“Only in recollection does an experience become fully significant, as we arrange it in a meaningful pattern.†- from Lydia Davis’ introduction to Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust.
The high temperature this Friday is supposed to be –5. There’s no hiding from that. Rush hour tomorrow is supposed to see us getting more slippery snow. The tires on my car are bad and getting worse.
So here’s all I can do: Put myself in mine and Katie’s new canoe six months from now. It’s a June evening on the Kinnickinnic. I’m in the bow and Ryan is sterning because he won’t be fishing. Gabe duffs on a middle seat. I have left work an hour early and gotten to River Falls to meet them. Ryan’s car waits down by the Highway F bridge, eight trout stream miles away.
The sky is still light blue in the long afternoon, the trees are rich green. We paddle down from the last dam in River Falls. We shoot the first set of easy rapids and then pull up to the bank. Ryan reads his book while Gabe and I get out of the canoe and wade into the tailout of the rapids to nymph.
After we each get a couple 12 inch wild brown trout, we get back into the canoe. It’s a long strech of calm water. We all crack open cans of Leinie’s Original and drink them while we drift, Ryan ruddering just enough to keep us straight.
Once we’ve finished our beers, Gabe and I tie on dry flies and start casting to the bank. There isn’t much happening yet. Gabe hooks into a good fish and I reel in and help Ryan paddle backward to hold our position. It takes Gabe a few minutes to land the trout, which goes to maybe 15 inches. I snap a photo from the bow and he slips it back into the water.
A couple hours go by. We paddle little because the current is moving us along and we want to hit the middle of the stretch – inaccessible by any road – as the evening rise comes on.
That’s just what we do. We get to water that probably hasn’t been fished in a couple days right as the sun gets within a few degrees of the canyon rim. Caddis begin coming off and the trout begin rising to them. It is a long slick stretch of water, sliding around several bends, all of it dimpled by rising fish.
We have to adapt our techniques a little because we’re going downstream. The Royalex canoe is nearly soundless, so we can slip down the middle of the channel almost unnoticed, but one of us has to cast downstream and the other to one side or another, it’s a little awkward and we always run the risk of putting the fish down with a banged paddle or by hitting a rock.
The caddis are small and I catch several good fish on a size 18. I tied the fly myself during the winter. Carefully placed it into the fly box and let my mind wander briefly to a warm trout stream before I clamped another hook in the vise and began the next.
When the sun dips completely behind the rim of the canyon, the action gets really hot. We experience what I call “making all the lights.†Just like when you’re running errands and you have some really good reason you want to get home as soon as possible – fishing, let’s say – and all the way to the store and all the way back, every light turns green, people move into the right lanes as they should, and you’re home faster than you could have hoped for. The fishing is just like that for a while.
After catching several admirable fish, I stop casting and begin watching each fish rise, trying to spot a big one. Some time goes by before I spot a big head break the surface just 30 feet downstream, along the right-hand bank. I whisper asking Ryan to get us over to the left shore. Gabe looks at me and then reels in. Ryan eases us to shore and grabs overhanging weeds to hold us in place.
As I try to somehow get out of the canoe without actually moving, I make eye contact with both my buddies to say “Thanks†for obliging. I manage to get standing in the river, in a foot of water on a gravel bottom, without seeming to put down a single fish. The big one across the stream continues to rise, not often, but regularly.
“Don’t you think you should retie your fly?†Gabe aks from the canoe. He’s right, but I hadn’t wanted to make them wait any longer than necessary for me to try for this fish.
With his urging, I nod and snap off my fly. I neatly trim off the end of my tippet, tug hard on it to test the knot connecting it to leader – the nail knot has never been my strong suit – and then tie on a fresh fly. The same exact pattern as had been working all evening on all those other fish.
It’s another fly I had tied in the depth of last winter. In some way, I think I worked a bit of the howling wind, swirling snow, and biting temperatures into these flies, they warmed me back then and give me the chills now, standing in the river in the evening as a slight breeze comes up.
The air is thick with bugs. It is still plenty light, though it’s the indirect dying light of the sun on its way down. The fish have been waiting all day for this dinner buffet and if I wanted to, I could stand in this spot and catch 10 fish without thinking about it.
But there’s just the one that I want. His head still breaks the surface every time he’s rising. From across the river here I can see that there is a rock submerged directly behind him, causing a nearly imperceptible eddy in front that he is holding in.
My fly tied snugly on, a couple of my best friends waiting patiently and silently in the canoe behind me, I take two slow steps forward, get my footing, and begin to cast.
I cast upstream a few times to get line out and my rhythm down and then try for my target. My cast is well short of the target, but that’s fortunate because the line also flops to the surface with an audible splash. Three fish that had been rising there disappear and do not show up again this evening. A faint heat comes to my face with the thought of my friends seeing such a poor cast.
That won’t happen again, I say to myself.
I repeat the procedure. I cast upstream, getting much more line out this time, and then turn and cast across the stream. This time, the fly lands gently, just four or five feet upstream of where the bruiser is hanging out.
The fly passes over where I’ve watched him rise numerous times and suddenly it disappears into his gaping mouth. I pull up on my rod and pull the fly right out of his jaws. The fly goes zinging past onto the bank behind me.
“Damn!†I yell and immediately regret it. No need to shout, I know. I turn around to look at my guys and they both look at me sympathetically, nearly as disappointed as I am. I climb back in the bow and we push away from the bank.
We float further downstream. As the last light leaves the river, a fog develops. Tall willows and hickories are shrouded in a vapor of light pink and orange. A few more of the beautiful wild trout are brought to hand, but the three of us start to spend more minutes staring into the dark woods on the incline of the bluff, or downstream to catch deer drinking tentatively from the river, and we talk in low voices about a time several years ago when we felt this happy all the time.
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