Mot Juste: Redux

Three weeks. I've gone three weeks without wetting a line, and this morning my piscatorial withdrawl is hitting me especially hard. I'm forced to dive into my day dreams, imagine trips yet to come and remember those that have already happened. What follows is a post that first appeared January 9th of 2012. It is the chronicle (or perhaps non-chronicle) of what might have been the most exciting day on the water I have ever witnessed. The river gods were generous in a way they haven't been since and may never be again. Ahhh memories ...  

mot juste (noun) mō-ˈzhuest: exactly the right word or phrasing

As much as I enjoy fly fishing and everything the sport entails, I must admit that bug chucking isn't always the most exciting endeavor. That isn't to say that fly fishing isn't my passion, but let's face it, most days on the water pass uneventfully. We make a few hundred casts. We catch a few fish. We have a good but otherwise unremarkable day.

Yesterday was not an unremarkable day.     

Yesterday was something altogether different. Yesterday was the kind of day that haunts the average bug chucker - alchemically changing innocuous daydreams into obsessive compulsive disorder.  Yesterday was a day of fishing so exceptional as to leave both audience and actors alike wondering if a second such day could ever be possible. Yesterday was special.

And having experienced yesterday, I realize I've an obligation to share the story with my friends and readers if for no other reason than to let them know that yesterday is possible. So now I sit here at my keyboard, trying to string together the narrative of a day that was entirely unlike anything I have ever before experienced, and I find I simply haven't the words. I'm completely at a loss.   

Perhaps I lack the spectacular vernacular of a more accomplished wordsmith. Maybe I should stick to fly tying, and forget all about this blogging thing. I suppose it could be true that those who can, do; those who can't, teach (when not flinging flies I'm a high school teacher). All I can really say with any certainty is that I don't know what to say about yesterday. I don't know where to start, how to finish, or what it all might mean in the context of a season on the river, let alone a third of a century spent stream side.

Maybe it's enough to forgo the details. Maybe it's enough to dispense with the numbers, statistics and the play-by-play, and simply say we had a very good time. We had the kind of day the river gods parcel out all too infrequently, and if we never have that kind of day again then at least we'll have been given that moment, and the indelible impression of something very special. We'll have the memory of a day for which there really are no words.   

 

How Cold Was It?

On our way to the river we passed a filling station that had an LED thermometer out front ...

-2 degrees ...

In the sun ...

That's a special kind of cold ...

Which I suppose makes us a special kind of crazy ... 

 

Or not ...

Suicide Runs

My wife tells me that I am obsessed with fishing. I suppose she's right; she usually is when shining a light on any of my many peccadilloes. And one need look no further than this blog for proof of my obsession, but to say I am obsessed is really only half the truth. While I am always thinking of fishing - the fly, cast, hook set, and the ensuing ballet - I am also compelled to get out there and do the deed. I need to fish.

Thinking, talking, or writing about fishing neither satisfies nor sustains me. I need to step into the water and wet a line. I relish that moment when I lay out a cast a little farther than I'm usually able, turn over the leader as leaders were meant to turn over, and place the fly just about where I hoped to place the fly. I need to be there in that the moment when a blackened and scarred snout emerges from the grey green depth. Even thinking about it now, I can feel my heart skip as I wait for that imagined fish to inhale my diminutive and poorly tied hendrickson. I need that moment as I need the love of my family, and could no more abandon the water I fish than I could forgo the water I drink. Fishing nourishes me every bit as much.

Enter the sting of a new year's weather and an`annual winter-run of steelhead. If not for steelhead, January, February and March would mark a barren, dreadful season. Steelhead save us - the afflicted - from ourselves. Steelhead give us hope at a time when many other anglers can do little else but pine for warmer days and open water.

To my way of thinking, there are few game fish that are quite as game as a fresh chromer, even when water temps approach freezing. Few animals are quite so fast, and fewer still as unpredictable. When a steelhead enters the river she is hell bent on procreation. When she is hooked, every ounce of that preternatural, adrenaline fired sex drive pushes her toward escape. The takes are sometimes very soft, a series of gentle, almost imperceptible taps. More often, however, a steelhead will attack the fly with absolute abandon - be that fly a #8 beaded stone or a #2 Purple Peril.   

And what won't we do to satisfy that January jones, to get that mid-winter piscatorial fix? In my little corner of of the world, the closest steelhead are Salmon River fish - two and a half hours away. On average, we make the trip some three to five times a month. That's two hundred ninety miles and five hours per round trip. Two hundred ninety miles and five hours of sore backs and heavy eyelids, bad weather and snow slick roads. Most days, it's a suicide run to get from here to there and back again. To some small degree, we're taking our lives in our hands every time we make the trip.

"Is it worth it," my wife asks. "Is it really necessary to drive all that way for a fish?"

I smile at the question, kiss her cheek, and slough off into the living room to play with the kids. She doesn't understand, but in her defense - few people do. We don't make the trip for a fish.

Suicide runs aren't about steelhead. Suicide runs are about opportunity. They're about possibilities, slim chances, and overcoming the odds. Perhaps more than anything, they're about hope.

Few things could be better, and fewer still are quite as necessary.