Once In A Lifetime Is Enough

I don’t know what it is about showers but I get inspired when I’m naked.

Transitions are never easy. Some people adapt to change with difficulty. Others relish it and adapt like a duck to water. I like change only because I get bored. But when I find something I like, I completely geek out with it. Doesn’t matter if it is guns (I own only one currently but my list is growing everyday of Guns I Will Own), fly fishing (four fly rods, one that is bamboo three graphite: a two-piece Orvis which is a 5-weight and two Reddington–4-piece 4 weight and a 4-piece 8-weight that I bought specifically for fishing in Lake Michigan to chase after Salmon, in addition to my own fly-tying kit with all the various accouterments, fly-fishing vest, Gink, nippers, and zingers that would fill a Rubbermaid tub), I have built my own desktop PC, painted and sketched (thus a gazillion brushes, paints, easels, pencils of various hardness and softness, paper out the yin-yang)…**breathe in, breathe out**…so when I find something (or someone) I feel deeply about, I am all in-no holds barred passionate, and it takes a helluva lot of violence to get me to let go of my grip and just free-fall.

As I was saying, shower–inspired–naked….

Kenosha, Wisconsin is a city that has seen better days, I think. But it’s around 100k or so in population and is considered the northernmost suburb of Chicago even though Milwaukee is closer–55 miles versus 35, respectively). And if you do a little research you will find that Orson Welles, Don Ameche, Mark Ruffalo, and Al Molinaro (big Al from Happy Days in case you were wondering) were natives of the city. It is mostly a bedroom community now. American Motors used to have a plant there as well as Chrysler. You can read an interesting article about it here in Reuters in case you are interested. But they’re gone now and so Kenosha has become a distribution center for the likes of Amazon and Rustoleum. But there are some great pubs too like Captian Mike’s on the harbor and Uncle Mike’s by the I. Yep, they’re related. Kenosha’s one saving grace are its pubs.

But if you go back a couple of centuries, it was the trading center of the area and its product of exchange was the mighty beaver. And if I remember my facts correctly it all happened around the area known as the Pike River.

I knew nothing of this when I moved there in 2008. But I found out quickly when I heard that Salmon–both Chinook and Cohos–were roaming the deep expanse of Lake Michigan and would migrate into this little choke point of the Pike each Spring and Fall. Hell yeah! I’m am now a salmon fisherman! At least that is what I wanted to be. And why, you ask? Because that’s what I do; not at all unlike Tyrion Lannister, you know, drinking wine and knowing things? In addition to the other stuff I stick my hands in, I am also an armchair historian. My ex often quipped that I had a lot of useless information at my disposal (the obvious inference being…). So I needed to know. Now I am not pretentious, just insatiably curious–about everything. (I have also been accused of being reckless–wrecking ball was the exact term–but that is for another time). And nothing gets me more excited than chasing fish and finding out how they got there.

The King (Chinook) and Silver (Coho) are not native–obviously–but were introduced to counteract another invasive species and one thing lead to another and pow! you have a world-class fishery smack-dab in the Midwest. And as I mentioned earlier these gallant slabs of muscle made their pilgrimage into the tiny tributaries feeding this great lake every Spring and Fall.

It was one Fall in particular in which I noticed that my need to get a fly wet was not being met. And so, longingly, tenderly, I rigged up my rod with some flies I had been tying and threw it into the back of my venerable Isuzu Trooper. Fisherman are the most hopeful people in the entire world. Honestly I had been gazing at a certain stretch of the Pike on my way to a home I was remodeling when I noticed that there were several cars parked in a well-worn area. They were from Illinois but I could forgive them that. What interested me was that the Pike was a dirty river. And I was pretty sure that salmonids needed brisk oxygen-rich, relatively clean water to thrive. Then I also remembered, “Oh yeah, they’re salmon and it’s about sex right now. They are literally dying to get it on. So it doesn’t matter much where it happens as long as it happens.” Oh crap. I think that sounds like me. Projection….

I had to get to my job but made a silent oath to return. I did during my lunch break.

Up until that point, the only fish I had really chased after were trout and bass in my home waters of Missouri. The trout were hatchery raised and the bass were all brutish and really did nothing for me. I had never tussled with the likes of anything over a couple of pounds. Besides, I was salmon-dumb anyway. So, curiosity got the best of me and I stopped to throw a line in not really expecting anything. I walked down to a promising hole and prayed silently to the fishing gods, which in this case I think were probably Scandanavian…have you ever had a Kringle before? There’s a great place in Racine if you are in the neighborhood and want a yummy pastry. Good idea in case you get skunked–which is likely. Pastry and coffee are always a winning backup plan in these fickle waters.

I can remember casting my line a couple of times–roll cast was all I had room for–with a Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear tied on. Drifted fine, no drag–if anything the practice was good. But something peculiar happened. The fourth time through my line suddenly stopped.

Swearing under my breath at getting caught in a snag I lifted the rod up just to make sure. But it didn’t budge. Tried again but this time my line began to move and move and move. So I pulled, then lowered my rod tip and pulled some more now noting that my heart began to race a little when I realized that it kept moving in spite of my efforts. Then I felt it.

One of the main reasons I have fished so long was the connection I have felt at hook-up. It is that living, pulsing slab of pure energy fighting against my pull. It is that giddy smile, that quick look up from the fight wondering if anyone else felt what you did. And it is that adrenaline and endorphin rush which keeps asking for more. If anything, fishing is an insatiable soft-addiction of the most glorious kind. And here was my addiction buried in murky water moving quickly to a snag about 10 yards away from me and it appeared that it was gaining speed and indeed showed no signs of letting up anytime soon. And so our tug-of-war began.

I quickly began to recite in my head all of the articles I had read on landing big fish. Sadly nothing came at recall. My mind was blank. All I could feel was this behemoth on the end of my 6x tippet. (The struggle was real, dear reader. The struggle was real.) The beast could turn on a whim and move to another location in the pool. By this time–which felt like almost an hour but was in reality about two minutes–I had planned a way to beach the quarry if it…would…just…come…my…way.

I had held on thus far without any fatality and decided that I would gingerly try to exert a little pressure in the opposite direction of the fish’s travel. And so rather than fight against the fish I decided to vary my retrieve and move from my right side to my left side and quickly react whenever the fish would feel my plan and then react. I had to be at my peak, all my senses on alert and thereby gain control and conquer….!

Actually, that’s not what happened at all. I had had so much adrenaline rushing through me that the only thing I could think of was to hold on with one hand and grab my cell phone with the other and call my brother who lived in Montana and rub it in; That here I was, the Elder Brother, catching a fish of a lifetime, whilst he sputtered away on those puerile flows emanating from the Rocky Mountains.

Honest to God. It is exactly what I did–well not the last part. Just the first. I called him in mid-catch because I couldn’t just keep it to myself. The conversation lasted about 5 minutes because I didn’t know what else to do.

What kind of awkward conversation is that going to be and how do you end it?

“Hey. It’s me. Guess what? I have a fish on and it’s big.”

Silence. “Oh really?” More silence.

“Yeah. A salmon, I think.” And it is growing larger in poundage as we speak!

More silence….

“Well, gotta go now. I think I need to try to land this fish.”

“Okay. Talk to you later. Have fun.”

“Yeah, tell the kids I said hi. And we’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay.” Click

It is like getting caught with your pants down. What are you gonna do, really? So I was caught holding a twenty pound fish and a cell phone which weighed a couple of ounces. Such irony isn’t it when you stop for a moment.

Sadly, the closest I could come to landing the fish (which I later decided it was a Chinook because the Silvers don’t get that big and its coloring has been indelibly etched into my psyche as golden brown), which I later “estimated” it was around twenty pounds, was to drag it somewhat up to the small shoal where I was standing in the hopes of grabbing it. But at that last moment the knot gave way and it was lost all within about 18 inches of the soles of my feet. And there I stood in the absolute quiet of the moment, heart racing, head pounding, cursing and yet beaming because I had just touched something at the apex of its existence at the threshold of death. And in that moment, which would never come again, I touched something in myself which was enough to get me through the next several years that I lived there.

It is remarkable to me that we can be so close to things that are living and both dying at the same time.

I fished that run several times after but never caught anything else. I even fished the Lake itself and was into several fish there. Brought one home and smoked it, thankful for the gift of its life and providing for my family. But never like that first one I encountered. And yet I think it was good that I never did.

I am in Montana now. And I dream of the Bitterroots off to the west and Sapphires out east.Tonight they are shrouded in clouds and I sit here in this Valley dreaming again and I remembered that Fall where I felt out of place in a new city trying to scratch out something which resembled a life and ultimately feeling like a failure after the marriage ended. I remembered the pain today again but I was thankful for that moment on the Pike where I felt alive–even if it was so, so brief. I was thankful for the life that my ex and I had built and the children which came through our union. I remember some happy times.

And here I am, this transient being, caught between two worlds. Once in a lifetime is enough.

The Big Blackfoot

**Author’s note: This is a story I wrote several years ago. No trout were harmed. All came out of the ordeal okay and we all went for a Moose Drool afterward.

Don is a good friend of mine who lives in Missoula, Montana. He’s rather large and has a great laugh, a scruffy beard, and often wears plaid shirts and blue jeans. He drives a beat-up 80s GMC. He’s also native to the state. And that isn’t too hard to tell, either. Most out-of-staters who can afford to live among the natives generally come from the left or right coasts and they drive shiny new cars. Most Montanans, knowing the weather will be at times quite brutal, are quite content to let their vehicles take the brunt of the seasons, of which there are only two: winter and road construction. My brother, who also lives there, says you can tell by the license plates where people come from as well. He sees them pull up to creek sides when fishing. Well-to-do fly fishers arrive in Escalades, Lexus crossover SUVs, and the other ne’er-do-wells–the natives and trout bums–drive up in their ’88 Toyota Land Cruisers (of which I’m a proud owner of one) and rust-eaten pickups.

Since my wife is from Big Sky Country we try to get up there as often as we can. Sometimes that’s in the Summer and sometimes that’s in the Fall or Winter. Fall is my favorite time. Don, like all true Montanans, is an outdoorsman. So one Fall, I ask him, “when are we going to go fishing. You’re a native. Take me somewhere where we can catch some trout.”

He reflectively looked up into the sky as if to get permission from the fishing gods of the state (or maybe someone from the Department of Fish and Game) and said, “Yeah. I’ve got a good place. Can you be ready by 5:30 tomorrow morning?”

You know that you’re with a fisherman when he says those magic words, “before daybreak.” I told him I was on board and so we left the next morning.

We puttered up Highway 200 in his pickup and talked about life and fishing and God. It was dark and driving through the canyon, which follows the Big Blackfoot, there wasn’t a lot to see. So we drove until the sun began to rise above the shoulders of Trapper Mountain. North of us was the gateway to the Bob and nearby a couple of lakes existed, Kleinschmidt and Brown’s Lake. The latter was our destination.

We pulled up quietly and noticed that there were a few early risers with their lines in the water, some boaters trolling and us. We unhitched our boat, quietly slipped into the water, and puttered over to a promising looking spot near some downfall and tree limbs. My friend rigged up a small spinner and I did the same. I’ve got to be honest. It wasn’t quite what I expected. I’m not that good of a fisherman and the idea of doing some spinning for trout kind of reminded me of going after bass, back in my home waters of Missouri. I know that sounds kind of snobbish and it isn’t intended that way. It’s just that I’m in Montana, for crying out loud, and I want trout. So we trolled around for a little bit, probably about an hour, and we had the first fish on. It was getting close to noon and suddenly the action was heating up all around us. I looked around at others on the lake and I heard laughter and splashing as trout after trout were being taken in. Granted, these are all stocked fish, but we had fun and we must have caught and landed a dozen or so each. We fished until about three when Don said, “I’ve got one more place for you.” Then he gave me a little bit of lore. “The Blackfoot is a busy river in the Summer. There are a lot of rapids and canoers and kayakers as well as fishermen who have to share the river. But after that first cold snap, the swimmers get off of it and that is the best time to hit it. The fish are looking to spawn and they are active. And if you get lucky, you’ll be into some nice fish. I’ve got a plot of land up here by the river and we can get access.”
One of the best things about being in Montana is that there are very few people crowding the waters. There are also abundant rivers and feeder streams that can keep any fisherman happy in three lifetimes and still the resource wouldn’t be exhausted. You can go after ‘Bows, Cutts, Bull trout (although not intentionally), and Browns all in the same day. It is as close to heaven as I’ve been here on earth, speaking as a fisherman, of course.
We arrive at Don’s place about 20 minutes later and he points me to an access point almost 200 yards from his property. “I’m going to go get the boat and hook it up and I’ll be back in about an hour.” He smiles at me then gets into his truck and motors off in a cloud of dust. I just stood there and listened to the music of the River.

The Big Blackfoot is an incredible River and arguably one of the most scenic in the state. Its headwaters are between Rogers and Stemple Pass on the Continental Divide. From there it tumbles and flows wildly and playfully like a little child, over boulders, digging out pocket water, and flowing crystal clear as it hits the valley floor. Happily flowing through canyons, it finally reaches civilization in Milltown where it meets up with the Clark Fork of the Columbia River. Its native species of fish is the Bull Trout. But the habitat has been damaged because of dams and the like and the populations of this aggressive member of the Char family have dwindled putting it on Endangered Species list. As a fry, this salmonid feeds on insects, and as they mature their interests quickly move to other fish, and they often get them. They grow to enormous sizes and can top the scales sometimes in the 40 lb. range. Frighteningly beautiful fish.

At riverside I again pause to scout out where and how I’m going to fish. Being October, the water is a little low, but it is clear and cold. I see a seam that look’s promising out almost 10 yards away from me. I quickly tie on a tan Elk Hair Caddis and cast up from the seam and let the fly approach as quietly as possible.

Sometimes you get a connection that is just right. Your line lays out perfectly, the fly lands delicately and the trout simply sips and that’s it. It doesn’t get any more complicated than that. I watched my EHC get taken. I lifted my rod and set the hook. It wasn’t dramatic. It was a gentle sip and the fight was on.

My rod almost immediately bent over double as I saw the fish out about twenty yards when it made its first run. My heart started pounding and the adrenaline started running. My Trout-Fisher-Training took over. Turn the rod to 45 degrees. Tire it out gently. Don’t horse it. Play the fish. It’s a living thing. That’s it, let it take another run…. After a few minutes I had brought to hand a beautiful Cuttie, resplendent in its delicate spawning hues. Gently I held it in the water and knew I had to get a snapshot. My heart was still racing and my hands were shaking. It was like taking liquid gold from the water!

With the fish still close I walked over to the bank and quickly took a picture and released it back into the water to grow even bigger. Boy was I grinning. The fish measured out around 20 inches. It was the biggest fish I had taken to date. The picture I had taken turned out OK. I was so excited that in the shot I had cropped the tail off. I didn’t know if I wanted to fish anymore. It was, quite honestly, a holy moment. The sun was shining through the Douglas Firs and the water seemed to be singing again, and I felt like I was part of something really beautiful and fleeting all at the same time.

I did cast my line in the water again. I caught six more fish, all ‘Bows, and they averaged around 14 inches and bigger. That almost sounds like it became boring. It wasn’t. It was just that good of a day.

As promised Don did come back about an hour later. He looked at me, smiling. “Good spot, isn’t it?