I went fishing today.
Oh how I’ll miss starting a post with those four words. The trout season closes on Friday and I probably won’t fish again until sometime next March.
I didn’t get any fish today, in fact, I spent far more time hiking and standing back than I did working the water. The rain we’ve gotten the past couple days left the water a milky silver color — much different than the tea-color of the slightly off water this spring — with only a couple feet of visibility. I’m sure I could have still gotten some attention for a fly, but my head just wasn’t it. It wasn’t really that my head was somewhere else, but I felt a little numb to the fishing.
The trees are just starting to turn. Here and there were yellows and reds mixed with the lush green. The damp conditions the past couple days have probably helped keep things really green. And in some low places where the bluffs didn’t climb directly out of the river, the trees were already half-leafless. It seemed that I could see hints of August — the nettles, the thick grass and foliage –, October — the brilliant maples, sumac, poplars — and November, the beginning of hibernation. That’s one of the things I love about September.
I hiked a long ways along the river from the parking lot before I started to fish. I didn’t even know how the water would be for fishing, but I had my mind on a particular remote pasture section where I had one of my best days of the season back in May and it had seemed like a good spot to head for, a way to bookend the season, bring things full circle. I scrambled through the wet woods, crossing the river three times, sweating in the cool humidity.
When I got to my destination, they call it the “Suburban Hole” because there used to be an old Chevy Suburban rotting on the bank in the pasture, I fished a bit in the riffles and then had lunch of a little bread, cheddar and salami, washed down with half a beer, in a spot where I could consider the difference in how a riffle of water sounds from upstream versus downstream.
It was apparent to me then that fishing wasn’t what I had come for and I started back upstream, a long hike and a long drive between me, the couch, warmed up pizza, football, comforts I would usually forsake in the name of fishing without second thought, but which today seemed like a perfectly suitable way to occupy a quiet afternoon. I fished once more in a favorite spot right where the river leaves the woods for the pasture, still without success, and then headed up.
My buddy Wrench said yesterday that it’s just a “comfy” time of year. In the gray, rainy type of weekend we’ve had, when everything has been so still and quiet, I wasn’t feeling too comfy on the river, really tired, sore, hungry, thirsty, distracted, and out of synch with the world and the season. Avoiding the Interstate as long as I could on the drive home, I took the long way, and was really beat when I finally pulled in.
So closes my season, with my slippers and the Vikings. Maybe come January I’ll be kicking myself for passing up on this chance to fool a fish, make that vital connection, feel that pulse on the end of my line. I’m not right now.
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