Anticipation
The gap between the end of fall trout fishing and the startup of winter steelheading is the nearest thing we have to a closed season in the Willamette Valley. While trout fishing never officially ends here, there is a stretch of time—usually between mid-November to post-Christmas—where trout get lock jaw, and the unicorns haven’t quite started their runs in earnest. Fishermen who tune their lives by seasons, flow, rain, and runs find themselves in a holding pattern during these doldrums. We’re waiting for winter storms to bump river levels so steelhead can move even as we debate the merits of trout fishing in the cold. Our garages change from somewhat organized systems to a chaos of gear. We’re tying up winter trout nymphs and steelhead intruders because we can’t decide which deserves our attention. We rifle through last season’s head and tip wallets, struggling to find that T-11 or T-14 while still trying to suck a few more weeks of life out of well-worn trout lines. Four and eight weight spey rods and five weight trout rods and three weight euro rods are everywhere. Our boat bags are in utter disarray. There is a rush of activity that accomplishes nothing. Although frustrating, I think this time of anticipation good for me. Afterall, bated anticipation lies at the heart of fly fishing, no matter the season.
During these few weeks of waiting, I usually trout fish a few more days than I should because when you’re a fanatic the division between should and should not doesn’t matter all that much. I have my late fall/early winter spots that tend to produce. Some of them are the same Spring, Summer, and early Fall runs that I always fish. Others, not so much. These other, secret, places—or at least secret because I am loathe to even hint at their whereabouts—tend to hold more cold-weather fish ready to take a fly for one reason or another. In some cases, the river’s cardinal direction favors a lowering winter sun. The water warms faster, has deeper pools, and isn’t as subject to blow-out winter rains. In other cases, the water temps hold more steady allowing trout to adjust to the changing seasons at a more reasonable pace. I don’t have many of these places and they are not as reliable in terms of fish and weather as I am making them out to be here. On any given trip, I stand a better chance of getting cold and skunked than being cold and catching fish. And I always stand a chance of weather going sour with the least amount of warning. This is the PNW. But I see them as my secrets and that makes them still worth a try. So, I go when I can and I hope even when I can’t, which is more than most people can say about most things anyhow.
A while back, Ben and I were in the heart of the Fall/Winter doldrums and both in desperate need of a fishing fix. After trading some grapevine talk of not-so-secret spots, we arranged a Wednesday trip. I like fishing weekdays. Less people, less pressure, and because I am a bum, I find a contrarian satisfaction from standing in a river trying to catch fish while the business casual types think I have my priorities all messed up. Ben, being the good buddy he is, also happens to be the farthest thing from a business casual type which I think speaks to the strength of his character which I also mean as a compliment to his moral compass. More to the point, he doesn’t think my priorities are in anyway screwed up. Truth is, he’s most directly responsible for my trout bum life in the first place. That, however, is a story for another time. Right now, the point is I can almost always reasonably rely on Ben to fish, even if things are probably going to bust. He’s one hell of an ally.
The Wednesday morning came, and with it the potential for trout. Ben met me at my house in the pre-dawn hours. The temps were low. I had a hard frost on the truck and the weather apps all said temps weren’t getting about forty degrees that day. Despite the cold weather, we decided to start early. He only had one day (new dad, change in schedule, honey-do list a mile long) and wanted to maximize river time. I was happy to comply. Like I said, I am a bum. Plus, around that time I was in the heart of dissertation writing. My soul was dying. The taste of academia had turned as sour as over ripe milk. I had been dreaming of walking away with a little too much fervor because I had seen the gleaming tablecloths of professoriate feasts and found them wanting. A long day on the water might give me just what was needed to push through for another week without speaking my mind.
We fished a river that is just far enough outside town to feel as if it’s out there without actually being out there. The bulk of it runs through disparate county land—the kind of rural country where you’re as like to get invited to dinner as get shot for stumbling on a meth site. The roadways are dotted with the working farms you see across the PNW. Places that hold a few cattle, some crops, too many chickens, and maybe sell some cut flowers or herbs up in Portland. Spring and summer dress up the place with blooms, mowed fields, and green trees. Everywhere you look you see blue skies with scudding clouds over the coast range. Late fall and winter, though, show a different character. Low hanging clouds and perpetual damp seep in everywhere. The ground lies matted with a blanket of wet, rotting leaves. Smoke from country fireplaces hangs in the air. Streams and rivers turn a brownish-red from the tannins of fallen leaves. The change in seasons brings a change in mood, too. People are a little more taciturn. Drivers a little more aggressive. Logging operations and illegal dumpsites and bullshit dams seem a little more sinister.
Ben and I didn’t talk about these things as we drove out. Instead, the conversation ran the normal gamut of friends catching up: families and jobs, jokes and mishaps, idiots we know, fools we’re glad we don’t. We’re not old enough to talk about health, yet. But that day will come. When it does, I’ll try to take those conversations with the same grace I have when losing a fish: a few colorful words and a lot of laughter. Either way, I am sure the things will stay easy if only because we know we both just have to talk and laugh and listen as long as the ride takes to get where we’re going.
When we got the river, the skies were blue, the air was clear, and the parking lot was empty. We both saw these as good signs for a good day. Ben is an excellent angler, if not also predictable with his opening moves. No matter the conditions, no matter the weather, no matter the recommendation, and no matter the chances, he’s starting with a dry fly. He reminded me of this as we were putting on waders and I was tying on a more practical streamer. I told him I hadn’t seen a fish rise in weeks hence the streamer, and in typical Ben fashion he said, “Well, that means I’m about due to see one.”
In late fall and winter, this river is lower than summer because in warmer months the powers that be close off the dam and back everything up for the jet ski hatch. I’ve only ever gone out here once in the summer. Believe me, once was enough. It’s the kind of place that attracts a certain public: overpriced bass boats, over-weighted children, cheap beer, and pop country music that probably drives most spree killers into action. The larger park on the shores of the reservoir has a concession stand worked by the high school kids. They sling ice cream, candy bars, soda, boiled hot dogs, and soggy French fries at a pace any money launderer worth their salt should look at for possible new markets. I think someone runs a summer day camp out there, too. There were screaming bands of kids, everywhere. The boat launch was backed up with trailers and jet skis and Jon boats and SUPs and inner tubes and an inflatable unicorn pool floaty that’d lost its owner somewhere in the chaos. The shores of the reservoir were littered and pressured and crowded. Power bait cowboys and Bass Pro wannabes stood at every conceivable casting spot, heaving their hopes and masculinity into the watery depths with abandon. It was a nightmare landscape on par with any carnival Rabelias ever dreamed.
Winter, however, shows the river for what it was before the concessions. The banks are steep, cut into the landscape from flood years and a river that had real force before being stymied by man’s invention. The water runs clear. Beneath the water, good gravel and ledges offer obvious hiding and spawning grounds for fish. Flows remains steady since the headwaters lie up in the mountains—the same mountains that feed other, more famous, rivers in the region. When seen in this season, it is obvious the river held salmon and steelhead at one time—a time long before modernity came and ruined it with dams, pastures, irrigation, reservoirs, and jet skis. Of course, most fish biologists won’t admit as much. They’ll claim we have no evidence for any anadromous fish in those waters because they define evidence in terms of counts and measurements and witnessings that have occurred in the last sixty years or so, just about the same time most of the fish runs were dying off anyhow. This provides a rather convenient aspect. It allows them to ignore long oral histories of indigenous peoples who lived in the region eons before settler-colonials brought their ruination. It allows them to ignore folk knowledge that remembers those fish runs. Hell, it even allows them to label pre-WWI books by local naturalists that specifically talk about those runs “irrelevant” because the data used in those texts is neither verified nor reproduceable.
I try not to think about these things—human ignorance, scientific arrogance, savior complexes, dead runs, and diabetic intellects—when fishing. I find they ruin the mood. Those thoughts are always there, though, scratching in the background noise no matter how stiff my resistance. On my better days I think such things form a doubled memory kinship between me and the land—one for something I’ve never seen and one for something that has long since gone. It’s an optimistic desolation, one where human regret for the destruction we’ve wrought wouldn’t be possible without the gift of abundance in the first place. I know that’s not the best answer. But it’s what I’ve got for now.
Ben and I covered the half-mile hike to the river in short time. Since he was on a dry and went up stream, I went down and fished the first pool with a blue and white #8 blue and white bucktail streamer. I liked the look of it in the water and the day was bright enough for bright colors. My first cast was out and across, swinging through the current. The next few casts were about the same with maybe a jig or some action thrown in on the retrieve. I tried to work slowly, keeping my steps in the ankle deep white water to disguise them while keeping the sun in my face to hide my shadow. I kept reminding myself that winter fish like things slowed down. If memory serves, I think I pulled two or three, ten to twelve inch rainbows out of that first hole. Then again, memory shouldn’t be trusted for anything more than your childhood home phone number. What I do know is I didn’t tarry in that first hole long. I was working against sun and shadow.
The next few holes probably skunked me. I know this because I ended the day on nymphs. When fishing for myself, I don’t change flies all that often. My belief—whether right or wrong—is that most fish will eat most things if it looks like food, and if you have the wherewithal to put the thing in their feeding lane you’re gonna get a bite. Not everyone believes this. Over the years, I have fished with people who change flies often, and sometimes they catch more than me. However, it seems to me that these kinds of anglers spend more time thinking about what to fish than fishing. Therefore, I tend to remember most of my flies and fly changes accurately if only because the change itself is such a rarity. It’s not that I don’t believe in change. I just don’t believe change should happen for its own sake. Rather it should happen with purpose and produce results.
Sometime after new flies and moving down river, I looked off to the west, expecting to see more sun. Instead, I saw gray—lots of it. Then, I looked upriver and saw Ben, about two hundred yards away, still fishing his dry which meant he had probably caught one on it already. Another look down river showed me the gray had become a rain cloud and it was moving up the river valley, fast. I heard that distinct and haunting whisper then growl of wind rushing through bare trees. I reeled in my line and made for the bank. Having been through enough winters in Oregon, I always carry my raingear with me after November first. While making myself as resistant to a storm as possible, I looked back up stream to see if Ben was making for the bank, or at least aware that something was coming. He hadn’t moved from his spot. I suspect that he was in that special place fishermen who’ve been away from the river for too long sometimes find on their return. The Shangri-la of the mind where cast and fly and river and fish are all that matter, are all that exist. For a moment I thought about shouting, then thought against it. Such restraint against unsolicited advice forms the bedrock of any lasting relationship. Sometimes people get stuck in a rainstorm. Besides, I had my own problems to worry about and Ben would figure things out eventually.
Jacket on, I felt the first suck of the wind followed close by the sharp sting of rain hitting cold ears. I pulled my hood up just as the skies opened. It was a deluge. One of those cloud bursts that gathered speed and water as it came across the reservoir. The first rush of rain washed Ben from my sight. Visibility fell to about fifty feet. The wind screamed. Trees bent over. Rain came down in sheets, sideways. I hunkered behind a boulder, sheltering from the gusts. Water ran off the brim of my hat in a steady stream. The temperature dropped and in an instant there was sleet stinging my hands and bouncing all around me. I laid my rod down and tucked my hands into my armpits letting a stout rain jacket and waders do their thing. Happily, they worked.
The worst lasted fifteen minutes before things let up enough to see the river. When they did, I looked and saw Ben, in the same spot, casting to the same pool, the only change being he had his hood up. I watched him for a while. Ben has a beautiful cast, the kind that just lays out as if the river gods themselves were whispering his fly down to the water. Even with a wind tearing up the valley, he was hitting his pockets. It was magnificent. The ragged, tailing fury of the storm chasing itself up the valley. Ben. His cast. The late-morning light. The feel of the cold turning to warm on my cheek. The white blanket of sleet just on the edge of the blackberry. The jewels of raindrops clinging to the lichen on my sheltering boulder. Then back to Ben and his damn cast. For the first time in my life I found myself fishing vicariously. With every one of his casts, I willed a fish to his fly. I willed and imagined and envisioned some monster from the deep coming up as the storm had come down. I wanted to hear his yawp—the cry of elation that inevitably follows on the whole world coming right in an instant. It’s the closest I’ve come to prayer in a long time.
Of course, there was no fish—at least not on those few vicarious casts. But there was beauty. The sort of beauty that stays in your memory like the smell of the earth after the rain. That makes it a good memory. One that I look forward to recalling every now and again. The good kind of fishing memory that doesn’t end in a fish but rather with the anticipation of a promise to fill.
