a mistake can be a thin one." But heat often makes fishermen do odd things and a string of triple-digit days can blur that adventure/mistake distinction like the shimmer of summer heat obscures the horizon of oncoming asphalt. Floating my local bass pond is nothing new. Doing it on the skinny side of midnight, perhaps a little adventurous. Doing it alone…

The quote teases from the back of my brain for a bit but then recedes, taking with it all thoughts of things existing beyond the meager reach of my aging night vision. I methodically kick my way around the dark edge of the eight-acre pond. Casting visibility approaches nil, so I strip thirty feet of fly line and attempt to maintain a similar buffer from the shore. I don’t always see where it lands, but if I keep my distances right, it’s in the zone. I’m moderately successful, having only to retrieve my popper from shoreline entanglements a handful of times. A few bass notice.

The silence is deafening - silence, that is, when silence is defined as the absence of the ragged din of man. Peepers of every pitch voice their joy, bullfrogs glug happily, and barred owls query insistently, demanding to know who has trespassed into their dark realm. No light is visible beyond that provided by the finicky moon, except for the occasional flash of fireflies at water’s edge – fanciful lighting that does little for the eyes but illuminates the soul magnificently.

The human world huddles inside, sleeps, awaiting the daylight to emerge again. My fellow man lies deep in the trough of his daily cycle. I am disconnected, alone, out of phase. Out of phase, that is, with man, but in perfect harmony with this place, in locked-step-synch with this lunar cycle, riding the peaked sine wave of this time.

It’s three in the morning and I am alive.

I am in phase.

Neighbors in the Pool

Higher on the ridge, maybe thirty yards above the house, we have a small man-made pond, put in place as an incubator for the local spotted salamander and peepers of all sorts. But when the heat rolls in, some of the larger neighbors take advantage. This morning, Mom and fawn took a dip while I got this fuzzy shot from the front porch.

Obviously, they were as interested in me as I was in them.

Coping

Our fully exposed southern garden gets it bad, but even the thermometer on our cool northside shaded deck reads triple digits so we're pretty well cooked any way you look at it. So we learn to deal with it. We learn to cope.

And believe me, there's a bunch of coping goin' on today.

Stay cool, my friends.

The Photo Bin - June 2012

Along the last paved road before home,
an impromptu vegetable and flower stand.

Unattended. Honor system.
No prices. Leave what you can, what your conscience tells you,
knowing that the proceeds go to a local charity.

Mary will love these
as much for where they came from
as for how dang pretty they are.

One Shirt, One Pair of Pants

It occurs to me that some of my closest friends, my fishing buddies, might believe that I own but a single shirt and pair of pants. It’s not an unreasonable assumption. They may never have seen me wearing anything else.

When it’s time to go fishing, first out of the closet is my REI Sahara Tech long-sleeve shirt and a pair of quick-drying Columbia PFG Aruba convertible pants. Sure, I own other “fishing apparel,” but this combination always seems to be on my back, and my backside, when there’s fish to be caught.

After a few years of bushwhacking and stream-stumbling, hundreds of outings, they are definitely showing their age - loose at a few seams, frayed at some edges - but then, so am I. I do wear other things, but usually only after being out for a couple of days when my favorites have reached the point where they can stand in a corner on their own.

At home, when I come off the water they hit the laundry immediately. I say that it’s so they’re ready for fishing the next day. Mary says it’s so they don’t stink up the place. Both arguments have considerable merit.

The irony is that Mary swears that 80% of our laundry load is my clothes. That's not bad for a guy with just a single shirt and pair of pants.

A dozen fly rods, yes, but, apparently, just one set of fishing clothes.

Escape

Subtle
A flash of deep-running green
The faintest of ripples
My popper
Quietly evaporated

More trout sip than bass strike

Had I been off woolgathering
Drifting somewhere else with my thoughts
As I often do while fishing these waters
I’d have missed it

It wouldn’t have been the first time
Nor would it have been the last
But I didn't

A hard strip
A lift of the rod tip
Again
Subtle no longer

A cartwheel
A tailwalk
A slashing run downstream
A headshake

One last, desperate leap for freedom
Off

Hard, brave work
Rewarded by a slip of the hook
A long-line release
Untouched return to safe, comfortable depths

My popper
Quietly revaporated

Good for you, Mr. Bass
Good for you

My Summer Reading

I’ve been bad. Very bad. I’ve not been reading.

There’s been lots of reasons for this, but none of them are good enough to excuse the deplorable lapse. For, if I truly aspire to someday become a passable writer, I simply must read more. Those that think otherwise are fooling themselves.

It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare, or Tolstoy, or Faulkner. It just needs to be something that speaks to you, something that draws you into someone else’s point of view for a while, something that teaches you, or not, but subliminally imprints language and it’s proper, or thoughtfully improper, use upon your brain. Learn, if you will, by osmosis.

But mostly, something that makes you think.

So, with summer’s arrival, it’s time to start whittling away at the small stack of books that have accumulated in my “read next” pile. My summer book stack, from top to bottom, looks like this:

Brook Trout and the Writing Life – Craig Nova
Craig’s from just up the street, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the title alone hints at my attraction to the book. Fly fishing, writing, living - and how he’s dealt, over the years, with the uneasy reconciliation of the three. Right up my alley.

Twelve by Twelve – William Powers
An examination of the logistics and the lifestyle of kicking the traditional American dream square in the ass and living in a twelve-foot-by-twelve foot cabin in rural North Carolina. I’ve visited this place, for it, and others like it, exists here in my home county. A fascinating book filled with the quirky characters that I know as neighbors and the headspace that I am more and more attracted to each day.

Distrust That Particular Flavor – William Gibson
Gibson may be the only “sure thing” purchase I’ll make when it comes to authors. Neuromancer rocked my world and it blows my mind that it was written nearly thirty years ago. Distrust is a series of non-fiction articles, “reportage from the technological and cultural frontiers of the evolving world.” I can’t wait to find out what’s ahead of us. Gibson always seems to know.

No Shortage of Good Days – Jack Gierach
Okay, a no-brainer, except that I’ve had it for several weeks and haven’t worn the cover off of it already. Sex, Death and Fly Fishing was my introduction to the trout bum’s trout bum and I have yet to get my fill. And speaking of bums...

Shin Deep – Chris Hunt
I first read this book a year ago, just before spending a few days fishing with Chris in Montana, to know what I was getting into. I have since spent another week in his company, chasing redfish around the Texas gulf coast, and have kept up with him through these intertubes. I'm betting that a second reading will reveal nuances that a stranger would have missed, then, and that a good friend will chuckle at now.

Accidental Birds of the Carolinas – Marjorie Hudson
Another close-to-home selection. Marjorie teaches writing at the community college just eight miles up the road and relates her immersion in North Carolina living – a thirty-year process. More of my neighbors will undoubtedly pop up in the pages, in one form or another. I do know that a satire of the local “planned community” is included and I wickedly await the reading.

A Home on the Field – Paul Cuadros
A final local selection, this book features my other outdoor passion, soccer, in the true story of a Hispanic community struggling to find footing in our Chatham County seat. Fútbol was their respite, their escape, their expression, and ultimately their bridge to acceptance and respect in this rural southern community.

Points Unknown – Edited by David Roberts
A gift from my good friend and neighbor, Sam, this is a compilation of “The greatest Adventure Writing of the Twentieth Century." From the summit of Everest to the depths of the oceans, this compilation, put together by the editors of Outside, should be fascinating and inspiring.

Colonel Roosevelt – Edmund Morris
The third in the award-winning trilogy examining the life of one of our country’s most fascinating characters, Theodore Roosevelt. The original work, the Pulitzer Prize winning Theodore Rex was fascinating, depicting Teddy’s early years and his genesis as an outdoorsman, politician, and champion of the conservation of our natural heritage. It hooked me, carried me through The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, and I’ve anxiously awaited the finale.

So that’s what I’ll be reading this summer.

How about you?

Southern Comfort

It’s hot here on the carp flats this time of year and the experienced southern angler knows how to be prepared. A quick stop at Bo’s on the way to the launch to carry him though the morning and a dip into the cooler to revive him when the mid-day sun cooks the top of his head. Think hummingbird nectar followed by a cool, refreshing rain.

Sustenance. Survival. Southern Comfort.


Please. Partake responsibly. Put safety above all else. Have just one and live to fish another day.

The Photo Bin - May 2012

Sometimes you trip the shutter not knowing what's going to happen - how that small blast of light is going to impress itself on your film/sensor/whatever. Further, you don't know what you'll do with the image when you see it. An odd crop, perhaps? A creative twist? This is such a shot. The fantastic colors of the redbreast sunfish and the odd luminescence on the dark waters begged for something unusual, and fun.

That's what the Photo Bin is all about.

The second image is an update of the mid-April post It's a Boy, And a Girl, And.... Fledge day in the back birdhouse. Two youngsters had already departed and, within a couple of hours of this image, these three were in the air as well. As I type this, the box is once again holding sky blue eggs, as is the one in the woods below the house and the one by the upper pond. If all hatch successfully, we'll have helped to introduce twenty-three new bluebirds to the world this season. And the year is still young.

We finish this diverse bin with a portrait of me and my best girl at Prom. My step-son and his lovely wife hold an annual tongue-in-cheek black tie affair for friends in the Chicago area. This year the proceeds went to the new Freeman York Memorial Scholarship Fund at Georgia Tech, in loving memory. We simply had to make the drive.

Smiles, and tears, all evening.