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.

Aug 11^th 08.

 

Last week I went west to Ct. which I have been finding to be a wonderful place.

It is full of rivers.  Lots of them and they are quite beautiful and rich.

I have never been a camper, not because I do not like it but because I was not exposed to it at all in my life.  I have always stayed in cabins or motels or at friends homes and camping never crossed my path until earlier this month.  I went to a music festival to see my son play with a band in Hudson NY and I had a great time.  It rained and the wind blew and there was a tremendous thunderstorm which lingered all night and lit up the sky over my head.  I loved it.  It was incredible and satisfying to be there present to a storm and in the middle of it in a way that I had not experienced before. 

 

It changed me somehow and I decided to try camping for myself so I made a reservation at the campground at the Farming ton river in Ct and. Went.  I thought I would be fishing from dawn till dusk and doing all the fishing things that I could think of continuously.

No phone, no internet no people to interact with.  Alone by a river with a tent and a stove and my fishing stuff and trout and blue winged olives and other native critters and just me with nothing that I had to do or figure out or be aware of at all.

 

I looked at the river and got my ice and firewood and set up the camp and put all my gear on the picnic table and wandered up and down the paths along the river behind the campsite and saw lots of rising fish and few people and felt quite content in a new way.

I had a book that I was going to read and …

 

I did not do much at all.

 

I do not know why it happened but I found myself content to just be there near the river and I did not fish very much at all but I was filled with satisfaction just because I was there and not somewhere else.  I took little rides and couldn’t wait to get back to camp.

I looked at pools and places along the river I had not seen before and stopped the car and walked along banks that were a bit out of the way and I did not bring any fishing gear with me at all.  I just walked and looked and listened and saw mushrooms and birds and

Allowed my mind to wander and wonder and sat on rocks and noticed flowers growing along the banks and watched the water striders and corixia bugs whirling and hunting on the surface of the pools and eddies and time was not a factor, it all seemed timeless somehow.   

 

I fished the first evening for about an hour and that was it.  The second day the river was full of rising fish and I liked that but I did not fish for them.

 

I went through my flies and re-arranged them and set them in order.  It took me hours and hours and that too seemed timeless. I have lots of flies from long ago and I got to see and touch and arrange them.  I re-discovered many tiny flies that I had no recollection of until I saw them with little strands of leader still tied to their eyes and realized that I fished with these flies in a past life when I was much younger and then I could see well enough to tie them on easily and in this reverie of physical evidence I found a fly that I remembered very well.

 

Seeing it right there in front of me for the first time in over thirty years was pungent.

IT brought me back to Aug 13^th many years ago.  I remember the date because it was the first time I fished after my father died. There was a time in my life when I did not fish and it happened before my dad died and lasted for several years afterwards.  It was a strange time in my life.

 

That day was a Sunday afternoon and I was sitting in my kitchen futzing around getting on my wife’s nerves and she said, “Why don’t you go fishing.”?  That was a memorable event as she did not like fishing and it was like a thunderclap in my spirit. I remember being stunned and the next thing I remember is driving to a trout stream with my flies and coming down a hill and starting to lose control of the vehicle and hearing a voice yell “Kenney,” as loud as any voice I have ever heard and it startled me back into being present to my driving and it was my fathers voice.

 

That shook me and I could not disregard it as imagination.  I knew and still know that somehow he crossed the divide and reached out and rescued me from disaster.

 

I went to a place on the river that we had often fished when I was a boy and felt all those feeling that came up that were tied to memories of the place and him.

 

I waded far down the river in a wide deep pool that had very little current and very wary fish.

I waded right to the top of my waders on tip toes and moved very slowly and then I saw a tiny rise under some bushes with a tiny space that I could get a fly into if I cast accurately and perfectly and the spot was a few inches long, a tiny indention in the bank.

I got in range and started to watch the fish.  HE was eating back dancers and some other small flies, tiny midges and he was content sipping and feeding at will but very sedately.  The rises looked like tiny raindrops.

 

I remember that I tried many flies and did not put the fish down and then I tied on a tiny size 36 gold hooked midge with a whitish body and a brown hackle and started to cast over him continuously.  I remember that I made many casts and frequent ones for a very long period of time.  Then he rose and I set the hook and he was on.

He fought very well and was a big brown trout by the standards of those times, He was fat and beautiful and I landed him and I was pleased with my success.

I felt my father smile.

I thanked him and knew that my time of not fishing was over.

 

That little fly got put away in my jumble of fly boxes and was not seen again until the day I went camping by myself last week.

It is a magical fly.

I know where it is now.

 

Thank you Dad for giving me fishing from your fisherman’s heart.

Amen.