The forsythias are blooming and the Black Quills are hatching in the local rivers.

Lots of people confuse them with Quill Gordon’s but they are not.

They are a wonderful hatch to fish.  They are big and showy and the trout gorge on them throughout the middle of the day.

I am really enjoying my return to trout fishing.  Love my stripers and fishing for them in the little rivers in the spring especially as the moons both new and full approach.

The shrimp will be up near the surface at night and the worms too and it is such a kick to be out there in a river at night or in the evening and see fish rising and hearing them pop as they take something from the near surface. It is always a thrill and it is somehow peaceful and fulfilling at the same time.

Seeing the Blackstone as a trout river is fairly new to me and it is a wonderful addition to our small state a real freestone river that is being cared for and appreciated for the treasure that it is now and will continue to be in the future. I saw a hatch of Blue winged olives there a few days before trout season opened and that made me smile.

Mayflies in the Blackstone.

As my Grandma used to say, “Ain’t life grand.”

It is indeed.

Once upon a time a month or two ago,

My mother asked me to trust her just this once and I said yes.

She asked me in a dream.

 

Then she said,

” Trust is the only glue that does not bind.”

 

She has been dead ten years.

Mom’s say the most amazing things when you listen.

Places of the heart.

 

My father was a mystery to me.

I remember him as quiet and watchful.

Mostly silent never talking a great deal.

Keeping his thoughts to himself.

When we fished he talked and told me stories about fishing and life but even then he kept a veil around him. I had forgotten how that silence about his feelings and his thoughts was such a big part of him.

I think that his silence was his gift to me and everyone who knew him.

The other night I went fishing in a place where he would fish at night when I was a boy.

I would watch him get ready and walk down to the shore and wade out into the darkness by himself.  He would move slowly across a shallow flat and up onto a sunken bar casting his fly a Magog Smelt out into the flow of a river that formed the bar and he would disappear into the darkness.

He wanted to be there alone surrounded by silence.

I traced his footsteps the other night.

I cast my flies and slowly walked out across the flat and I felt his silence

his quiet all around me. I waded to the bar and moved along it feeling his presence more and more. I remembered my family and how this place was so dear to them my aunts and uncles and cousins and how precious this place those memories are to me.

I entered his place of silence at the end of the bar and silently said hi dad..

I felt his silence embrace me and become mine.

He gave me a most precious gift.

The mystery and the power of

his silence.

A gift for the rest of my life.

Went out last night to visit little rivers looking for what might turn up.

I did not bring any rods or flies just my eyes and ears. I started in the upper bay and made my way west and south down towards the open ocean. I found every river just where I had left them and being with each one of them was like visiting an old and dear friend.

Rivers have a life of their own.  They all have a spirit, a personality, moods and character and all of them have mystery and sometimes share a kind of magic with those of us who fish. One of the rivers I went to last night was full of magic.

When I got there the tide was slack no current.

I did not see any worms. There were a few silversides but at the surface of the river bass were popping and boiling as far as I could see and my ears were smiling at the sounds of unseen fish enjoying themselves immensely.

I did not wet a line but I caught what I was fishing for.

Sometimes you get what you need and sometimes exactly what you want.

 

 A friend called and told me about the herons sitting in trees along a little river I love and he told me about the long swells that are crashing on the shoreline in Narragansett.

This earth is a beautiful and wondrous place.

The seasons pass and somehow in their passing renew our souls.

Spring is here and the mayflies are here again and the herring have returned and the Stripers are sipping in the worms again in all the old familiar places.

There is a song in my heart again and I am grateful that there is.

Sept 24^th

 

Where are the little Menhaden? 

People are asking and wondering and are becoming alarmed.

It seems strange and ominous.

Global warming?

Overfishing?

A part of the natural cycle of Nature?

 

Time will give up the answers and worry will lead to more worry and that will feed fear and fear is debilitating.

If it is overfishing then the lack of fish will dry up the coffers of that fishery and they will not be able to fish for them because the money will not be there and so…

The stocks will recover and perhaps politics can change the regulations to protect them from overfishing because of the crisis.

 

If it is Global warming maybe some political genius can pass a law that will make people feel better and get him or herself elected president.

 

If it is one of the cycles of Nature then pay attention and do not fear.

No one gets off this planet alive.

 

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Nothing new under the sun.

                                                   A passage through time

 

There is a time when the remembrance of days gone by comes upon you strong and hard and whole.

It comes unannounced and it is on you, a passage through time with no time to prepare.  A photo from the time of youth or an old fly, a twisted hook, a piece of chenille in the bottom of a feather box and you are there. The scent of it is an absolute. The smell of the life you have lived and its treasure takes you and carries you to times that are not known and then are full and rich and flowing with vibrant meaning in an instant.   Since the beginning men have known this passage to their core.

 

Men have always told stories and still the stories they tell are old and new and change with the telling.  The boy who sees the sunset in a way that touches and kindles a fire in his soul knows the story of Icarius with no prerequisite.  This will never change.  We fishermen have stories that are old and new and change with the telling and are always fresh and full of meaning.  

 

 

The ancient elements were the Earth, the Wind and Fire and Water, interesting that these elements have an energy of transport and motion and are both fixed and fluid in their usefulness to man.  These elements are still functional but in a more primal metaphorical way that escapes notice by our modern cultures’ rational base of quantative comparison.. 

These are the elements of life’s reaching out to itself with meaning and are the tools, the language, of its unfolding revelation to the connectedness of all life and the knowledge of, and perhaps for some of us, the meaning of one’s place within the journey.

 

Once upon a time, when I was a just a small boy my father went fishing and came home late in the day with three beautiful fish. They were very special fish.  I knew they were and although at the time I did not know what they would mean to my life, they were in many ways the definer of it’s unfolding.  He told me their names.

 

I did not know at the time that fish had names nor did I know that they did not. That was the day I learned that for some people; fish have names. He told me about them, the fish with names and told me about the place where they lived and the name of the place he had gone to find them.  It was called Austin Farm Pond and had a brook and springs and nymphs and mosquito larvae and then he showed me flies and told me how he caught the rainbow and the native speckled trout and the brown and told me of peacock herl and stripping a quill to make a fly that would look just like a mosquito larvae.

 

A nymph is magic to a small boy and so is a rainbow and a native speckled trout and an Austin Farm Pond and brown trout and springs and brooks and an evening of stories with

Imagination to fill in the connections and the promise of mystery and adventure and a Giant who is your father to take you there and show you it all.

I know it is the earth the wind the fire and the water that is the binding story beneath it all.  And it is fathers and sons and men and the sharing of the lore through the passage of our living and sharing our stories and touching the mythical energies of our life’s passage.

The stories are all true in an elemental way and they are ours to tell and to savor and pass on.  They are the same and different for every one of us and there is no measuring their worth except in the place that they touch in the core of our being.

 

Aug 29^th, 08

 

This is the last tourist weekend.  Next week will be quite different along the ocean.

There will be a quit that descends.  It is real not imagined.  There will still be crowds from time to time and there will still be vacationers and there will be lots of boats and engine noise but there is a difference in the way the earth feels after Labor Day weekend.

 

It is a change of season, not of nature independent of man, but of man independent of nature.  Summer is over! School has started. Time to take the boat home and pack up and shut the vacation house down.   Christmas is coming, Halloween, Thanksgiving. Spring will be here before you know it and we can go fishing again.  That is the cultural norm; every year shuts down exactly the same way. 

I thank God year after year for the gift to fishermen of Labor Day.

 

The beaches will soon be open all night and the toll booths will shut down with plywood over their doors and windows.  The petty tyrants that cloak their selfish arrogance of illegal faux ownership of rights of way go home to their small worlds and the beach associations quiet their shrill nagging protests against the use of, “Their,” ocean by the general populace. 

Labor Day brings peace and right order back to the shoreline again.

 

Summer lingers for a while as evidenced by beach shack restaurants staying open on weekends for a month or two weeks and - thanks for a great season - signs start to appear.

In September people who like to run offshore start catching White marlin.

Tuna are here and in increasing numbers.

 

The tiny albacore that fly fishermen love start appearing in those places where they can be cast to from shore and actually caught from time to time and the stripers begin to stage for their migration and Labor day is in the forgotten zone of the, used to be, past.

 

Summer is still here and will be until the 21^st and the fishing is easy.

 

Like the songs says. “Summer time and the living is easy, fish are jumping and the …

Or so it seems in my memory.

 

This a great time of year to rent a cottage and bring your boat and do some serious fishing.

 

Labor Day is the beginning of the best time of the year for those of us who love the peace and quiet that arrives in the fall.

 

 

Aug 27^th 08

 

Last night was a beautiful night to fish.

 

The ocean was calm with a small swell rolling in.  The water was syrupy and gentle.  The waves were soft and easy and there were some fish in tight as one of the fellows caught two.  That is often the case one fisherman catches and the others cast.  The fish are there but not everyone can catch them.  That is the way it is and always has been.

 

Good fishermen, those who have the gift, always seem to be able to find a fish or two that are willing to take a fly cast and presented by them while others do not catch.  I wonder what separates those who can do it from those who can not.    I watch them fish and I can often tell by their body language if they are going to be successful.  Not always but often.  There are those times when everyone who is fishing will catch fish because the fish are aggressive and hungry and excited by an abundance of easy prey.  Those times make for lots of excitement and a carnival atmosphere and is the stuff of tall tales and magazine articles.  Fishing is not always this way and many people do not realize that fishing often takes a bit more time and thought and persistence and crosses over from an active entertainment scene to a contemplative energy.   Crowds gather to reap the harvest of excitement and easy fish and when it is over the crowds fade away. 

I enjoy both the contemplative and the excitement.

 

I like to watch crowds of anglers casting and catching and having a ball.

I like to watch them more than join in the fray but sometimes I do join in and that is a good thing to do.  You never know what is going to happen and that is worth the price of admission (being there) by itself.  You see the experts running up and down the beach chasing schools of fish as they pass by and you see families sitting around beach blankets and in chairs with their radio playing and kids running up and down the beach tossing out plugs with way too large spinning rods or way too small ones that are designer toys pink for girls or blue for boys with small close faced toy spinning reels.  Then there are the four wheelers with rods sticking out of their trucks at every conceivable angle with fish boxes bolted on to the front bumper and the bait fishermen with an array of sand spikes with five to ten rods baited with chunks of fish or clams resting on the bottom waiting for a hungry fish to gobble them up.

 

It is a fall festival of fishing.  In some ways it is like a weekend music festival with crowds moving and sitting and making noise in harmony with the degree of activity that is happening along the edge of the water.  A school of bluefish appear (the band) and the folks, young and old, go running down and cast their lures and bait and bobbers and secret special thingy’s with hope for making contact with the big one and the experts coolly walk down suppressing their excitement but secretly wanting to jump right in and grab a fish or two.  The kids will try that unless they are stopped and given a lecture about the dangers of bluefish biting their fingers off - in times to come they will dutifully pass on this, “Wisdom,” to their children

It is pretty hard to grab a fish,

Or a bird for that matter. 

 

 

September and October are wonderful months to be along the ocean front in the daytime.

The people who come to participate in the spectacle are just as interesting to watch as the fish. It is a migration of people from the cities and suburbs and inland rural areas to the ocean front and it happens every year right on time.  The RV folks come and camp out in all the places that are designated for them to come and camp and many of them follow the fish all the way down south moving weekly to keep up with the event as it moves along.  It is like the plains of Africa in a sense although not at all the same in terms of crossing rivers full of crocodiles and plains with hyenas and lions and other critters to numerous to mention.  It a migration of people and animals none the less with stops at McDonalds and gas stations and convenience stores all along the way.  Maine to Cape North Carolina, I would like to make that trip one fall stopping along the way and see people that I do not know and meeting them and getting to know them as I move along on a shared journey that has no purpose other than doing it at least once.  I have always stayed behind to enjoy and savor the sparkling November nights alone on the beach with the bass and hard core friends who I fish with once the crowds have moved on. 

 

Fall is almost here.

Time to make plans.

Date: October 23, 2003 at 01:15:26
From: ken, [pool-64-223-44-236.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Re: Nuts are where you find them?

I do not know all the options or any of the finite answers. I am not looking for the answers any more. When I find an answer I know there are many more just under the surface. Many more, and always much more than I can hold. You may not agree. I do like finding out more ways to do and view the same things from different perspectives. I search, but more for the questions and those different perceptions that show different facets of the same situation. So I do think that I am a student  but not with the focused hope that I can acquire enough knowledge to succeed or to even be a contender but with the opposing hope that I can let go of all that I carry (nuts) so I can see and not be bound by what I do not need. I know where they are, some of those nuts of value that is, and I can go and touch one now and then when I need to but I do not have to possess them and carry them with me or feel like I need to show them to others unless there is a reason other than the one of being considered a knowledgeable fisherman by others. There are many reasons to show the nuts but never to those who fixate and are stopped short in their journey of discovery by being given gold mines before they know the value of gold.
It is not necessarily a good thing for a man to catch a world record striper on his first cast. He will be famous as a fisherman indeed but it may be the first and last time he ever fishes. “Knowledge puffs up,” it is said and it is true. I have been a victim of puffery both my own and others and I do not like it nor will I practice it knowingly and I like to prick it with a pin even if I have to stick myself.
At this stage I let others hold and know the answers. They are, all of them, correct and even though all answers may contradict each other from time to time; they are still correct at the proper time and circumstance because the truth contains all the possible answers and solutions. I do not follow the tides and the winds anymore.

Once upon a time I did, but now I just go.
But I do know the feel of that cold Northwest wind in Fall Hole and I know the feel of the large fish I have I caught there on light aired Northwesterly nights and some other strong Northwesterly nights and I prefer the Southwest for the softness and the magic of it under the headland and the rare Southeast is by far, when howling and screaming wild and the water in the hole reverses and goes to the north straight across from the south…. It is the wildest best by far and away- the very best. And never in my life on those wild nights have I seen anyone else unless they were with me there in thirty-five years but before that I did.
I do not do what the others do as I do not care to and there is no need to.
At this stage in my fishing I like it unplanned and then it is always an adventure and every night is beautiful and glorious whether it is rain or snow or warm or windy and any direction and tide is fine and a November night with the Northeast wrack sailing by close overhead with a full moon shining behind …. It can mesmerize you and hold you in your tracks, gazing up, walking up the cobble beach at the Sheep Pen in a timeless mosey.

When I need to catch a large fish for someone who asks for one - I go with the purpose of catching one.
I don’t just fish for the fun of catching them anymore. Catch and release is not a license to catch as many fish as possible to me and it is not an elevated stance at all but one that disregards way too much that is questionable at its root to suit me. I have given that up, too many unnecessary holes in the mouths of fish for me to contribute to that anymore. I will fish to catch numbers of fish to learn something but body counts for no purpose bother me.
I have come to like fish the way people like birds and animals and I enjoy watching them and I care about their well-being. I think it is good to develop a love for animals you care about and are familiar with and fish are marvelous animals and the more you learn about them and see them in their natural world the more amazing they become to you. To me a menhaden is an incredible animal and that is only because I have learned more about them then the idea that they are to be considered - just “Bait.” They are fish and they are fascinating and worth watching and studying and finding out about. The way they move is spellbinding.

As I get older I do not want to hurt fish other than to feed someone or to learn something or to help some one become a better fisherman. I believe these positions are clean ethically. I do more looking and observing and seeing and trying to help others and sharing what ever I can, so that some can enjoy fishing in deeper, closer to nature ways and perhaps get more out of the experience of fishing than just the catching if they choose to.

I love to fish more now that my relationship with nature has become larger than when catching fish in smart and familiar ways was of prime importance to me. I am glad that I let the nut go and was not taken prisoner by holding on to it.

I am thinking about how monkeys once were caught. The hunters would take a jar with a wide neck and put a sizable nut inside of it. Then they would tie the jar to a big tree with a long rope and wait. The monkey would come along and put its hand in the jar and grab hold of the nut. When he did that the hunter/s would make an appearance and the monkey would bolt only to come up short and have its hand stuck in the jar. The hunters would come closer and closer either with clubs or with nets and the monkey would screech and howl and jump and scream but he would not let that nut go. His fist held him prisoner. All he had to do was open his hand and he could run and escape the hunter.

I am sure that he had his reasons for holding on to the nut. The only problem is those reasons cost him dearly. He lost his freedom to either a pot or a cage. Sometimes we have a nut that we know is good and we will not let it go and because of that - year after year and season after season the year comes and goes and we have our nut and never let it go and never know what changes outside of our vision come and go and how things evolve and we never see the things we may hear about with our own eyes that do work and we do not make room for that growth. We do have our nut and it is good.

There is a big world out there once we let go of the nut. A different world a world other than the world of the nut. The nut will still be there if we let it go and when we come back to the familiar and the safe we can pick it up and perhaps for the first time let it go and…. pick it up when we need it and smile at all that we have learned. Just my opinion.