The Storm
The man, the myth, the legend.
Anthony ranks near the top of the list for friendship and fishing buddies. In a world that continues to increase the number of assholes it converts to frothing assholery at an alarming rate, Anthony offsets that percentage by an acceptable margin. He’s interested, can cast reasonably well, doesn’t complain when the fish are less than cooperative, and is good company. When I think about it, Anthony’s quality as a fishing buddy should not surprise me. He does everything well. The man can paint, sing, cook, lawyer, drive a tractor, sketch, carve wood, and help with rough carpentry. Did I mention he’s a former gymnast, college diver, and an accomplished outdoorsman? Oh, don’t let me leave out that he’s a charming, alarmingly good looking man that has carried his athleticism into early middle age. Finally, he has managed to get me out of more binds than I care to confess. All of which is to say that when planning a fishing trip where something stands a good chance of going wrong (and what fishing trip in new water doesn’t come with the threat of an inevitable bone headed decision?), Anthony is one of the first, if not the first dude I text. And, my wife likes him.
Now, to understand Anthony’s approach to fly fishing, you also have to understand that underneath his overachiever’s resume, lies a substantial well of whimsy. He doesn’t fish for the fish. Like anyone that fishes, he likes to catch fish. But, he also has the best parts of an artist’s temperament and none of its snooty, ass-chaffing arrogance. Whereas I am driven to new waters to solve a puzzle, to test my meager skills against some different set of environmental challenges as I assert an idiotic measure of anthropological dominance over our finned fellow passengers on starship Earth, Anthony fishes, “For the experience.” He’s there for the colors, for the clouds reflecting off the water, for the boils of a hydrologic that reminds him of the one time he saw a full grown cottonwood float underneath his boat on the Missouri River in a vertical aspect without grazing the bottom. For him, it’s the beauty of that one fish—be it two or twenty inches. It’s the meditative ascendance of the cast—the Zen rhythm that comes with rolling and unrolling a length of line with and against the wind off the tip of a nine-foot graphite lever for hours at a time in the middle of nowhere.
So, it makes sense that when I decided that I wanted to fish Davis Lake for the first time, Anthony got the call. He has a kick boat. The drive is kind of long. The setting is beautiful. And, unlike others I know in Oregon, he has a background with bass fishing, just not bass on the fly.
While Davis was once known as a trophy trout fishery, in 1995 some enterprising shit head illegally introduced largemouth bass into the system. Now, bass outnumber trout. In terms of habitat, the growth of the bass population was inevitable. Davis Lake, while large in terms of surface area, is relatively shallow. Sitting at just over four thousand feet in elevation, it was formed when a volcanic eruption dammed Odell Creek. The lake’s two main water sources—Ranger Creek and Odell Creek—do not provide enough water to keep the lake full in the summer months. Mix together climate change, a mega drought, and the lakes’ shallow, weedy, low-oxygen aspects and you have the ideal habitat for bass. But, Davis is still fly fishing only. The speed limit on the water is 10 mph. Because of the loss of trout, the surge in bass, the slow speed limit, the fly fishing only deterrent for the power bait hatch, and the difficulties powerboats face in launching, Davis is kind of an oasis for those fly anglers looking to get a bucket mouth without having their towers buzzed by forty-thousand dollars worth of ED self-help from the Bass Pro Shop.
I would like to say that I did the proper amount of research the uninitiated public expects of professional fishing guides before venturing into new waters. The public is stupid. Just ask Plato. Guides don’t really research when planning their own trips. We kind of look at maps. We maybe poke a buddy for some information. There is a 50/50 chance we’ll check the weather. Flies? We’re fishing for bass. Fuck it. Tie on half a chicken’s worth of marabou, some flash, a little bit of weight and wiggle, and go hunt. Rods? It’s bass fishing. Fuck it. I got a six, seven, and eight weight with old lines that can handle bass. After all, bass fishing is not a pinkies-out affair like trout on the dry. It’s not the elitist club of steelhead spey casters who spend too much time arguing over the merits of Scandi vs. Skagit vs. thirteen foot rods vs. compact rods. I figured we were going bass fishing. To a lake. With weed beds and some structure. I’d find the fish. Couldn’t be that hard.
In retrospect, I probably should have checked the weather. Changes can happen fast in the mountains, and Davis Lake is no exception to this rule. In retrospect, I probably should have looked a little closer at the maps and the launch sites. Davis Lake, though shallow, has about a 4-mile sprawl between boat ramps. Without a motor, 4 miles is a lot of damn miles. In retrospect, I should not have allowed myself to be dominated by the siren’s song of impatience and rush as we closed in on the lake shores leading me to turn off at the first sign of a boat launch. But, retrospect is always 20/20. If I saw the world with that level of clarity, I would miss too many chances at character building and Anthony would not have had a near-death experience to brighten his day.
When we got to the boat ramp—not the good one that I now know like the back of my hand, but the shitty one on the far side of the lake that I will never use again—Anthony and I set about the business of kick boating and rowing a lake that seemed just a little too damn big for kick boating and rowing from our spot. While pumping up air chambers, putting on waders, and rigging rods, we both kept a wary eye to the northeast end of the lake. The sky was overcast in that direction. The kind of mountain overcast at a distance that signals a storm somewhere off in that direction. But, the wind was blowing that way, too. Since we were in the southwest corner of the lake, we figured there were two certainties in our favor: 1) that the wind would be with us as we rowed out in search of good bass water, 2) the wind would also keep the storm away from us, blowing it towards La Pine and Bend. Holding fast to these assumed certainties, we shoved out into the water, rigged with ugly flies on sinking lines carrying with us the wisdom of childhood years spent bass fishing in the Midwest and South.
It’s at this point I would like to say we fished the shit out of that lake. I would like to say we had a banner day. Knocked ‘em dead. Caught our personal records and lodged our victories in the hallowed halls of memory and on the photo board at the Crescent Truck Stop and Store. But that would be a lie. Like all good fishing stories that don’t end in a big fish, this ramble is all about the truth.
Ranger Butte on a good day.
When we shoved off from our launch, Anthony and I quickly realized we were in the shallow end of the lake. The really shallow end. The kind of shallow end where we could stand up in the middle of the lake and not have water above our knees. This meant we had to row. And row. And kick. And row. After about an hour and a half of this bullshit, we made it across the lake to the far side where the lava dam is formed. Here we found deep water, channels, cover, weeds, fish on the move. But, here, too is when the wind shifted against our favor. Whatever gods were smiling on us as we rowed across frowned on us as we arrived where the fish were at.
The wind became a gale. The lake went from calm to chop in the course of ten minutes. Anthony and I looked to the sky. He used to date a pilot. I was a sailor. He’s from South Dakota. I’m from Virginia. He’s seen tornadoes and thunderstorms. I’ve seen thunderstorms and hurricanes. We both have experience sighting meteorological threats in the sky. What we saw scared us. Anthony called the clouds “mammatus formations caused by dynamic upper level support with a leading anvil sheer.” I said, “Fuck.”
I am not sure if we shared a word between us, but we both came to the same conclusion. Our rods were laid flat, boats were turned towards the nearest shore, and we rowed. By god, did we row. Never before or since have I pushed my Watermaster to such speeds. I was throwing a wake. Anthony did the same. In fact, like a good friend, he left me behind. His claim was he left me so that, when I was eventually killed by mother nature, he would be able to tell my wife (who might not like him so much after delivering news of my death) that I fought the good fight.
Thankfully we made it to shore without incident. On the lake, the wind whipped. It screamed through the trees and howled over the tops of the surrounding buttes. As we sat on a fallen tree next to the wayward rock no doubt left where it was by a volcanic eruption eons ago, we sat in silence. I am not sure what Anthony thought about as the storm gathered. Maybe how he would paint our little adventure in themes akin to a pissed off William Turner on a bad acid trip. Me? I couldn’t help but remember John Muir’s talk of a windstorm in the Sierras where he experienced the more existential aspect of awestruck.
Despite its fury, the wind and the threat lasted about twenty minutes, long enough for us to take in our condition and wonder a bit more about the fishing. Granted, the wind didn’t fully subside back to a glass calm. The skies did not clear to blue. But, the weather laid down enough to get back on the water and try to fish once more.
After conferring with each other, we realized that, whether we liked it or not, our position on the lake shore meant we had to get back on the water and make for the south west shore where the truck was parked. But, now the wind—though less stiff—was coming from a chaos of directions. It was neither for nor against us. Choosing instead to just blow. Therefore, in the advanced calculus of anglers everywhere, we decided that the best course of action was to suck it up, head back out on the water, and fish our way back to the truck at a reasonable pace.
Like all good plans of mice and men, things went to shit from there. The storm had indeed not passed. Rather, the whole of the meteorological event was in the process of gathering further fury unto itself. Anthony and I made it out to about the mid point of the lake, halfway between the truck and our shore of refuge. Then, to the northeast we saw, yet again, something terrifying. White caps were heading our way. The air around us had gone calm. The temperature dropped, suddenly. Then, the lava bluffs disappeared. Then, lightning struck Ranger Butte in one of those clear, picture perfect, “Moses is standing on the top of that butte and calling down the fury of heaven” kind of strikes. Then, the threat of our reality sank in.
Our condition was this: we were sitting pretty much in the exact middle of a lake at four thousand feet as a mountain storm system rolled, boiled, and raged over us. Lightning was striking the trees all around the shore. The butte had had several strikes. The waves on the lake were big enough to crash over the tops of our boats. The wind was swirling in every direction making the only choice that of muscle and fortitude. We made for the truck. Fast.
Anthony was and is in far better shape that me. His boat, too, was more suited to open water rowing. He went at a fast clip. Me? I was rowing a doughnut. Like a good friend, he pulled away and then slowed, waiting for me to catch up. We were both scared. The kind of scared that doesn’t talk about being scared. The kind of scared that takes a few years to laugh off—and even then that laughter seems a bit forced. But, we lived. And we’ve been back to the lake a few times. Hell, we’ve even caught some fish.
Looking back on that trip, many details stand out in my mind. I will never forget the silent agreement that set us rowing, twice, for our lives. The sharpness of that first lightning strike and its concomitant thunder on the butte. The wonder of seeing land formations disappear from view as a mountain storm unleashed itself. The vertiginous sense of being infinitesimally small in the face of an indifferent nature. The solace I still find in knowing we were the only two people on the lake that day. For all the size of the storm, we were the only two who experienced the whole of nature in that capacity.
And, isn’t that the thing that, if we are all honest with ourselves, we’re fishing for anyhow? The contradiction of something huge all to ourselves? The experience of the awful made wonderful in the aftermath? The realization that, despite all our human engineering and intellectual arrogance, the wind and the rain and the water and the mountains and the clouds can render our minds and our things irrelevant?
Maybe.
Or maybe I should just give a little more credence to checking weather before stepping out my front door.
