Gray's Sporting Journal - May 2023 Spring Turkey Edition

Gray’s Sporting Journal

VOLUME FORTY-EIGHT

ISSUE 2 • MAY/JUNE 2023

14

Garfish

by O. Victor Miller

Sometimes grabbin’ hold is the easy part.

26

Home Creek

by Dick Donnelly

Not this summer. But maybe someday.

32

Dances With the Death Angel

by Roger Pinckney

A minuet in three parts

44 Shongo, 1961

by Rich Chiappone

Remind me...who are you again?

50

Turkey Gobblers & Turkey Hunters

by Lee Hoots

What’s the di erence?

91 Expeditions Finding It Under the Long White Cloud

by Scott Sadil

A place too good for words. Beer or no beer.

an original oil • 24 x 30 inches

Courtesy of The Sportsman’s Gallery, Ltd., Charleston, SC

Dawn to Dusk

by Sammy Chang

FRONT COVER

Dreamers, by Peggy Watkins

by Barry & Cathy Beck

Columns & Departments

by Martin Mallet

by Christopher Camuto

THE SPORTING LIFE IS FOR EVERYONE.

We are passionate about the shooting sports and are driven to help women become involved in the great outdoors. Our goal is to provide the equipment and knowledge that make the experience more enjoyable and less stressful. This is our mission.

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Gray’s Sporting Journal

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©2023 by MCC Magazines, LLC. All rights reserved. Gray’s Sporting Journal (ISSN 0273-6691) is published seven times a year in April, May/June, August, September, October, November/December, and January/Expeditions issues by MCC Magazines, LLC, 643 Broad St., Augusta, GA 30901. Subscriptions are $39.95 for one year, $68 for two years. Canada and Mexico add $20 per year (U.S. funds only). Outside North America, add $40 per year (U.S. funds only). Periodicals postage paid at Augusta, GA, and additional mailing o ces. POSTMASTER: Send address corrections to Gray’s Sporting Journal, PO Box 37131, Boone, IA 50037-4131

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Rebirth

Word spread slowly among those familiar with the place, probably because nobody much wanted to talk about it. When news of the carnage nally reached me, it arrived in whispered tones upon the lips of my fellow hunters, all of us a few drinks deep into banter that only seems to happen around a deer camp repit.

Did you hear what happened? Has anyone been down there?

Surely, they were mistaken. Surely, Smith Lake Swamp had not been ravaged as though it were a monoculture forest of planted pines. Surely, it remained untouched.

Surely.

I’ve been. You don’t want to see it.

So it was true. Flattened and gone, an old growth river bottom of moss-bearded cypress and towering hardwoods now relegated to photographs and memories.

Gut punch.

Farming is a business, I reminded myself. And part of that component is harvesting timber. Such is the reality when it comes to some of the places we fancy o limits, only to learn they’re just as vulnerable as anywhere else. e hard truth is that damned few are safe from the ravages of harvest, development or redesign. Our world is nothing if not a landscape of perpetual transition.

Even Mother Nature is prone to dramatically altering that which man does not. More than 30 years later, I still recall the devastation heaped upon South Carolina’s Lowcountry by Hurricane Hugo.

e Francis Marion National Forest with nary a tree unbroken, most laying down in the same direction and snapped 20 feet above the trunk, as far as the eye could see. e Santee and Great Pee Dee Rivers, where I’d cast streamers to spawning white bass only a few short months before, rendered unnavigable by fallen debris, countless sh oating dead due

to oxygen depletion borne of leaf decay. Coastal islands that formerly sheltered freshwater lakes full of iridescent pan sh now buried beneath the salt. All images burned upon my mind by a force no less ruthless than chainsaws and far more e cient.

at nothing remains the same is the only certainty in life, the lone variable a matter of methodology.

Yet for nearly two decades, I could leave my o ce and precisely one hour later nd myself parked atop the two-track at the head of Smith Lake Swamp. Supplies might include a ri e or shotgun, snake boots, water and a skinning knife. And always—always— more ammo than I thought I might need. If there were pigs about, sometimes it still wasn’t enough.

I would stalk the soft, sandy road at a snail’s pace, delighted in the wonderment of what I might see along the way. Two miles distant would come a respite, courtesy of an artesian spring that bubbled from the earth before owing into a long, narrow lake, its clear water contrasting with the oxbow’s tannic brown. I would re ll my canteen and enjoy a smoke, poking around the edges of the pool, allowing time for things to settle down before my slow walk back along the same now dimming road that brought me in. If I timed things perfectly, legions of wood ducks would still be zipping through the darkening sky as I walked the last few steps back to my truck under the faint light of a rising moon.

Looking back, what parts of our existence do we truly recall? What gets lost along the way? Children’s recitals. Fishing trips. Four-day weekend escapes. e mundane and the celebratory, all of it enveloped in what becomes the blur of life. But a part of me always knew there was something special about those late afternoon strolls through Smith Lake Swamp. I made a point of trying to pay attention. So that I might always remember.

ere’s the turkey hen running full speed with

a dozen poults following along in a straight line behind her. ey came and went in but an instant before vanishing into the high grass, an image now frozen in time, a scene I’d have never seen at all had I not been looking in just the right place at precisely that moment.

I once slipped within throwing distance of a whitetail buck, oblivious to my presence thanks to the trickling blackwater stream and rustling cane that covered the sound of my approach. Scoped and mine for the taking, I chose instead to let it walk.

en I lowered my ri e to watch it become invisible.

I’ve stepped over pygmy rattlesnakes, leapt across ditches full of baby alligators, and waded through a recently ooded creek bed to rescue a giant cat sh stranded in the pothole of a fallen sycamore. ere were bobcats on the prowl and families of river otters. Quail ushing on higher ground, and enough wading birds to leave the pages of my Peterson’s Field Guide ragged and worn.

Gorgeous and untouched. Perpetually wild and pure. at’s how I chose to remember Smith Lake Swamp. It’s why I never ventured back. Something in me just couldn’t face it again, as though the memories might disappear with the lumber trucks.

Fast forward a decade. No short time to you and me, but the blink of an eye in the natural world. Long enough for me to have learned my recollections cannot be stolen. ere were turkeys here before, perched along the ridge overlooking the vast swamp, and springtime curiosity has nally brought me back. I will spend the morning hunkered down within the thin line of oaks that remains along the outer edge, and it is here that I will await sunrise, dreading to see what horrors daylight may bring.

As the sun peeks over the horizon, my view through the morning mist reveals that Smith Lake Swamp has indeed become something far di erent than the place I remember. But with dawn comes gobbling, booming and closing fast, leaving little time for re ection. Here, I could regale you with details of my morning hunt, but that’s not what

this story is all about. A few yelps from my box call brought a pair of gobblers into range and that, as they say, was that. e second bird ed, while the other was soon draped over my shoulder. Seems we’d be taking this walk together.

I found the road still intact, its slope and bends through the swamp identical to before. ere’s more water now, the massive cypress no longer around to soak up excess moisture. It’s di cult to see much from the road due to an impenetrable wall of young gum and tupelo obscuring what was formerly a clear view beneath the lofty canopy. But the animals are still here, and perhaps in larger numbers than before if tracks along the road are any indication. Well-worn game trails are abundant, albeit impassable unless you’re willing to crawl. I won’t be doing that today, but give it a few more years and the trees will again be tall enough for me to hunt these woods standing up.

A careful glance around the next corner reveals a half dozen wood storks wading along the side of the road. A doe and two fawns cross 50 yards ahead. e sound of more gobblers echoes in the distance. Wood ducks catapult from hidden sloughs; I couldn’t sneak up on them then, and I can’t sneak up on them now. And there, where the road comes to an end beside the ancient oxbow, I nd the spring. Still gushing and delicious. Flowing as it always has. is place will never again be what it was. Not in my lifetime, anyway. And probably not ve generations hence. But there are new adventures afoot as the swamp comes back to life. e elbow in the road would make a ne spot for a tower stand. e turkeys and ducks are here in full force. e pigs probably never left. In time, as the hardwoods begin to take over, even the squirrels will return.

All of which remind me…I need to make it back over to the Great Pee Dee sometime. Rumor has it the white bass run is stronger than ever. S

Mike Floyd is editor and associate publisher of Gray’s Sporting Journal. He admits to being a little teary-eyed at rst, but when that big gobbler landed like a lawn dart less than 40 yards away, he set his sentimentality aside. If only for a moment.

Garfish

“You girls want Daddy

to catch that big old sh for you?” I joke. We are on a high ledge over a clear creek where the current over the centuries has cut a deep channel through a hammock in the oodplain, a ditch too wide to jump across. Beneath us the torpedo shape of a vefoot gar sh lies suspended in the turquois water, its toothy bill nearly a quarter of its length.

“Oh yes, Daddy. Catch it! Catch it!” squeals Maisy. Mary Catherine, in the third grade, is dubious. She rolls her eyes.

It’s my day to play with the girls—Daddy’s Day, a day outside. We’ve come downriver in my johnboat with the new Boykin puppy to Little Dent, a spring fed creek deep in riparian wetlands. We’ve secured the johnboat where veins of clear water trickle into the honey-colored Flint River south of Albany, Ga.

We peer over the high bank at this prehistoric creature immobile in nearly stagnant water. I know it’s a she because females are larger. I’ve caught gar nearly her size with a piano wire noose and saltwater tackle, smaller ones on a y rod with unraveled strands of nylon that tangle in double rows of razor-sharp teeth, but this is the largest longnose gar I’ve ever seen.

Of course, I have no intentions of actually trying to catch this gar sh even if I had the means to do it. is is my rst outing since a heart attack and coronary bypass operation. I’m taking it easy. An allergy to catheter dye brie y stopped my clock during the angiogram. Fully conscious I’d watched the snake-like catheter enter through the aorta and spit a dark cloud of fatal dye into the chambers of my heart. I watched the monitor atline, saw myself die. From outside my body I watched the doctor and nurses working to bring me back, saw the infamous tunnel of bright light. e cardiologist revived me with a shot of adrenaline into my heart. I spent a month in the hospital while my immune

By O. Victor Miller

THE GREEN GAR FISH, BY MARK CATESBY (1683-1749)

Sometimes grabbin’ hold is the easy part.

system was tampered with and a second catheter and bypass were performed. I’m glad to be out of the hospital, weak but elated to be alive and spending a precious afternoon with my children, taking them to this spring, a swimming hole I’d bathed in during my own childhood.

Resurrecting has intensi ed my appreciation of life and natural beauty. ese wetlands glimmer with a splendor unnoticed before. Wild plum and snowy dogwood blossoms oat like confetti against the green gold of new growth beneath the open canopy with rashes of redbud and golden ligrees of Carolina jasmine. e early spring air is fresh and ne. A breeze sizzles through last year’s brown hickory leaves, swaying nappy beards of Spanish moss. A second chance has made me playful. I’m willing to take my time, to enjoy lucky glimpses of the natural world through the unjaded eyes of my children. is is an enchanted forest, where all things are believable, where wood nymphs haunt the deep shadows of the old growth swamp. Where the wide base cypress trees are giant stalks of celery. Where spiders spin webs of purest gold.

I shush the girls. “You have to be very quiet to catch a gar sh,” I whisper. I ease with exaggerated tiptoes down to the water’s edge, well behind the immobile sh. e bank is edged with cypress knees, the mud laced with raccoon tracks. I don’t bother to remove the dog whistle from around my neck or empty my pockets. I slide into the cold spring water up to my chest, sneaking slowly toward a living fossil that hasn’t changed in more

than 150 million years. I’ll stalk as close as I can without spooking her. When she bolts upstream, I’ll yell and splash, pretending that I have the gar sh or the gar sh has me. e girls peek over the ledge. Maisy’s dimpled ngers seal her lips. Mary Catherine, a grown woman at eight, hangs on one hip pretending boredom. I inch closer. My pretended quarry lies about a foot beneath the water and about a yard o shore.

Gar sh can sip air from the surface, supplementing oxygen with modi ed swim bladders that gave rise to the rst lungs. ey’ll op for hours on the bank before they die. e esh is edible, even delicious if the sh is taken in healthy water, but they can tolerate polluted water depleted of oxygen. Gar sh can live in a ird World sewer. eir roe is poisonous to humans. e ganoid, diamond shaped scales, harder than teeth, don’t overlap but t together like enamel tiles. Native Americans used them for arrowheads, the armored hide for shields. I saw one thrown to the hogs once. It sounded like they were chewing up a windshield.

I take my time sneaking up on the gar sh, dragging out the suspense for the girls. I’m surprised how close I manage to get. Is she asleep? I reach for the sculling tail, actually touching it before the startled sh bolts in a quick circle, turning on me, charging not upstream as I predicted but into my face. Her head rides across my shoulder, bowling me over backwards underwater. My arms instinctively wrap around her long hard body, her armored head drubbing my shoulder. We splash to the surface and I regain my footing. e side of her head cracks against my temple. I nuzzle her against my neck, her beak wagging behind my head. I hug the struggling sh to my chest, afraid of holding on and more afraid of turning loose. We waltz in circles, churning the water white. I’m not up to this. I’m out of shape; I’ve been on my back in the hospital too long. I nally manage to tuck the slashing body under one arm, aiming the long snout toward the bank. “Get him, Daddy!” Maisy cries. “Get him!”

Yanking the whistle lanyard from my neck with my free hand, I wrap it quickly around her gills, pulling the whistle through the open loop forming a noose. en I manage to heave her up above the water and hook the lanyard on a cypress knee. Her head bound, she struggles and splashes in place.

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I crawl halfway up the bank, sucking air in ragged breaths, leaving the gar to wear herself down. e e ort has strained the new sutures in my chest. Angina pools in my jaw, shoots down my arm. Gasping, I lie still for a while, like the gar sh half in and half out of the water. My mended heart throbs and my chest aches. I dig into my pocket for the little glass bottle of nitroglycerine tablets. I fumble one out and place it under my tongue. I’m exhausted, but the gar sh continues to swim in place against the cypress knee. e pain in my jaw slowly subsides. I curse myself for hubris. How utterly stupid and careless I’ve been. What if I’d had another heart attack? What would happen to my children? Not even their mother knows we are here. What was I thinking? Boy, am I dumb. e puppy comes down to the water’s edge to lick my face. Dumb!

It could be argued, I suppose, that the sh, cut o from open water, hadn’t actually attacked but had merely tried to return to the river and I was in the way, but it sure seemed like an attack to me. You couldn’t convince me otherwise with an ichthyologist and a stack of bibles. Besides, an attack makes for a better sh story, in which embellishment is pardonable, if not preferred.

We leave the gar sh bound to the cypress knee, its head out of water, its long body swimming slowly but steadily in place. We follow the trail along the edge of the creek to the headwater spring, a clear pool rimmed in duckweed and bright green algae. Mossy fossil rocks are stacked where the pool over ows, the water pouring through the rocks in silver ribbons. A little water snake pushes tiny ripples across the water. It slithers up the bank and disappears into the rocks and maidenhair ferns. We sit on the bank above the deep blue crater and the indigo cave, the underground source of the artesian spring. e girls discover a vein of kaolin under the bank. Squealing, they slather the white clay on themselves, on each other and me. Before long they’ll be immune to the joy of getting dirty, lost to womanhood. We lower ourselves into the chilly pool, splash and wipe the clay o each other as the clear blue water turns white as milk.

We return single le in wet bathing suits along the high bank above a beaver dam. Me rst, then Mary Catherine. Maisy hurries along on stubby legs. We come upon a golden orb spider as large as a

child’s hand. A honeybee bumbles in a quivering web of golden silk. e girls haven’t developed a

What perfect saltwater fly rod dreams are made of.

Photography by SAMMY CHANG

Native exclusively to the lower peninsula, the Osceola thrives among the live oaks and palme os that dominate the deep woods of Old Florida. No Mickey Mouse. No tourist traps. This is still a wild place if you know where to look.

An owl call betrays the gobbler’s position and that’s when the real game begins. Down from its roost, dressed in iridescent green, blue and red, the longbeard is in no hurry. But when it comes into range your reward is a glimpse into Florida’s past, a trophy earned in a place that looks no different than it always has.

Home

FLY FISHERMAN, BY BRETT JAMES SMITH

Creek

by Dick Donnelly

I have friends planning a two-week fly-fishing trip to Alaska. This is a dream destination, of course. A sort of Shangri-La for the angler, featuring huge fish, wild country and endless water. They asked if I wanted to join them.

I declined.

I said I was busy. I didn’t admit the whole idea wore me out. The list-making, the plane tickets to Anchorage. The connecting flight on a de Havilland, the packing and repacking of rods and reels and boots and flies and maps and anti-bear spray and emergency kits and God knows what else. All for two weeks on a river I will begin to  learn and maybe fall in love with. Then never see again. It’s depressing.

Why go when I can toss my seven-foot 3-weight into the truck and 10 minutes later catch a pretty good-size trout in a bluff-country creek? A spring-fed Minnesota creek I already know and love? This is the sparkling Gilbert. My Home Creek.

It’s water as familiar as my wife’s long neck and speckled arms and the curve of her back and let’s end the analogy right there. But it takes time to know a woman. Or a creek. Two weeks isn’t enough. Two years isn’t enough.

e geology of my dingle and dell landscape is complicated. Even experts don’t understand why the glaciers encircled the Driftless Area in Southeast Minnesota and Southwest Wisconsin (with snippets of Iowa and Illinois), but never invaded it, leaving these valleys untouched by the bulldozing and piling up of gravel, or “drift.” Ancient rocky cli s soar above narrow creeks. e water, recharged by limestone aquifers, runs clean and clear year-round. While trucks are out plowing ice roads on the Mississippi, Gilbert Creek is plunging through chutes and gurgling between boulders just like July. is is some peculiar country.

Gilbert Creek is brook trout water. e brookie is our only native trout, and technically a char, or cousin of the far more common rainbow and brown trout. e char is a sort of tough northern trout and includes lake trout, Dolly Varden and arctic char. Instead of dark spots on light bodies, as with trout, the char has light spots on dark bodies.

A Driftless brook trout is a peculiar sh in peculiar country.

And rare. e brookie inhabits the coldest, cleanest creeks. is is my little Gilbert, where y casting is tough. e water is only 20 feet wide, and by midsummer the banks are overhung with that great y-snagger, foxtail grass. Nothing has ever been cut back or improved. You have to be good with the rod or you’ll spend your day in the trees. But if you pay attention there are “lanes” where cottonwoods tower above and approaching carefully you will catch sh.

A big brook trout is eight inches. But in my home creek I know where a pod of bigger sh lives, in a pool above a beaver dam. I once took a 15-inch

brookie here. at’s a lot of sh in a little creek.

I had always passed up this pool. Walking by one afternoon I saw a splash. Casting from the branchtangled dam I let a light Hendrickson oat along that deep, oily-dark water. Boring shing. And standing in the sun, hot shing. en the explosion. A big brookie rocketed from the depths, seized the y, and splashed down. I almost dropped my rod.    I didn’t think there were sh in there. Shows you what I know.

When you visit a creek every few days you change the way you sh. My home creek asked me to slow down and I did. I’ve found where deer bedded, the ground still warm. I’ve seen and heard the pileated woodpecker, a crazy, red-crested bird bigger than a crow. I watched ducklings snap up skitter bugs like popcorn, their mother paddling behind. I discovered the wreck of an old bridge, hidden by big cottonwoods, the limestone blocks tumbled into the stream, where there is good shing. I’ve had butter ies land on my hand and stepped carefully past lady slipper orchids and yellow touch-me-nots and I’ve watched ruby-throated hummingbirds feed on honeysuckle blossoms.

I never see anglers, but one day a pair of men wearing high-end waders and carrying expensive rods surprised me. I stood in the water over a bubbling run working a dry y, an Adams with barred wings. After 20 casts I had caught nothing. But the pleasure of seeing the y drift along, the unhurried pace of the water, the perfection of the drift kept me there. e men stomped right to the edge of the high bank and stared in. at isn’t going to help anything.

“Caught any trout?” one demanded.

“Can’t say I have.”

He took o a red baseball cap. at wasn’t helping him, either. “Nothing much going on here, is there?” He wiped his forehead with a sleeve.

“Nope.” I threw another delicate cast. “It’s pretty, though.”

“We’re going to the Whitewater,” he said, referring to a big, well-known river an hour south. His y rod looked about 10 feet long. “I’m tired of getting hung up in branches.” O they trudged, grumbling.

After a couple of more casts, I saw a splash, and my y vanished. I brought the rod tip sharply up and had him. Letting the sh run I checked for my neighbors, then led him into the net, a ne 12-inch, duskybacked brook trout. Nope, nothing going on here.

I don’t always sh. Sometimes I just look. Or sh and look. Or sit on logs fallen across the water and wait for something to happen. A hatch maybe, or the “roll” of a big, opportunistic trout. Sometimes you let the shing come to you.

Far upstream, tipped over in a glen of maidenhead ferns lies a big old log, bark long gone, white and butter smooth. Here I eat my peanut butter sandwich. I can stretch out on the log and with the buzz of ies and bees fall asleep. And I mean really sleep, and have dreams, waking beside my fairyland creek to the sound of running water, the sun ickering through oak leaves, a sort of dream in itself.

I made friends with the farmer who owns much of the land. Also with the farmer’s German Shepherd, although we started o on the wrong foot. One evening I heard him crashing around, enjoying himself. He burst through the weeds and seeing me in the water jumped about ve feet straight up. He ran o in an absolute panic and no amount of whistling slowed him down. Since then, we kissed and made up. Or he kissed me, I should say. If he sees my truck, he joins me creekside. He is very quiet, sitting well-away and watching me cast, tipping his great black face quizzically as I hook and release another sh. He’s a good trout dog.

ere’s lonesomeness, too. Happiness brings it on.

I think of a lifelong friend now gone. Taken way too soon. We started together, two 10-year-olds catching bullheads with pistol-grip rods and push-button reels. He loved to sh more than anyone I ever met. An expert y caster, I can still see him holding a big trout. “What a trout!” he cries in that high voice, holding the sh up for me to see. So long, old pal.

Last June a hundred-year storm tore through Gilbert Valley, dropping trees, blowing out beaver dams, gouging new channels. I was heartbroken. All the old sweet spots were gone, the familiar quickrunning curves and sure- re pools. But the storm also ushed away mud the way miners uncover gold, through high-pressure hydraulics.  e exposed gravel became prime spawning habitat. is fall I’ve been catching (and releasing) a ton of brightly colored brookies, spawning males. e color on dorsal ns has to be seen to be believed, a sort of neon orange. Call it Brook Trout Orange. ere’s a reason for everything, the storms, the color on a brook trout, which you might think would doom the sh to the rst heron that sees it. Yet he survives to spawn. e river takes care of its own. e river is taking care of me.

So no, I don’t want to go to Alaska. Not this summer. Maybe some day.

Right now, I like my home creek. It took a long time to get to know her. And I still don’t really know her. Every day brings another mood I somehow missed, another silken run I haven’t fully appreciated, another lovely curve.

Her essence remains an intoxicating mystery. We are still talking about the creek, aren’t we? S

Dick Donnelly has appeared in Gray’s Sporting Journal, e Fly sh Journal, e Drake and others. He spends more days shing and hunting than working, and it shows.

Dances With the Death Angel

A minuet in three parts

By Roger Pinckney

THE Seaboard Airline Railway ran from New York to Miami, the route of the famed Orange Blossom Special, the crack express train that inspired the noted bluegrass tune of the same name.

IHey looky yonder, coming down that railroad track, It’s that Orange Blossom Special, bringing my baby back!

But to local black folks going the other way to see their relations in D.C., Philly or Harlem, it was e Chicken Bone Express. Denied access to the dining car, they packed

extravagant picnic lunches and by the time they got o way up in Yankeeland, all they had left was chicken bones. And there’s no song about that, but I knew an old farmer who named his prized bull Seaboard, “Cause when he work, he blow so!” and that will have to su ce for now. When I asked my pappy why they named a railroad after an airplane, he said “Son, the tracks were so smooooth, it was just like riding on air.”

Well maybe. e route from Savannah to Charleston ran though the sleepy little crossroads town of Lobeco, S.C., so named for the LongBellamy Company, which packed string beans, cukes and winter greens for the Northern markets. From Lobeco, it bypassed even sleepier Dale, then crossed Wimbee Creek to Big and Little Williman Islands, 14 miles across the sad and ruined old rice elds till you saw the next road and the rst RFD mailbox. If you walked those tracks, you could get into wild country inaccessible by any other means.

I’d park my old Chevy at the county boat landing on Wimbee Creek just a little after lunch, shoulder my favorite ri e, in those days a well-worn Marlin lever gun in .38-55, cross the trestle and strike out north, deer carcasses along the tracks, buzzardpicked remains, some gnawed down to little more than pitiful rags of skin and sinew. I reckoned if a deer was dumb enough to cross before a thundering Seaboard Airline locomotive, one would surely be dumb enough to try and cross before a man-child with a beat-up Marlin rife, but alas, none did.

I never worried about ending up like those deer. A 1909 Seaboard ad showed a woman next to a map of the mainline with a plumb bob, “Straight as a plumb-line” it bragged, so straight you could see an oncoming locomotive headlamp a dozen miles away. If you had your back to the train, the rails would warn you, popping and pinging beneath your feet.

Nuther thing about walking the tracks: Two ties are too long for a single step and one is too short, so I walked atop a rail instead. I had good strong ankles in those days and the Marlin held horizontally was like high-wire artist’s balance bar. But coming home one night, I slipped, turned an ankle and went sprawling and rolling.

A split second, nay, a nano-second later, before I had even hit the ragged railroad ballast stones, an

unlighted hand car whizzed by at speed. Sixty years later, I can still see surprise, astonishment and horror on the faces of the crew as they realized they had nearly killed a man.

I have often wondered if they still see mine.

Oh, Death Angel! You snatched at me but missed!

Try again. She did.

IITHE two-lane Edward Burton Rodgers Bridge ran three miles across the Broad River, from Jericho to Low Bottom and cut 30 miles o the trip to Savannah. Port Royal Sound and its Broad River tributary was hailed as the best natural harbor on the East Coast and was the scene of many skirmishes between competing Colonial powers as well as an all-day slug-fest between the Yankee navy and out-gunned Confederate defenders. Pirates, rum-runners and reefer smugglers loved it too, but Charleston got the port instead.

e State Ports Authority had—and still has—a monopoly on port development and operations. Based in Charleston, they would brook no competition from Port Royal or elsewhere. After enduring years of pestering politicians, they decided to put the matter to rest. ey o ered to pay for the bridge, so long as it was built to their speci cations. Predictably, the speci cations were for a bridge too low for a ship to ever get through. e highway department jumped on it and they named the bridge for Edward Burton Rodgers, the state senator who brokered the deal.

But I digress.

Besides opening up the Savannah honky-tonks to a bunch of aspiring young honky-tonkers, where they’d draw you a brew if you were tall enough to slide your quarter across the bar, that bridge made for some damn ne shing. ere were hog cobia in May, whiting most anytime, king sh if you were lucky, but the best was beneath the draw turntable in mid-summer when the spade sh were on the bite.

Over the wrecks and reefs o shore a spade sh would run an easy dozen pounds, but here they were about the size of a big crappie and striped like a sheepshead, but not so sneaky when they hit. e current out there ran like a millrace so you had only

about an hour either side of the tide-change, high tide or low, didn’t matter. Nothing fancy, just rig up a two-drop bottom rig with a teardrop sinker that wouldn’t get hung on all the oysters and barnacles. Launch your boat from the landing on the Jericho side, motor out and tie up to the wooden fenders that kept barges and shrimp boats o the concrete piling, climb up a convenient ladder, bait up with dead shrimp, drop your rig alongside the piling of your choice. Wasn’t nothing to bring home more than you cared to butcher. Catching sh the way I was, I never had any problem nding help.

at particular sultry July afternoon, it was a kid from my high school English class. We were tearing’em up when your typical summer squall came a’ rumbling down the river. Nothing special, mind you, just your average thunder-bumper, but it packed more punch than the Hiroshima bomb. If you don’t believe it ask Mr. Google, truthful mostly. Long as you’re at it, ask him about what happens when you get struck by lightning.

Everything from hemorrhoids to cosmic visions. I avoided the former, but the latter liked to wore me out.

ere’s an old sherman’s rhyme from my boyhood: Wind from the West, sh bite the best, Wind from the East, sh bite the least, Wind from the South, shut the shes’ mouth. Can’t think of anything that rhymes with lightning, except frightening. Bolts fell thick to the left and right, so close there was no thunder, just a sizzle and a crack as they hit the water and I am here to testify, they were barroom beer sign neon blue, as broad as a mule’s ass and twisted like Manilla rope. We huddled beneath the steel span, dry for the rst 10 minutes, but then the wind got behind the sheeted rain and too soon we were as wet as the concrete upon which we sat. After a particularly impressive display, I lost my grit and bolted for the boat, my shing buddy hot on my heels. He grabbed the line, pulled the boat close to the fender and I started down the ladder.

ere was a brass navigation light there, big as a toilet bowl, red on one side, green on the other. I had a hold of it and my feet were on the steel ladder when lightning nally struck the bridge.Great Gawd A’Mighty!

ere was the little white spot way out in middledistance, no bigger than an aspirin tablet, but it came

at me at blistering speed. Suddenly it was big as a vanilla Moon Pie, then a beach towel and nally a double bedsheet and it made a noise exactly like your vacuum cleaner when it makes a snatch at a piece of Kleenex. I felt myself falling. I heard myself scream.

I woke up on my back in the boat, kicking like a run-over dog. My buddy scrambled down behind me, loosed the line and the old Evinrude started on the rst pull. I ran it back to the landing standing up, spray and wind in my hair, cursing the storm like old King Lear, “Rage ye winds, blow and crack your cheeks!”

Shakespeare?

I knew right then I might be in big trouble.

I peed blood for a week, I forgot my momma’s and pappy’s birthdays. I would have forgotten my own middle name, but I did not have one to forget. But all the poems I had to memorize in high school— and promptly forgot—came rushing back, Byron, Shelley, Keats, the whole stinkin’ lot of ’em and I remember them yet, even Chaucer in the original Middle English, often at the most inappropriate moments.

I try and make excuses to my buddies. “I’m sorry, boys, I ain’t been right since I got struck by lightning.”

To which they invariably reply, “Don’t give us that crap, Pinckney! You were never right to begin with.”

IIIIT was a Britten-Norman Islander, a 10-passenger, slab-sided, twin-engine puddlejumper, idling on the gravel strip at Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica. I’d shed the Paci c side three days, snapper on the rocks, marlin, sails and mahi in deep water and now it was time to go home. I inquired about hiring a car. Maybe I could take some sh. I had 40 pounds of lets, mahi mostly. But there were some hellacious mountains in the way.

“Hey Juan, quantas horas a San Jose?”

Nothing in the ird World is measured by miles or kilometers but by time. You’d wonder why your britches weren’t measured by 38 seconds by 34.

Juan Santamaria International had non-stops to Miami and Atlanta, only three to four hours.

“Tiene un turbo, senor?”

Most cars here are diesel. Chinese diesel Jeeps

Continued on page 88

LASTS FOREVER. JUST LIKE THE STORIES.

Whether you’re in the blind or on foot in pursuit, there’s nothing quite like a well executed turkey hunt. When everything aligns just right and your preparation pays off with a wide spread and massive beard in your sights. It’s in moments like these when precision, performance and attention-to-detail matter most. That’s why we make every Williams Knife Company product with the important moments in mind. To give you the performance, quality and toughness you need when there’s no room for error. They’re designed to endure, so you can carry with confidence for seasons to come.

LEGENDARY KNIVES FOR LEGENDARY LIVES

Mousing Dorado

Photography by Barry & Cathy Beck

Walking the banks of these narrow Argentinian streams feels a lot like a trout adventure—until the explosions begin. Low water and big topwater flies bring golden river beasts to the surface, sparking an aerobatic display like no other. Violent. Voracious. No surrender.

The Iberá Wetlands are a birding and fishing paradise the size of Connecticut, comprising roughly three million acres of swamps, streams, lakes, and lagoons. More than 4,000 species of plants and animals live here, but none match the golden dorado’s bullying appetite. This is no place to be a mouse.

For more information see page 88.

Remind me…who are you again?

IShongo, 1961

By Rich Chiappone

In the redawn darkness the Sunday a er Easter of my 13th year, I crossed the street to the Poretti house carrying my spinning rod in one hand, a can of nightcrawlers in the other, and a Sucrets tin of salted minnows in my acket ocket. Cosmo oretti was the first good friend I’d made when I moved into the neighborhood by the Niagara River and, unlike me, he had older brothers. One of them knew things about fishing and hunting. The other owned a car.

Although we lived only one block from the river, we were heading almost 100 miles south to the Allegheny foothills near the town of Shongo, to the headwaters of the Genesee River. There we hoped to catch trout, exotic creatures absent from

RIVERBEND (DETAIL), BY GALEN MERCER

the fetid industrial Niagara. I had caught a few chubs down at the cement docks earlier that spring, along with one sun sh. is would be my rst grownup shing trip. e rst time I’d gone anywhere in a car without one of my parents.

Groggy from lack of sleep and wound up about traveling to the quasi-wilderness of New York’s Southern Tier, I staggered beneath the elms arching above our street on my way to the Poretti house. e corner streetlight glowed with a halo of soot particles from nearby Great Lakes Carbon, where my father worked. Bathed in its hazy light were Cosmo and his brother Johnny, leaning against a two-door, blueand-white ’57 Chevy, the trunk propped open. e youngest and oldest Poretti brothers stared into the starry sky overhead, Johnny saying something about Khrushchev and dogs ying in space.

Eighteen-year-old Johnny Poretti was a grown man in my eyes, out of school, his face sporting an eternal ve o’clock shadow, dark as an eclipse. Still living at home, he worked at the Union Carbide plant and poured his paychecks into the Chevy. ere was always another shiny chrome part to buy. He was the broody, serious type and paid little attention to us younger boys. Johnny rarely seemed happy except when he was out in the street polishing the car, a stack of 45s blaring from his record player on the concrete stoop. Cosmo and I liked to sit on the curb and listen to the new “race” music the white kids were just beginning to embrace. Stagger Lee. Stand By Me. Spanish Harlem. One summer day a red Plymouth convertible pulled up and a great-looking blonde hopped out. Cosmo poked me. “Debbie,” he whispered. We gaped as she leapt into Johnny’s arms, wrapped her legs around his hips, and kissed him. Right in the middle of the street.

As I walked up to Johnny’s Chevy, Cosmo said to him, “I invited Richie, okay?”

“Tackle in the trunk,” Johnny said, neutrally, “knuckleheads in the back.”

Cosmo and I climbed in, the smooth white leather cool beneath us. Johnny slid behind the wheel and lit a Chester eld. I sat for a moment, inhaling the delirious adult aroma of secondhand smoke, nobody saying anything. I knew we were waiting for 15-year-old Jerry, their middle brother. Jerry was the real sportsman of the family. At Cruickshank’s Tackle Shop, down on Bu alo Avenue, I’d seen grown men ask him where the perch were biting,

what he was using for black bass.

Johnny tapped the horn impatiently and muttered, “Dickhead.” A moment later Jerry appeared at the passenger door, a cigarette of his own glowing in the dim light. Cosmo and Johnny both had glossy black pompadours, but Jerry’s hair was a basket of ringlets curling around his head like a strange winter hat. He climbed into the shotgun seat, an apt description with him holding an actual ri e upright between his knees like a stagecoach guard. It was springtime and all hunting seasons were closed. I knew that much.

“Jerry, what are you going to shoot with that?”

Jerry turned in his seat and gave me a puzzled look. “Who are you again?”

at was Jerry’s running joke. I was over at the Poretti house nearly every day after school to escape my numerous younger brothers and sisters, and to soak up everything I’d need to know when I became a teenager in September. Jerry said that to me every time.

“It’s springtime,” I said. “I mean, what do you hunt now?”

Jerry stared at me over the seatback, smoke leaking from the corners of his tight lips. “ ere’s no season on varmints,” he said, nally. en he knitted his brow, quizzically. “Who are you again?”

Johnny snorted. “Leave the kid alone, Jer.” He punched the car into gear and we shtailed out of the neighborhood, adding to the patina of black rubber on the pavement in front of the Poretti house.

“Varmints,” I said. “Neat.”

Jerry stuck one nger in his ear and squinted up at the headliner like he couldn’t gure out where an annoying sound was coming from.

Cosmo jerked his thumb toward Jerry and mouthed, “Ass-wipe.”

Ithink hunting was in the Porettis’ blood. On Palm Sunday two weeks before,Cosmo’s grandmother had come to visit after mass. e old widow stepped out of the Porettis’ Fairlane station wagon in her black dress and ugly shoes, a scowl on her face, her purse hooked over one arm. In her other bony hand she gripped the Crossman air ri e her grandsons had given her. ey were that kind of family. She glowered at us kids playing Whi e ball in the street and muttered something in bitter Italian, clearly dissatis ed with all things modern and American—

except her pellet gun. Cosmo and I followed her into his basement and watched her climb a step stool, poke the air ri e out the high cellar window, and shoot into the horde of starlings marching across the Porettis’ back lawn. According to Cosmo, she always cooked and ate the birds in the Old World fashion. Jerry Poretti, like his grandmother, loved shooting things.

e oldest brother, Johnny was not really interested in hunting or shing and had been persuaded by Jerry to make the drive to the Southern Tier, seduced by the promise of rural highways and country roads where a guy could really step on the gas. ere was no point in owning a car like Johnny’s if you stayed in the city where the local cops were all too familiar with your vehicle and persistently heavy foot. You might as well drive one of those new Corvairs, or a Volkswagen or, God forbid, borrow the folks’ station wagon.

Leaving the chemical plants of Niagara Falls behind, we raced past Bu alo and the gigantic Lackawanna steel mills. I could smell the heat of the big coke ovens, the mills still throbbing with energy in those busy boomtime years, 30,000 workers toiling away unaware they’d all be unemployed in the next decade.

Miles south of the factories we crossed into the farm country of Cattaraugus County going 75, the yellow dashes on the pavement hurling themselves at Johnny’s headlights. With the windows down, the air smelled of grass and soil and clean rivers. e Motown girl groups the Porettis loved blasted from Johnny’s radio. Of course, whatever the Porettis loved, I loved too, although this music was all very new to me. At home, my mother ironed listening to Patti Page singing How Much Is at Doggie in the Window? Perry Como crooning Catch a Falling Star. Now the sounds of e Shirelles, e Crystals and e Ronettes had me squirming with desire for something I couldn’t name. We ew into the new morning, all four of us wailing, “Will you still love me tomorrow?”

day. Beyond them, thick woodlots huddled in dark shadows. Every couple of miles, a house and a barn would appear tucked back from the road at the end of a long, rutted driveway. Otherwise, nothing but open country rolled away from us on both sides of the road. is far from the cities, the radio produced only static, or equally irritating country music—all banjos and yodeling—and Johnny turned it o . On the road for nearly two hours, we had little left to say to each other and slid into a comfortable silence that I was sure indicated a kind of grownup understanding among men like us. I was nodding o , mesmerized by the hum of the pavement beneath our tires, when Jerry yelled, “Woodchuck!” He had the ri e out the window before the Chevy bucked to a full stop on the gravel shoulder.

e woodchuck was grazing in a eld of short grass a few yards from the foundation of a white two-story house, its windows still dark at that hour. At the sound of our tires skidding to a halt, the creature unwisely stood erect to identify potential danger approaching. Jerry laid his cheek against the ri e stock. e wind ru ed his curls. He clicked the safety o .

Johnny said, “Jer, it’s too close to the house!”

e blast of the shot exploding inside the car numbed my ears. I inhaled the tantalizing aroma of gun powder. Out in the dewy grass, the woodchuck lay on its back, four feet in the air like a housecat luxuriating in a square of sunlight. As the ri e crack echoed away into the hills, two huge black dogs erupted o the porch and came howling down the driveway toward us. A light snapped on in a secondoor window.

“Shit!” Johnny yelped, his tires spitting gravel until they bit the blacktop and we were ying again. Holding his ears, Cosmo groaned, “Jerry, give us some warning, wouldya?”

Jerry turned in his seat, eyes lit. “It was a clean shot though, wasn’t it?”

By the time we drifted through the small town of Olean—Johnny carefully staying under the speed limit through its quiet Victorian neighborhoods— and back out into the open countryside, dawn was bleeding through the forested horizon. Newly plowed farm elds steamed beneath the rst light of

We parked by a one-lane steel bridge over the Genesee River, no other people in sight. Although the sky was cloudless, the river was high and dark from spring runo . With early morning optimism we cast our salted minnows into the murk but caught nothing. Troutless, hope soon waned. I switched to wriggling worms and caught a stone-roller chub and a stunted rock bass. Mid-morning, Jerry, accustomed to catching more desirable sh, walked back to the

Continued on page 86

Whatever Land Is To You, Find it Here™

Turkey Gobblers Turkey Hunters

& W

What’s the difference? by Lee Hoots

hen I was a kid, an old turkey-necked pal of my dad’s named Joe talked about hunting wild turkey gobblers. He often ponti cated about just who, exactly, was the real turkey in such scenarios. Is it the bird or the hunter? is takes some thought to understand, and after many years of hunting gobblers I admit I still don’t know the answer.

In the beginning, a younger me had no clue what the hell he was talking about. I had only been turkey hunting once at that time, having seen a gobbler but never taken a shot because that tom seemed much too far away for me to hit such a small target—that being the head, which is the size of a man’s st. ose st-sized targets almost never stopped bobbing around, or at least they didn’t when I became determined to bag a bunch of turkeys half a life ago. Such a pipe dream never appeared—well, maybe it came in ts and starts.

My rst wild turkey hunt took place when I was barely old enough to drive, a time when I was still proud of my shiny new driver’s license. I bought a simple caller and headed for the hills. Although I spent hours calling, there was no response. Eventually, I saw a bird feeding on the ground at some distance. Since the turkey was out of range, I decided to stalk.

It worked for deer, after all. Quietly, I began my approach through the trees. As I gained distance, so did the bird. is continued as the afternoon light faded, and I was disappointed when the tom took to the trees and disappeared, no closer to me than it had been hours ago. Later that night, when I told my dad about this, he laughed. “You can’t stalk turkeys, son. You need to learn how to use your caller.” Little did I realize that hard lesson marked the rst of what was to become many unsuccessful hunts.

Over several dry years of hunting, old man Joe’s clever insight about wild turkey hunting haunted me. One time I headed out to be a successful wild turkey slayer on private ground, where I “sorta had permission” so long as I didn’t jump the barbed wire fence. Unknown to me, the rancher on the opposite side patrolled his land each and every day, and on this cool morning, just as I saw the red head of a gobbler

THE STRUT, BY SANDY SCOTT

bobbing away along the barbed fencing, a shot rang out. Some other hunter shot my bird somewhere down the fence line—another opportunity gone!

A very tall cowboy with an equally tall truck soon came to the fence with a shiny Colt tucked in a holster on his hip and proceeded to share with me a few nasty words no one could dream up in ve seconds. Even though I was on public land, his attitude and that big gun greatly encouraged me to leave the area. I eventually found some other public ground, but still hadn’t bagged a gobbler.

ree or four years later, still wild turkey-less, I made my way to Oregon along with my friend, Andy, who had successfully called in gobblers in several states each year. His past success made me con dent. On opening day, we sat out of sight under a tall tree in a downpour, listening to the rain fall and the birds ying down from the wet roosts behind us, hoping they would come our way. Two gobblers walked on Andy’s side and he bagged the biggest bird with the longest rope, while I sat in the rain, wondering just who was the turkey on that day. So far, I was zero for zero on turkey hunting.

e following day found the birds, the land and me no drier, but I soldiered on. We spent the day scouting and calling to no avail. Even Andy couldn’t

call one in. Tired, wet and cold, we decided to pack up. As we began the long trek toward our vehicle, we spotted a tom walking slowly near some bushes ahead of us. Andy had already unloaded his gun, so I took a quick shot. Ah, success, I thought, but I was brought down by the fact the tom wasn’t called in or coaxed into range with a turkey caller. It was soaked, small and bedraggled, and I’m pretty sure it had been as miserable as I was. I felt like a turkey for shooting it. Was that even a fair hunt? My conscience nagged, and I resolved to do better the next time. Would there be a next time?

Refusing to give up, I purchased all the top-grade slate and box callers I could nd, which only cost me about 300 bucks, and cheap at the price. I quickly learned how to use them,or so I thought,and eventually could get responses from toms perched in trees. Still, I struggled to bring a bird into range. Perhaps, I began to reason, the local wild turkey community had gotten too wily. Certain I had hit on the problem, I decided it was time to start hunting in other states.

I chose Texas because every hunter knows “Texas is ush with gobblers.” Why not take a try in the Lone Star State, I thought, where gobblers can be shot on any ranch a hunter can access. I soon found that birds were just as hard to call o the roost in Texas as they were in any other state, and maybe

DEVELOPED FOR HUNTERS, BY HUNTERS.

more so. Unfortunately, nobody reminded me about the rattlers under every clump of brush. I found it di cult to zero in on those bobbing heads while watching where I put my feet and listening for the telltale warning buzz of an aggravated rattler.

Once comfortably seated, I relaxed and began calling, and after an hour or so, I had a tom down and moving my way. Just as I took aim, my hunting partner yelled “snake!” I jumped up to see where the snake was while the turkey made a fast getaway. Now that really couldn’t be blamed on Texas, I told myself, and on the way back to my home state I determined I would, in all fairness, give Texas another try. But rst, I would buy a pair of high-quality snake boots.

On the rst morning of my second hunt in Texas, I was ecstatic when I successfully called a tom o its roost, but as soon as it hit the ground it ran out of range in the opposite direction. at same day, my sinus began to bother me, mostly due to bunking in an old dusty line shack made to accommodate two men at best. ere were four of us, the air conditioner only gave me an infection, and the out tter drank all the cold beer (note to self: bring your own beer). Near the end of that hunt, I switched from a shotgun to a ri e, shot a wild hog, and gave up on calling altogether. On the last day in Texas, I decided turkey hunting was for the birds and cowboys, and thoughts of giving up ran through my bird brain.

For several years after the Texas experience, I didn’t hunt wild turkeys and nearly gave it up altogether, but persistent thoughts of hunting these clever birds kept recurring like a bad dream. My rational brain told me to give it up, but no, I could not give in, and besides, those expensive callers lying in a box in my garage caused humiliation every time I saw them. So nally, when an opportunity to hunt gobblers in Florida came along, I snatched it up. e hunting locale was a swampy environment with a mossy canopy and thick growth. Even though it was wet, it was an amazingly beautiful area with all kinds of birds and plenty of wild turkeys. e hair stood up on the back of my head when I was told it was also a known alligator haunt, so I developed a safety routine—call, check 360 degrees for gators, call, check 360 degrees for gators, call...Even with this slow process, I nally got a response from a tom. e vegetation was so heavy I couldn’t see the bird, but I could hear it gobbling as it approached. Quickly I raised my gun and shot, checked 360 degrees for gators, ran toward the bird, checked 360 degrees for gators, and grabbed my prize. I haven’t

hunted turkeys in Florida since then.

After the Florida experience, I decided to go back and hunt gobblers in California. It’s true the birds there may be wily, but there are no alligators in the Golden State. All that 360-degree checking could give a man whiplash. Once again, I was with a buddy and headed for the central California foothills. Sure, the area had rattlesnakes, but I stood them o in Texas and I could do the same here. I was sure of it.

On opening day, we parked our pickup on public land along with a few other early bird hunters. When we stepped out of the truck, I eyed the other arrivals, happy to see nobody was packing a Colt. My buddy and I started uphill toward the tree line, eager to start calling in the big gobblers. A party of four moved uphill some distance away from us and, before long, we heard them shooting. Meanwhile, we were calling but getting no response.

After two hours we packed it up and headed for the truck. As we made our way down the hill, we saw the party of four leaving with three beautiful birds dangling over their shoulders. I gave them a thumbs up and told them to watch out for gators. at was the last time I hunted turkey in California.

In the United States the wild turkey population is estimated to be roughly 7,000,000. e birds very nearly became extinct and were brought back from the brink in what is regarded as a major conservation success. Today, the devils live in every state except Alaska. e estimated population in California is 240,000 birds, so why are they so darn hard to nd? Florida’s wild turkey population is estimated at as many as 700,000 birds, but why they choose to live in a swamp where both alligators and pythons eat them is hard to explain. And I shudder to think that Benjamin Franklin wanted to name the wild turkey our national bird.

I haven’t hunted turkey in years, but I still think about it, and those callers in my garage continue to haunt me. I’m not planning to hunt turkey again, but once in a great while I get the callers out and practice, even though there are no turkeys in my garage. My wife sometimes says there is one in the house. Maybe it’s time to give away the callers to some other turkey. S

Lee Hoots has been a hunter since his dad rst took him along at the age of seven. He favors big game, but also enjoys bird hunting and shing. Lee’s rst writing experience was with Western Outdoor News in California, during his time in college. A former editor of Guns & Ammo, Lee was also an editor for Peterson’s Hunting and, most recently editor-in-chief at Wolfe Publishing.

THE ALL-ELECTRIC GRUNT EVO DESIGNED & ASSEMBLED IN THE USA

Freedom. Recovery. Resurrection.

Photography by Marc Fryt

No boats or foot tra c. Just a single rod, one y box and your pup, out to wet wade the tiny blue lines that feed the larger rivers of eastern Washington.

e map looks di erent today, four years removed from the destruction of a century-old dam that once buried this canyon beneath a curtain of fathoms.

Bushy dry ies and a stealthy approach bring these sh to hand, but there’s more to consider. Freedom. Recovery. Resurrection. All of it personi ed by an eager trout feasting near the surface of a brisk stream that has nally found its natural course once again.

The Ol’ Settler of Deep Hole

On the local lunker, non-believers and the integrity of sport

By Irving Bacheller

Uncle Eb was a born lover of fun. But he had a solemn way of shing that was no credit to a cheerful man. It was the same when he played the bass violin, but that was also a kind of shing at which he tried his luck in a roaring torrent of sound. Both forms of dissipation gave him a serious look and manner, that came near severity. ey brought on his face only the light of hope and anticipation or the shadow of disappointment.

We had nished our stent early the day of which I am writing. When we had dug our worms and were on our way to the brook with pole and line, a squint of elation had hold of Uncle Eb’s face. Long wrinkles deepened as he looked into the sky for a sign of the weather, and then relaxed a bit as he turned his eyes upon the smooth sward. It was no time for idle talk. We tiptoed over the leafy carpet of the woods. Soon as I spoke he lifted his hand with a warning “Sh-h!” e murmur of the stream was in our ears. Kneeling on a mossy knoll we baited the hooks; then Uncle Eb beckoned to me.

I came to him on tiptoe.

“See thet there foam ’long side o’ the big log?” he whispered, pointing with his nger.

I nodded.

“Cre-e-ep up jest as ca-a-areful as ye can,” he went on whispering. “Drop in a leetle above an’ let’er oat down.”

en he went on below me, lifting his feet in

slow and stealthy strides.

He halted by a bit of drift wood and cautiously threw in, his arm extended, his gure alert. e squint on his face took a rmer grip. Suddenly his pole gave a leap, the water splashed, his line sang in the air and a sh went up like a rocket. As we were looking into the tree tops, it thumped the shore beside him, quivered a moment and opped down the bank. He scrambled after it and went to his knees in the brook coming up empty handed. e water was slopping out of his boot legs.

“Whew!”said he, panting with excitement as I came over to him. “Reg’lar ol’ he one,” he added, looking down at his boots. “Got away from me—consarn him! Hed a leetle too much power in the arm.”

He emptied his boots, baited up and went back to his shing. As I looked up at him he stood leaning over the stream, jiggling his hook. In a moment I saw a tug at the line. e end of his pole went under water like a ash. It bent double as Uncle Eb gave it a lift. e sh began to dive and rush. e line cut the water in a broad semicircle and then went far and near with long, quick slashes. e pole nodded and writhed like a thing of life. en Uncle Eb had a look on him that is one of the treasures of my memory. In a moment the sh went away with such a violent rush, to save him, he had to throw his pole into the water.

“Heavens an’ airth!” he shouted, “the ol’ settler!” e pole turned quickly and went lengthwise

(Adapted from Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country by Irving Bacheller, Boston, 1900.)

BROTHERS, BY BRETT JAMES SMITH

into the rapids. He ran down the bank and I after him. e pole was speeding through the swift water. We scrambled over logs and through bushes, but the pole went faster than we. Presently it stopped and swung around. Uncle Eb went splashing into the brook. Almost within reach of the pole he dashed his foot upon a stone, falling headlong in the current. I was close upon his heels and gave him a hand. He rose hatless, dripping from head to foot and pressed on. He lifted his pole. e line clung to a snag and then gave way; the tackle was missing. He looked at it silently, tilting his head. We walked slowly to the shore. Neither spoke for a moment.

“Must have been a big sh,” I remarked.

“Powerful!” said he, chewing vigorously on his quid of tobacco as he shook his head and looked down at his wet clothing. “In a desp’rit x, ain’t I?”

“Too bad!” I exclaimed.

“Seldom ever hed sech a disapp’intment,” he said. “Ruther counted on ketchin’ thet sh—he was s’well hooked!”

He looked longingly at the water a moment. “If I don’t go hum,” said he, “an’ keep my mouth shet, I’ll say sumthin’ I’ll be sorry fer.”

He was never quite the same after that. He told often of his struggle with this unseen, mysterious sh and I imagined he was a bit more given to re ection. He had had hold of the “ol’ settler of Deep Hole,”—a sh of great in uence and renown there in Faraway. Most of the local shermen had felt him tug at the line one time or another. No man had ever seen him for the water was black in Deep Hole. No sh had ever exerted a greater in uence on the thought, the imagination, the manners, or the moral character of his contemporaries. Tip Taylor always took o his hat and sighed when he spoke of the “ol’ settler.” Ransom Walker said he had once seen his top n and thought it longer than a razor. Ransom took to idleness and chewing tobacco immediately after his encounter with the big sh and both vices stuck to him as long as he lived. Everyone had his theory of the “ol’ settler.” Most agreed he was a very heavy trout. Tip Taylor used to say that in his opinion, “’Twas nuthin’ more ’n a plain, overgrown, common sucker,” but Tip came from the Sucker Brook country where suckers lived in colder water and were more entitled to respect.

Mose Tupper had never had his hook in the “ol’

settler” and would believe none of the many stories of adventure at Deep Hole that had thrilled the township.

“ et sh, hes made s’ many liars ’round here ye dunno who t’ b’lieve,” he had said at the corners one day, after Uncle Eb had told his story of the big sh. “Somebody t’ knows how t’ sh hed oughter go ’n ketch him fer the good o’ the town—thet’s what I think.”

Now Mr. Tupper was an excellent man but his incredulity was always too bluntly put. It had even led to some ill feeling.

He came in at our place one evening with a big hook and line from “down east”—the kind of tackle used in salt water.

“What ye goin’ t’ dew with it?” Uncle Eb inquired.

“Ketch thet sh ye talk s’ much about—goin’ t’ put him out o’ the way.”

“’Taint fair,” said Uncle Eb. “It’s reedic’lous. Like leading a pup with a log chain.”

“Don’t care,” said Mose. “I’m goin t’ go shin’ t’morrer. If there reely is any sech sh—which I don’t believe there is I’m goin’ t’ rassle with him an mebbe tek him out o’ the river. et sh is sp’ilin the moral character o’ this town. He oughter be rode out on a rail—thet sh hed.”

How he would punish a trout in that manner, Mr. Tupper failed to explain, but his metaphor was always a worse t than his trousers and that was bad enough.

It was just before haying and there being little to do, we had also planned to try our luck in the morning. When at sunrise we were walking down the cow path to the woods, I saw Uncle Eb had a coil of bed cord on his shoulder.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“Wall,” said he, “goin’ t’ hev fun anyway. If we can’t ketch one thing, we’ll try another.”

We had great luck that morning and when our basket was near full, we came to Deep Hole and I made ready for a swim in the water above it. Uncle Eb had looped an end of the bed cord and tied a few pebbles on it with bits of string.

“Now,” said he presently, “I want t’ sink this loop t’ the bottom an’ pass the end o’ the cord under the drift wood so t’ we can fetch it ’crost under water.”

ere was a big stump just opposite with roots running down the bank into the stream. I shoved the line under the drift with a pole and then hauled

it across where Uncle Eb drew it up the bank under the stump roots.

“In ’bout half an hour I calculate Mose Tupper’ll be along,” he whispered. “Wisht ye’d put on yer clo’s an’ lay here back o’ the stump an’ hold on t’ the cord. When ye feel a bite give a yank er two an’ then haul in like Sam Hill— fteen feet er more quicker ’n scat. Snatch his pole right away from him. en lay still.”

Uncle Eb left me shortly, going upstream. It was near an hour before I heard them coming. Uncle Eb was talking in a low tone, as they came down the other bank.

“Drop right in there,” he was saying, “an’ let her drag down through the deep water deliberate like. Git clus t’ the bottom.”

Peering through a screen of bushes, I could see an eager look on the unlovely face of Mose. He stood leaning toward the water and jiggling his hook along the bottom. Suddenly I saw Mose jerk and felt the cord move. I gave it a double twitch and began to pull. He held hard for a ji y and then stumbled and let go, yelling like mad. e pole hit the water with a splash and went out of sight like a diving frog. I brought it well under the foam and drift wood. Deep Hole resumed its calm, unru ed aspect. Mose went running toward Uncle Eb.

“ ’S a whale!” he shouted. Ripped the pole away quicker ’n lightning.”

“Where is it?” Uncle Eb asked.

“Tuk it away f’n me,” said Mose. “Grabbed it jes’ like thet,” he added with a violent jerk of his hand.

“What d‘he dew with it?” Uncle Eb inquired.

Mose looked thoughtfully at the water and scratched his head, his features all a tremble.

“Dunno,” said he. “Swallered it mebbe.”

“Mean t’ say ye lost hook, line, sinker, ’n pole?”

“Hook, line, sinker, ’n pole,” he answered mournfully. “Come nigh haulin me in, tew.”

“’Taint possible,” said Uncle Eb.

Mose expectorated, his hands upon his hips. He looked down at the water.

“Wouldn’t eggzac’ly say ’twas possible,” he drawled, “but ’twas a fact.”

“Yer mistaken,” said Uncle Eb.

“No, I ain’t,” was the answer. “I tell ye I see it.” “ en if ye see it, the nex thing ye orter see ’s a doctor. ere’s sumthin’ wrong with you sumwheres.”

“Only one thing the matter o’ me,” said Mose,

with a little twinge of remorse. “I’m jest a natural born, perfect durn fool. Never could believe there was any sech sh.”

“Nobody ever said there was any sech sh,” said Uncle Eb. “He’s done more t’ you ’n he ever done t’ me. Never served me no sech trick as thet. If I was you I’d never ask nobody t’ b’lieve it. ’S a leetle tew much.”

Mose bent slowly and picked up his hat. en he returned to the bank and looked regretfully at the water.

“Never see the beat o’ thet,” he went on. “Never see sech power ’n a sh. Knocks the spots o any sh I ever hearn of.”

“Ye riled him with that big tackle o’ yourn,” said Uncle Eb. “He wouldn’t stan’ it.”

“Feel jest as if I’d hed holt uv a wil’ cat,” said Mose. “Tuk the hull thing—pole an’ all—quicker n’ lightning. Nice a bit o’ hickory as a man ever see. Gol’ durned if I ever heern’ o’ the like o’ that, ever.” He sat down a moment on the bank.

“Got t’ resta minute,” he remarked. “Feel kind o’ wopsy after thet squabble.”

ey soon went away. And when Mose told the story of the swallered pole, he got the same sort of reputation he had given to others. Only it was real and large and lasting.

“What d’ ye think uv it?” Mose asked, when he had nished.

“Wall,” said Ransom Walker, “wouldn’t want t’ say right out plain t’ yer face.”

“’Twouldn’t be p’lite,” said Uncle Eb soberly.

“Sound a leetle ha’sh,” Tip Taylor added.

“ et sh has jerked the fear o’ God out o’ ye, thet’s the way it looks t’ me,” said Carlyle Barber.

“Yer up ’n the air, Mose,” said another. “Need a sinker on ye.”

“Tell ye what I’ll do,” said Mose sheepishly. “I’ll b’lieve you fellers, if you’ll b’lieve me.”

“What, swop even? Not much!” said one, with emphasis. “’Twouldn’t be fair. Ye’ve ast us t’ b’lieve a genuwine out ’n out impossibility.” Mose lifted his hat and scratched his head thoughtfully. ere was a look of embarrassment in his face.

“Might a ben dreamin’,” said he slowly. “I swear it’s gittin’ so here ’n this town a feller can’t hardly b’lieve himself.”

“Fur’s my experience goes,” said Ransom Walker, “he’d be a fool ’f he did.

“’Minds me o’ the time I went shin’ with Ab

omas,” said Uncle Eb. “He ketched an ol’ socker the fust thing. I went o by myself ’n got a goodsized sh but ’twant s’big ’s hisn. So I tuk ’n opened his mouth ’n poured in a lot o’ ne shot. When I come back, Ab looked at my sh ’n begun t’ brag. When we weighed ’em, mine was a leetle heavier.

“What!” says he. “’Taint possible thet leetle cuss uv a trout ’s heavier ’n mine.”

“’Tis sartin,” I said.

“Dummed deceivin’ business,” said he as he hefted ’em both. “Gittin’ so ye can’t hardly b’lieve the stillyurds.” S

Forthe record, “ e Ol’ Settler of Deep Hole” is a tale that almost never was. It appeared as chapter 10 in Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country, but Bacheller penned it after he’d completed most of the manuscript. His publisher had requested the addition of “a humorous shing adventure for Uncle Eb.” Exactly why, we’ll never know. e result is one of the great shing stories of the Gilded Age.

Actually, Bacheller hadn’t known how the publisher would respond to the manuscript draft, what he might request. But a shing chapter? at was cake to a young writer who had grown up in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in the 1860s. A trout- lled brook twisted through the back elds and woodlots of the family farm and had provided Irving and his siblings with more adventures than they could count.

A rural childhood in the 19th century typically came with bleak conditions and general deprivation, but Bacheller remembered his boyhood as stable, if rustic. His father was a genial, hard-working farmer, his mother a lover of Shakespeare who encouraged Irving in his studies. Apprenticed to a storekeeper at 13, the honest and country-strong Bacheller, didn’t seem to possess the hard edges necessary for survival in the shark-infested waters of 19th century business. Twenty- rst century folks would have called him a dreamer, or maybe said that he spent too much time in his head. But back in Bacheller’s day, common wisdom would have echoed the narrator’s father in Eben Holden: “ et boy’ll have to be a minister. He can’t work.”

In truth, Bacheller was plenty ambitious. He just loved the life of the mind. He ourished as a student at St. Lawrence University in Canton, just a few miles from home. (Today, one of the St. Lawrence buildings

is named “Eben Holden.”) After graduation, Bacheller moved to New York City, where he struggled to gain a toehold in the churning world of big-city reporting. When nally hired to write a newspaper column reviewing hotels, he insisted on 10 dollars per week. e editor laughed and explained that this was not the sticks and told him he had to accept 20.

Bacheller proved a quick study. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, novels typically appeared rst as newspaper serials, and Bacheller realized that a fellow could make a nice chunk of change by brokering those deals for other novelists. Before long, he had started the rst newspaper syndicate in the United States. He brought works by Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling to American audiences by selling their work to Sunday papers across the country. He befriended a young writer named Stephen Crane and published initial installments of a novel titled e Red Badge of Courage.

Bacheller also longed to write his own ction and began working on a manuscript based on his childhood in northern New York. Meanwhile his syndicate business had run aground and, recently married and needing money, he took a job under Joseph Pulitzer at the New York World. But Bacheller’s wife, Anna, who at the point believed in the book even more than he did, told him to keep going on the project—and he convinced Pulitzer to grant him a three-month leave. e result was Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country.

It was the book that Bacheller was born to write, given his love of the woods of northern New York. As he recollected later in life, “[I] grew up hunting and shing and I might have been a guide and a timber cutter, the two occupations that paid best in that neighborhood. ree dollars cash a day was the wage of a guide.” He had become “citi ed” as an adult, but he had deep roots in St. Lawrence County, and between several siblings who had died young and his mother and other relatives who still lived up north, the attachments held the dearest of sentiments. For a young writer, they were stories waiting to be told.

roughout his life, Bacheller saw duty in such callings. Two decades later, in his late 50s, he travelled to France to report on e Great War and later played an important role in the development of Rollins College in Florida. A man of unquestioned character, with sharp eyes and a bushy moustache, Bacheller continued writing

Continued on page 90

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BY ANY OTHER AM

N

o

What’s so special about whitefish?

Like writers who garden, all of whom seem compelled, eventually, to share stories of their adventures messing around in soil, shing writers, especially writers who y sh, and of those the ones who sh for trout most of all, at some point take it upon themselves to detail their shameless a ection for white sh.

It’s hard not to follow suit. After all, who of us hasn’t experienced the pleasure, or at least relief, of a few white sh tugging on the end of the line when the trout appear to have grown comatose in the cold? Or those days when the closest thing you see to a bug turns out to be crumbs, from your morning bagel, stuck to your 2.0 readers. Or the sparse hatch, you discover, is really a new eye oater causing you to

swat at nothing, especially while you’re trying to tie on another di erent, and probably pointless, new y.

Still, the praise you hear for white sh always sounds a little backhanded. It’s like trying to get excited about how well your rhubarb is growing. Or the Swiss chard. Or showing o a lunker-sized summer squash.

Yeah, but.

I can agree, on the other hand, that coming up tight to a white sh, when you’re hoping to catch trout, is far less disagreeable, or disappointing, than sticking a largescale sucker, Catostomus macrocheilus, so common on lower Columbia basin tributaries when shing in late spring for steelhead. I’ve been known, as well, to dredge up more than my fair share

of these beastly creatures while running a pair of small nymphs, escorting a pellet of lead, along the edges of Deschutes River whitewater, a talent for which I don’t expect to earn anyone’s even eeting respect.

Your paean to white sh, anyway, will rarely, if ever, ascend into a hallelujah chorus venerating the species’s ravishing strike, the tenacity of the ght, a white sh’s staying power, the allegory of heart.

e most emphatic response inspired will often end upon discovery that our y is tucked into the hinge at the base of one of the sh’s pectoral ns. No trace of glory, I’m sorry to say, accompanies such enfeebling sport.

Nor is size what matters, although I’m pretty sure most of us have brought one or two to hand that we still hold dear. I recall one along a rip-rap bank on the Deschutes, above Trout Creek, that I was sure was a steelhead until my buddy, Fred Trujillo, hollered from far downstream. It looked like a white seabass. en there was the shocking beast I wrestled to the bank along the long island downstream from the South Junction campground. In hand, it was the size of a steelhead—and when I noticed an angler passing along the railroad grade, I called to him to share a look at the thing.

“Some big white sh in there,” he said, dismissing my enthusiasm.

en I lifted the sh out of the water.

“Oh, my God,” he added.

The very rst white sh I recall encountering were on the Teton River, near Driggs, Idaho. is was my rst real stay in trout country; up until then, trout—and, by way of them, y shing—were the sh of far- ung vacations, escapes from the arid Southern California coast.

I had a job that summer replacing a water line, prone to breaking in winter, that ran a quarter of a mile, and nearly 500 vertical feet, from a spring above a rich woman’s so-called cabin on a thousand acres surrounded by national forest. e woman’s son and I carried three-quarter-inch galvanized pipe, and bags of Red-e-crete, up through the woods on our shoulders. We had to encase every other pipe joint in concrete; otherwise the weight of the pipe, hanging down the steep hillside, could pull the joints apart. It was tough, grueling, mind-numbing labor—exactly

the kind of work that added to the romance of being a so-called y sher in trout country.

Still, as Gary LaFontaine pointed out in his forward to John Gierach’s early book, Trout Bum, spells like this are, for most of us, no more than an adventure, nothing that quali es as a genuine way of life. I was, at best, a dilettante, a refugee from my crowded homeland, still deeply attached to a heritage of surf, a writer in training without any clear notion how to transform words into any semblance of a wage. I should also mention that this was years before Trout Bum was published, before I’d ever heard of Gierach, before Gary LaFontaine published Caddis ies—before I even knew there was such a thing as sporting or outdoor literature, much less a job title like shing writer.

e white sh were in the long quiet pools crossed by two di erent gravel roads skirting ranches on the way into town. A college friend, Peter Syka, had driven up from La Jolla to sh with me, and one evening we killed a couple of good-sized white sh, for reasons that still escape me, other than we caught them and that’s what you did with good sh—as long as it was legal.

I’m still struck by our naiveté. Of course, this was before smartphones, iPads, PCs, the internet. Information was conveyed in books and magazines— or passed along rsthand from people in the know. Yet growing up there’d been no y shop in Hacienda Heights, La Habra, nor even La Puente. In fact, nobody I knew in the freeway suburbs talked about y shing, white sh—or how to make a living as a writer.

I take that back. My father, like his father, knew a little bit about the sport. Before moving to California, they had both bought cane rods, in Nebraska, to sh for pan sh. Over time, my father discovered the pleasures of hiking into the Sierra Nevada and getting bunches of small brook trout on a size 16 or 18 Adams, a reasonable approximation of the vexing mosquitos. Still, he often claimed he didn’t like eating sh, especially trout, and there was never much discussion about what you did and didn’t kill with a y rod.

Also, he read Harold Robbins.

Peter and I brought our white sh back to the camp, on the rich woman’s property, where I was now helping her son get started building a genuine log cabin. I had a ’55 Chevy wagon, propped level on blocks, its windshield facing the Tetons. We red up my Coleman stove, heated oil in a cast iron skillet.

Together, we’d by then caught plenty of surf perch; we knew how to dip sh in egg and corn meal and fry them up whole.

Brian, the rich woman’s son, came out of his tent to see what we were doing.

“White sh?” he said. “Nobody eats white sh.”

Nearly ve full decades later, what seems important now is not who does and doesn’t eat white sh. Instead, in the wake of all that’s changed in the West, with invasive species in ltrating rivers and streams at alarming rates, at the expense of who knows what, I’m just happy that white sh are still with us, an integral part of our salmonid watersheds, even if we don’t understand the signi cant role they might play.

Or recognize that they’re at least as much fun to catch as Nebraska pan sh.

My buddy Joe Kelly, the sheries biologist, got me thinking about white sh this winter after he snuck out, without me, and found a few in a local river where a dam was pulled out over a decade ago.

e dam gone, trout and white sh both are now able to migrate throughout the system, coming downstream to feast on salmon eggs washed from redds during highwater. More important, perhaps, the chinook and coho have returned to the river in increasing numbers, in large part due to the perfectly-sized aggregate that was released and spread throughout the lowest reaches of the river when the dam was breached. Above the old dam site, the river runs through deep basalt ssures, with only pockets of spawning habitat. But with the dam gone, the lower reaches, replenished during highwater, now support a healthy mix of resident and anadromous sh alike.

“White sh so fat they looked deformed,” said Joe.

I couldn’t get there before the next wave of storms rolled in o the Paci c and pushed our westside rivers back to the tops of their banks. Why not a winter day on the Deschutes? e drive east reminded me not only is it always a good day to go shing, but also, where I live, down close to the Columbia, it’s a good idea to escape, every chance you get, the persistent blanket of winter gray that grips the lowlands weeks at a time, an inversion layer

that keeps temperatures just above freezing with little or no change throughout the day—a perfect storm of stagnation that can threaten the spirits of even the most optimistic among us, but especially those of us inclined to sense, given half a chance, the walls closing in all around.

e road climbed in and out of fog until a sudden sweep of blue sky outlined the surrounding hillsides. Swaths of dormant wheat t neatly between plowed slopes just beginning to blush green. Patches of snow still lay in the shadows of yam-colored oaks along Fifteenmile Creek, while overhead a murder of crows studded yet another verse of cloudless sky.

By the time I crested the nal pass and started into the Deschutes watershed, I wondered what I had been doing lately that seemed important enough to keep me from coming this way more often.

e pullouts and campgrounds along the access road were all but deserted. Not a bug nor even bird wherever I stopped. But when I pushed through a thicket of blackberries beyond the parking at Jones Canyon, I could hear the rattle and kissing-like sounds of quail scurrying about nearby, a good sign I might not have recognized had I not waded out into the river and begun coming up tight on small, willing sh.

Nymphing 101: An egg pattern and little Hare’s Ear bracketing a pellet of lead. Trout and white sh both, every one of them stuck to the dainty egg, tied on a curved, light-wire number 14 hook.

End of review—even if there’s more to it than words can ever describe.

And, come to think of it, is there ever really more we need to say about white sh? Especially white sh in winter? e day ended abruptly: One minute I was still into it, still hooking sh; the next thing I knew I felt silly, even reckless, as the light changed, the temperature fell, and I sensed I had better warm up before my body—and mind—began to implode.

Back home, in front of the woodstove, I always try to recall one good take, one good sh—something to remember the day by. But the edges of this one had already begun to blur. After all: What’s so special about white sh? S

Gray’s Angling Editor  Scott Sadil is rarely more delighted than when something new and unexpected appears on the end of his line.

by Terry Wieland

A Walk in the Black Forest

Of knights, dragons and...

The years after 1945 were the great age of the encyclopedia. e boys were back from overseas, everyone was busy begetting the baby boom, and book salesmen were going door to door convincing prospective parents the best thing they could do for the forthcoming was provide a set of unbelievably heavy volumes that told everything about everything. ey weren’t far wrong. In those days before television, everyone read—at least everyone I knew.

e hallowed Britannica was the standard by which “books of knowledge” were measured. My parents, unable to a ord the Britannica, invested in 14 volumes of Richards Topical Encyclopedia and, frankly, I’m glad they did.

I discovered the row of pristine dark red tomes displayed in the living room at the age of eight, around the same time I was given a copy of Antonia Pakenham’s Robin Hood, and I’ve never looked back. Between e ree Musketeers (unabridged, replete with sex and devilry, at the age of ve) and Robin Hood, I was inculcated with a sense of honor and proper manly behavior, and Richards Topical showed me what I should look like and how I should dress. at, I think, explains everything, and we’ll leave it there.

e Richards volumes were heavily illustrated with black-and-white photographs of swords and halberds from museums, paintings of knightly doings and frames from old movies showing eda Bara rising from the lake brandishing Excalibur. All the Norse sagas were there, and I was entranced by the winged helmets of the Valkyries. I still am. ese images—some now half-forgotten, others still vivid—made a deep impression on my pre-teen psyche because the rst time I came into contact with German Schützen ri es of the golden age, an age that coincided neatly with Richard Wagner’s Ring, Wotan, Siegfried and a variety of toothsome Brunhildes, I was a sitting duck.

From the moment I picked one up, I was smitten. It was not so much its undoubted workmanship and, I was sure, stellar accuracy, as its link with the past. Germans have a propensity for turning tools into totems, whether it’s a ri e, a dagger or a Messerschmidt, and the ri es they used for their ancient pastime of o hand target shooting were especially prone.

Schützen matches trace their history back 500

years to men with crossbows, each town having its club and shooting range. By 1880, they were shooting breechloading ri es, and over the course of the next 35 years these evolved into some of the most mechanically ingenious and artistically lavish rearms ever created outside the court of Louis XIV.

e Schützen ri e was designed for one purpose, and one purpose only: shooting o hand at a small target 300 meters away. Anyone studying the origins of ergonomics should take a look at these. While the stocks appear extravagant, they are very carefully crafted to t the shooter’s physique.

e elaborate lever provides a place for each nger, there is a thumb rest carved into the stock, and this positions the trigger nger perfectly to caress the set trigger, which can be so nely tuned that it res at the touch of a butter y’s wing. e cheek rest is deep as a pillow, to position the eye for the complex sights, and the buttplate hooks under the arm to provide a counterbalance to the barrel.

From the start of the breech-loading cartridge era, around 1860, until 1914, these ri es evolved using a wide variety of actions. e authors of Alte Scheibenwa en, the three-volume history of Schützen in Germany, believe there may be as many as 300 distinctly di erent actions used. And since these ri es were built one at a time in small shops, each was as individual as a Rembrandt.

Broadly speaking, the actions can be divided into two groups: the Martini and its derivatives, and the “falling blocks” similar to the American Sharps, with the Aydt being the major one. Large factories did play a role. For example, Carl Wilhelm Aydt struck a deal with C.G. Haenel around 1888 to produce ri es using his action. ese were marked Haenel Original Aydt, and until his death in 1923, Aydt personally inspected and test- red each ri e before it left the factory. However, Haenel also sold actions to individual gunmakers, and after the patent expired in 1904, many set out to “improve” on the Aydt, with the result being a half-dozen distinct variations.

German retailers insisted on having their own names on the ri es they sold, so if you see a ri e marked “A. Gesinger, Bremen,” as is the older one in the photograph, that’s the retailer, not the maker. And the maker? Anyone’s guess really. In the years before German proof became mandatory (1894) ri es were sold with few markings. ere was no

single large manufacturer of Martini actions, as Haenel was with the Aydt, and there were a dozen identi able variations.

e Martini, of course, is a Swiss development that made the original American Peabody action hammerless. e Germans then altered this in any number of ways, some giving it an internal hammer.

One thing almost all German Schützen ri es have in common is being easy to dismantle with a minimum of tools. e sights are usually detachable using a clock key, so they can be stored in a protective case. is is the reason many ri es are found today with no sights. e making of double-set triggers became a separate specialty, and these are found with as many as seven levers. e more levers, the more sensitive the trigger. Trigger groups are mounted on a plate, which is also easily detached.

As in America, where target cartridges became gradually smaller (.45, to .38, to .32), so did the German, eventually xing on the 8.15x46R. is cartridge was developed by Adolf Frohn in the 1890s and standardized in 1909. It is remarkably similar to the American .32-40, which came to dominate target shooting in the U.S. around the same time.

All these factors make life di cult for collectors.

ere being no standard models, and few old catalogue references, nothing can be classi ed as “factory original.” ere are no standard engraving patterns and few particular features. is forces prospective buyers to fall back on their own knowledge of actions and features, and ability to judge condition.

As a result, some Schützen ri es might change hands for a few hundred dollars, others for a few thousand, and one or two for many thousand. It can depend on whether the sights are present, which is a big selling point; the sights are hardly standardized either, so nding suitable replacements is di cult. Some ri es might have been damaged and then restored, and in the case of a skillful restoration, it’s di cult to tell.

Estimates are that probably 75,000 ne Schützen ri es were made between 1860 and 1939, when the last Aydt left the Haenel factory—vastly more than the 5,000 or so ne Schützen ri es produced in the U.S. by such as Ballard and Stevens. Of these, as many as half may have perished through neglect, looting or deliberate destruction. Given the history

of Germany since 1914, it’s a wonder any survived at all. But that simply makes those that did all the more precious.

Aesthetically, German ri es provide more scope for interest than American ones because of the Teutonic penchant for elaborate stock carving, and the recounting of tales through engraving. On a particular ri e, one might nd the story of William Tell, or Siegfried’s Rhine journey; St. Hubertus and the stag is a popular theme, or any number of village romances. Some is deep relief engraving, some a combination of stippling and carving, with oak leaves, beer barrels and barmaids.

Since the 1990s, there has been a revival of interest in Germany, with collectors’ associations and even Schützenfests similar to the annual gatherings of old. Of course, there has been nothing on the scale of, say, Munich in 1906, when almost 5,000 shooters (and 50,000 visitors in total) gathered in an “Olympic” village built for the occasion, complete with shooting ranges and beer halls. And so far, no one is making commemorative beer steins, medals, banners, targets and even pocket watches for the participants to take home. is paraphernalia of pageantry provides further scope for collectors, or anyone who just wants a few reminders of the past to go along with a lovely ri e.

It’s as pointless to yearn for a return of the great shooting matches as it is to hope for the rebirth of tournaments with knights on horseback. And today, even the encyclopedias of days gone by are a rarity. No more can a nine-year-old smuggle Vol. 13 into his room to marvel at by ashlight, long after he’s supposed to be asleep.

A few years ago, at the Rock Island auction, a father and daughter browsed down the racks. He was a Winchester collector, engrossed in models and factory originality; she was a bored teenager— bored, that is, until they came to a dozen Schützen ri es replete with engraving of dragons and hornblowing Vikings and stocks with carved knightserrant. She brightened up and purred, “Now these are really cool!”

ere’s hope yet. S

Shooting editor Wieland’s second childhood began before his rst even ended, and he is now into his third. Or is it his fourth?

Francis Lee Jaques

The way we were

As a child of Midtown Manhattan, any inklings I had of wild places were borne of the Central Park Zoo and the hallowed halls of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). e elephants, bu alos and baboons of the Akeley Hall of African Mammals became as familiar to me as cousins.

However, if Akeley is remembered for his lifesized mount of P.T. Barnum’s elephant, Jumbo, and for strangling a leopard in Africa with his bare hands, it is the resonant landscapes in the museum’s dioramas, painted by Francis Lee Jaques (1887–1969), that transport us from the Swiss Alps and Peru to the Galapagos Islands, Gobi Desert and Arctic.

In Jaques’s long-delayed, late-starting career, out of 80 diorama habitats, he painted 50—an estimated 30,000 square feet—for the AMNH alone. is includes all 18 in its Whitney Memorial Hall of Oceanic Birds, its murals and decorative maps. To paint the Hall’s immersive domed ceiling with the skyscape for albatross, petrels and frigate birds, he laid on his back on the sca olding à la Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel.

“Such beauty one wants to preserve—to make it available to others,” Jaques wrote, sensing that the natural world as he witnessed it would soon be gone.

Jaques’s (pronounced jay-kwes—accent on the jay, kwes rhyming with squeeze) expanded vision of animal environments makes him, for many, the rst wildlife artist to express entire ecological systems. He is recognized for setting his subjects into their landscape rather than simply against it.

e artist, who started life as an uneducated Midwestern farm boy, would mingle with explorers such as Osa and Martin Johnson, and artists including William R. Leigh and Charles Livingston Bull. He traveled on prestigious scienti c museum expeditions to Europe, Central and South America,

the Bahamas, the South Paci c and Arctic, sketching panoramic landscapes for his dioramas’ backgrounds, collecting vegetation for their foregrounds and skinning specimens for mounting.

Jaques’s understanding of nature reaches back to his rugged, self-reliant youth in Kansas and Minnesota during the last pioneer years on the prairie. Born in Genesco, Ill., in 1887 in his grandfather’s white frame house, his father Ephraim Parker Jaques, of French Huguenot descent, moved the 12-year-old boy and his family to his wife’s people in Elmo, Kan., where chores included making soap, churning butter and cutting and thrashing hay. By 14, Francis was working 10 hours a day, six days a week, feeding and milking cows for seven dollars a month plus room and board.

Ephraim wasn’t much of a farmer, but he sure could hunt. He fed his family prairie birds and wildfowl and earned cash guiding duck hunters. Meanwhile Francis lled his photographic memory with di erent silhouettes and ight patterns against a lit sky.

When it looked like they would never inherit his father-in-law’s farm, Ephraim moved the family again in 1903, this time to the sawmill town of Aitkin, Minn., traveling overland for six weeks in a covered farm wagon. Like a little prairie schooner, its four-horse team was driven by Francis’s brother Alfred, his mother and sister at his side. Francis and his father walked the 650 miles. e family settled on a 73-acre farm they called Seven Oaks, building a log cabin on a Mississippi River oxbow full of wood ducks and hooded mergansers with $100 of material.

Ephraim and Francis worked oating log rafts of elm, ash and maple downstream to the mill. ey hauled railroad ties and supplied rewood to the courthouse. At one point, while studying surveying, locomotive ring and electrical work, Francis stoked 12 to 15 tons of coal a day into the steam engines

of the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway. Eventually, he went to work for a local taxidermist, buying out his boss for $10 in backpay. He spent nine cold winters mounting deer heads for $6 each, working 60-hour weeks and walking the seven miles between home and work in the dark and snow. He was already 30 years old when he was drafted into World War I, serving in France.

It was during training in San Francisco for the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corp, on Christmas Day 1917, that Jaques viewed his rst real art exhibition in the Palace of Fine Arts. Seeing an animal habitat diorama of a mule deer in a snowy forest at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, Jaques decided on the spot to become a museum artist. Yet after the war, he worked in the Duluth shipyards, then nally, at age 34, as a fulltime commercial artist, drawing bicycle brochures for the Duluth Photo-Engraving Company. It was likely here that he developed an eye for detail and the ability to draw the nest lines, as well as adopting the use of strong colors to construct design.

Only at 37, in 1924, did his life take a turn toward artistic success when he shot a black duck, painted it in ight and sent that along with two other oil paintings to Dr. Frank M. Chapman, curator of birds at the American Museum of Natural History of New York. Jaques would work as a museum artist at the AMNH for the next 18 years. e black ducks would be the subject of his 1940 U.S. Federal Duck Stamp. Few artists can create a convincing landscape not only on the at surface of a canvas, but

also on the con ned curved walls of a natural history museum diorama, ingenuously recreating a three-dimensional panorama of everything identi able. Jaques instinctively comprehended entire environments and the movement of wildlife within them, translating into art their connection to the stretch of prairie or autumn sky. Freed from extraneous detail, they have space to move around in; they have come from one place and are going to another. ey seem to still have all of nature at their disposal. Jaques knew it would not last.

Not interested in being a “feather painter,” Jaques never strived for more detail than he could perceive at a given distance under natural conditions. is meant reducing his subjects to their essential recognizable selves, conjuring up a ock of geese heading north with just a few lines.

In the eld, he used photography to preserve reference material, to catch the precise play of light and shadow under a changing sky. He sketched quickly in pencil, made extensive eld notes, and created carefully coded “paint-by-number” color charts of hues. In the studio, he worked out his perspective and composition by making cutouts of the relative shapes at di erent distances, then moving them around.

Finally in 1927, the long-term bachelor married writer, and future collaborator, Miss Florence Page (1880-1972). “We’ve never had any trouble about women or money and lived happily ever after,” wrote Francis. In fact, they would write six books together, starting with their now classic Canoe Country (1938) about their honeymoon and holidays on the Minnesota Boundary Waters.

On his 55th birthday, the very day he was eligible to collect a pension, Jaques resigned from the AMNH. In 1953 he and Florence packed up the Upper West Side apartment they had shared for 23 years and returned to Minnesota, buying a home near St. Paul where they could walk out the backdoor to their canoe.

Jaques continued painting museum dioramas on a freelance basis, including for Yale Peabody Museum, the AMNH and a dozen for Minnesota’s Bell’s Museum, including the wolves on the rocky cli s of Lake Superior’s north shore and the moose of Gun int Beach.

He also did magazine covers, especially for Outdoor Life during World War II, producing its

PINTAIL AND TEAL, COURTESY THE SPORTSMAN’S GALLERY, LTD., CHARLESTON, SC

cover every month for four-and-a-half years. He also illustrated their oversized 1956 book Outdoor Life’s Gallery of North American Game, whose title page describes Jaques as the “foremost artist of the outdoors.” at income, plus his museum pension, equaled his museum pay, allowing them to travel.

Jaques was equally talented in the small-scale rare art of scratchboard. at is, working in black-andwhite by scratching, or rather incising, lines with a knife or sharp tool through the surface of dried black ink, revealing the white chalk or clay-coated board underneath. e result is something between a wood engraving and a pen and ink drawing; it makes for especially elegant book illustration. In fact, Jaques’s success in illustrating some 40 books with scratchboard drawings helped revive this castaway technique, which gave publishers the advantage of using a photo-mechanical printing process rather than requiring engravings by the artist.

His stylish scratchboards illustrate three titles by the North Country’s “Muir and oreau,” naturalist Sigurd Olson (1899-1982), including Singing Wilderness (1956), about his travels in the lands and waters north of Lake Superior. While many images are classic

depictions of cabins and canoes, others are eye-popping in their originality of composition and ability to express the di erent seasons and time of day.

In these narratives of outdoorsmen and animals in the landscapes of wild places, Jaques contrasts dark patches of forest, water or rock against the naked whites of snow and sky. “His large white spaces give a sense of openness and depth for the eye to explore,” writes one author. To create contour, mass and distance, he lays down patterns of lines in di erent directions, which gives a sculptural feeling to his geological formations and animals. His careful balance of shapes and patterns of nely scratched lines “capture the distilled essence of the natural objects they represent.”

ere is something sad about revisiting these books and dioramas because they speak of what was and what now is gone. Jaques wrote about human progress: “I know—the country had to be developed, but we developed it very wastefully—we might have made it beautiful. It is, so far as we could make it, ugly.” S

Brooke Chilvers is not sure the AMNH will be the same without its equestrian statue of Teddy Roosevelt at the entrance; and maybe that’s okay.

SNIPE, COURTESY OF COPLEY FINE ART AUCTIONS

WILD TURKEY, COURTESY OF COPLEY FINE ART AUCTIONS

Drowned in Butter

French sauces for fresh fish

Butter is so central to French cooking, it may as well be classi ed as a seasoning. As Ferdinand Point famously said, “Give me butter, more butter, always butter!” And with good reason: Butter has the ability to enhance almost any food. It can lend sweetness to a savoury dish and savouriness to a sweet dish. It enhances mouthfeel and adds richness without heaviness.

French chefs have become experts at sneaking in seemingly absurd quantities of butter into pretty well everything, such is its usefulness in the kitchen.

Butter has an innate complexity that gives it this versatility. Instead of simply being a fat, like lard or oil, butter is an emulsion. e mixture of water, fat and milk solids means that butter is capable of absorbing both fat-soluble and water-soluble avor components. Cultured butter adds a fermentation step for even more depth. You can keep butter in its emulsi ed state to make a superior dipping sauce, or to drape vegetables. e same idea is used to add richness to sauces by

whisking in small knobs of cold butter, keeping the emulsion intact. Cooked enough to evaporate the water, and the milk solids will brown and transform into a nutty and aromatic beurre noisette.

Fish with butter is as classic and satisfying a combination as can be. At its most basic, frying fillets in butter and adding a squeeze of lemon is nearly all there is to meunière sauce, or a fantastic shore lunch. The butter adds sweetness and richness to lean fish, and the lemon adds acidity to balance out the flavors. This is a recurring theme with all butter-based sauces, which must be properly balanced with acidity, whether it be from wine, vinegar or fruit, in order to avoid feeling too heavy.

TRUITE AU BEURRE BLANC WITH SWEET PEA AGNOLOTTI

Beurre blanc is essentially a more elegant, and more delicious, way to add a squeeze of lemon to fresh sh. As a sauce, beurre blanc is tremendously

versatile: You can vary the acid used and infuse it with herbs and spices to suit your preparation. is version hews closely to the classic one. e cream is optional, but it does help the emulsi cation hold a little better, and I like the sweetness it brings to the sauce. e trout is paired with sweet pea ravioli. As an alternative, serving the trout with puréed peas turns this into a fairly quick weeknight meal.

Serves 4

4 pan-sized trout, butter ied or lleted

Sweet Pea Ravioli

2 cups all-purpose our

3 eggs

½ teaspoon salt

8 ounces green peas, fresh or frozen

½ cup mascarpone

Salt and pepper to taste

Beurre Blanc

4 ounces butter

½ cup dry white wine

2 shallots, minced ne

1 sprig tarragon

2 tablespoons heavy cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Make the pasta dough. In a large bowl, add the our and make a well in the center. Add the egg and salt to the center and stir with a fork, gradually incorporating the our from around the well. When you have a rough dough, start kneading by hand or transfer to a stand mixer tted with a dough hook. Mix on medium for 5 to 7 minutes, until the dough is rm and elastic. Wrap with cling lm and let rest for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the sweet pea lling. In a medium saucepan, blanch the sweet peas until just cooked, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a food processor or blender and add the mascarpone. Puree and season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Cut the dough into four pieces. Working with one piece at a time, pass through a pasta roller on the thickest setting, fold into two and repeat. When the dough is smooth, begin gradually thinning out the pasta sheet until you reach the thinnest setting. Place rounded teaspoons of lling on half the pasta

sheet, about 1½ inches apart, then fold the other half over. Gently press out the air around the lling and press to seal. Cut into squares with a uted pasta wheel or a knife. Place on a oured baking sheet and freeze until ready to cook.

To start the beurre blanc, add the wine and shallots to a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil and reduce over medium heat until the pan is almost dry and the liquid is syrupy. Set aside until you are ready to nish the sauce.

To cook the ravioli, bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Meanwhile, season the trout and sear over high heat. Plate the cooked trout and ravioli on a serving dish and keep warm while you nish the sauce. Add the butter to the wine reduction a small piece at a time over medium heat, whisking to emulsify. When all the butter has been added, taste for seasoning and drape over the trout and pasta. Serve immediately.

POACHED EGGS WITH BROWNBUTTER HOLLANDAISE AND SMOKED FISH

Eggs Benedict have inspired countless variations on the original version with Canadian bacon. For this one, the hollandaise is made with beurre noisette and has a nice richness that is perfect for hot-smoked sh. If you’ve never tried making your own English mu ns, it’s well worth it. As much I like poached eggs, I hate poaching eggs. I don’t bother anymore: In almost all cases a soft-boiled egg is just as good and much easier to make for a crowd.

Serves 4

English Mu ns

2 cups warm milk

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

2 teaspoons granulated sugar

4 cups our

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup semolina wheat (substitute cream of wheat)

8 eggs

1 cup hot-smoked trout (substitute cooked and aked trout)

Brown-Butter Hollandaise

1 cup butter

4 egg yolks

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons water

Salt

Start by making the English mu ns. In a medium bowl add the milk, yeast and sugar, and let sit in a warm place for 10 minutes, until the yeast has dissolved and has started to make bubbles. Add the our and salt, then mix to form a rough dough. Transfer to a stand mixer and knead on medium speed for 5 to 7 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise for about 1 hour, until doubled.

Punch the dough and roll it out onto a lightly oured surface, about ¾ inch thick. With a 3-inch round cutter, cut out the mu ns, re-rolling as needed. Transfer the mu ns to a baking sheet dusted with semolina, leaving plenty of space between them, and sprinkle with more semolina. Cover with a damp towel and let rise for about an hour, until doubled. To cook the mu ns, heat a cast-iron pan or griddle over low heat, and cook them for 6 to 7 minutes per side, until golden. Extras can be frozen.

To make the hollandaise, rst make the beurre noisette. Heat the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally, and remove from the heat when the milk solids have browned and the butter smells nutty. Transfer to a heatproof container and set aside. Set up a double boiler or a metal bowl over a pot of barely simmering water, then add the egg yolks, water and lemon juice. Whisk until the yolks have thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon (about 165 degrees), then whisk in the melted butter in a steady stream to emulsify. Adjust the seasoning, and transfer to a thermos to keep warm while you make the eggs.

To make the eggs, place in cold water and bring to a boil. When the water boils, remove from the heat and let sit for 4 minutes. Rinse under cold water and peel. To serve, split, butter and toast the English mu ns. Add a base of smoked sh and top with a soft-boiled egg. Add a generous helping of hollandaise and serve immediately.

STRIPED BASS WITH BLACK BUTTER AND POMMES PURÉE

Beurre noir is classically served with skate wings,

but it’s good with almost any saltwater sh. I like to use striped bass, especially in the spring when they are a little leaner and bene t from some extra butter. Like nearly everything out of Martin Picard’s Pied de Cochon cookbook, the puréed potatoes are a decidedly decadent a air.

Serves 4

Four 6-ounce portions striped bass, skin on Beurre Noir

6 ounces butter

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons capers

3 tablespoons Italian parsley, minced

Pommes Purée

4 large potatoes

½ pound fresh curd cheese

3/4 cup heavy cream, warm

2 ounces butter

Wrap the potatoes in foil and bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour, until soft and cooked through. Split the garlic head in half and wrap each half with foil. Bake alongside the potatoes until completely softened, about 45 minutes. Cut the potatoes in half and press them through a strainer or a food mill while still hot. Squeeze in the head of garlic, then add the cheese, warm cream and butter. Stir vigorously and season with salt and pepper to taste. Keep warm and set aside.

To make the beurre noir, add the butter to a medium saucepan and cook over medium-low heat. Make sure you have the lemon juice, capers and parsley ready to go. Meanwhile, season the bass and sear skin side down over medium-high heat in a hot skillet. Flip and cook for a minute or two on the other side, then plate with the potatoes while the butter is nearly done.

As soon as the butter is a rich dark brown, remove from heat and add the lemon juice, capers and parsley to arrest the cooking. Taste for seasoning and spoon over the striped bass and potatoes. Serve immediately. S

Martin Mallet believes that a little butter goes a long way, but that a lot of butter goes even farther.

Shongo, 1961

Continued from page 48 car and traded his rod for the ri e. Cosmo and Johnny were quick to join him. As the three Porettis set o across a winterbrowned corn eld toward a stand of hardwoods, Cosmo called back over his shoulder, “You coming, Richie?”

Afraid of missing out, I turned to yell for them to wait, but then my rod tip jerked and I was into a heavy sh. “Hey, I have something,” I yelled.

When I glanced behind me again, the three brothers were disappearing into the woods on the other side of a fence festooned with POSTED signs. I turned back to what I assumed was going to be my rst trout, and a big one. I played it slowly and carefully, imagining its massive size and the way the Porettis would envy it and me. I nally backed into the willows and beached the sh, a huge yellow sucker. As I knelt on the gravel over the ugly trash sh, two ri e shots rang out from the woods beyond the fence. I glanced over my shoulder and hurried to release the sucker before the Porettis returned and mocked it. And me. e sh had swallowed the bait, and when I stuck a nger in its circular mouth to disgorge the hook, its shy lips puckered around my nger obscenely and I jerked my hand back, shuddering. I quickly cut the thing loose and slid it back into the river with my boot. is was not something I was going to tell the Porettis. I had to walk back up to the car to rig a new line. I was still there, tying on a hook, when the three brothers stumbled up in a hurry.

“Come, on, we gotta go,” Johnny said, panting. He dove into the car and started the engine, slipping it into gear, one foot on the clutch, one on the brake. “Move, you guys!”

Jerry yanked my rod out of my hands, pulled it apart, and stu ed it into the trunk. Cosmo dragged me into the back seat. In the distance I heard yelling. I turned and saw a man in a widebrimmed hat waving his arms madly as he blundered toward us across the dried cornstalks.

Jerry jumped into the front seat with the ri e. “Hit it!” he said, and I

was pinned against the seatback as Johnny popped the clutch. With the Chevy hurtling across the bridge over the Genesee River, Cosmo and I looked out the rear window. e man climbed up the embankment onto the road and stood watching us go, his hat in one hand as he wiped his forehead with the other.

A mile away Johnny let up on the gas. e howling of the engine dropped to a reasonable pitch. “You think that guy got close enough to get my license?” he asked.

“Nah,” Jerry said. “No way.”

“What happened?”

Neither of the older boys said anything. I turned to Cosmo, sitting next to me. He just shook his head and said, “ at was screwed up, Jerry.”

Jerry turned and glared at him. “You going to bust balls, Cosmo? I’m telling you, I thought it was a...” en he realized I was there. He gave me a look and turned back around. I could see that he was furious with Cosmo for questioning him in front of an outsider.

“Never mind, Cos,” I said, like I wasn’t interested. Or worried.

We drove a while longer in silence with no further mention of whatever happened out there in the woods. Jerry and Johnny smoked and ddled with the radio but couldn’t get anything. Jerry told a joke about a blind man with a seeing eye chihuahua. He said that the smelt would soon be running in the Lower Niagara. Johnny asked him something about a neighborhood girl named Angela. It was like nothing had happened. Cosmo just shook his head in silence.

We were somewhere maybe halfway home and I still wanted to know what happened back at Shongo. Not wanting to know so much as wanting to be told. at’s when Jerry spotted the rabbit. e rabbit was sitting so perfectly still Cosmo had to point and let me look down his arm to his nger to make out the animal’s shape against a pallet of old barn boards in a weedy gravel lot full of building materials.

I said, “Jerry, rabbits aren’t varm...”

e gun went o again.

As good as Jerry was with the ri e,

his target bolted a half-second before he squeezed o the shot. e wounded rabbit thrashed in a wild blur for an instant, then recovered enough to drag itself into a short piece of iron pipe lying nearby. Jerry was already out of the car. He stopped and poked his head back in, glaring at me. “You made me miss my shot.”

Johnny yelled, “Jerry, leave it! We’re going to have company!”

Cosmo and I leaned forward and looked out the windshield. A vehicle was cresting a hill, still a long way o but heading our way.

Jerry was already halfway to the gravel lot, jacking another round into the chamber. He opped on his belly, looked in the pipe, then stu ed the muzzle of the gun inside. At the sound of the ri e crack Johnny hopped out and opened the trunk, muttering under his breath. Jerry was back at the car, rabbit in hand, but didn’t have time to put it in before the approaching vehicle arrived, a pale green Studebaker. Johnny was still standing in front of the open trunk. Jerry held the ri e and the dead rabbit low against the passenger side tail n, out of sight. e driver of the Studebaker, a man wearing a pale blue suit and a tie, rolled down his window. His family’s pink, Sunday scrubbed faces stared out at us. “Don’t tell me that beautiful car’s having trouble,” he said pleasantly.

“Nah,” Johnny said, smiling. Johnny only smiled when he was lying. But when he did, it was a smile that could sell sand to Bedouins. He slammed the trunk closed. “Just had to change a tire. All set now.”

“Well then,” the man said, “drive safely, young fellas, and have a blessed day.”

“Nice folks,” Jerry observed, like they’d met over cookies and milk after Sunday school.

Johnny whirled on him. “Okay, dickhead, this time the ri e goes in too.” He popped the trunk. “It’s getting late and there’s more people on the road now. No more screwing around!”

Jerry snarled but put the gun in with the rabbit.

We hit the road again. I told myself the worst was over. We were getting closer to home.

e state trooper was parked

strategically on the blind side of a curve when we blew past, going 20 over the limit.

“Well, shit,” Johnny said. We all turned and saw the blue and red lights ash on.

“You can outrun him,” Jerry said.

“You’re mentally ill, Jerry.” Johnny slowed and pulled over. “Did you even unload that ri e?”

“What di erence does it make?” Jerry said. “Cop opens that trunk, sees that out-of-season bunny, we’re toast.”

“Yeah,” Cosmo said, “especially if that farmer did get your plates.”

Both the older Porettis turned and gave him a murderous look.

My stomach tied itself into a square knot.

Johnny got out of the car to meet the trooper, license and registration in hand, that phony smile on his face. He held up his hands, fake laughing. “Oh brother! I get out on these wide-open roads and go a little crazy. I confess it! I do!”

In a minute they were best pals. e trooper, not a lot older than Johnny, glanced into the car at the rest of us, but mostly wanted to look under the hood. He and Johnny talked about horsepower and carburetors and such while I squirmed. Cosmo kept shaking his head. In the front seat, Jerry just looked out the window next to him and yawned, like none of this had anything to do with him. When Johnny nally slammed the hood, the trooper smiled and said, “Look, John, you were really barreling there. I’m sorry, but I gotta write you up.”

“I know, I know,” Johnny sighed. He held his wrists out in front of him. “Slap the cu s on me, o cer!”

e trooper laughed. Best pals. I swear.

When the trooper sat back against the lid of the trunk to write the ticket, I almost cried. Even if that farmer back near the river hadn’t caught Johnny’s license number, he surely called in a description of a blue and white Chevy full of kids who had shot whatever Jerry shot on the man’s property. If the trooper opened the trunk, it would only be a matter of time before the Shongo situation surfaced.

Being with the three Poretti brothers

was like looking at one of those Darwinian evolutionary cartoons of my future: a sh that walks onto land using its pectoral ns before morphing into a crouching chimp-like caveman, and nally into the upright bipedal form of a 20th century homo sapien in a suit and fedora. I’d thought I wanted hair like Cosmo’s, a ri e like Jerry’s and the fast car—and even faster girlfriend—Johnny had. But now even Cosmo didn’t look like he wanted that anymore. I looked at him to see if he was as sick of his brothers as I was. Cosmo nodded.

I poked Jerry’s shoulder. He turned to look at me. “Tell me what happened at the river,” I whispered.

He sneered. “Who are you again? I keep forgetting.”

We could hear Johnny and his new best friend laughing behind the car.

“Tell me,” I hissed, “or I tell that trooper to open the trunk, right now.”

Jerry opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes met mine and he could see I was determined to be taken seriously. Face suddenly pale, he looked

past me and through the rear window.

I turned and looked that way too. Behind the car, Johnny and the trooper were shaking hands, the trooper still chuckling at something the entertaining Johnny had said.

I turned back around. “Tell me Jerry,” I said. “Tell me about Shongo.”

Jerry looked at Cosmo, but Cosmo just smiled and said, “He’s serious, Jer.” Jerry groaned, then started.

“We were in the woods, and I saw something that looked like a...”

“Wait,” I said, cutting him o .

“What?” Jerry asked.

“I forget,” I said, giving him a puzzled look. “Who are you again?” S

Chiappone is not really sure what Jerry Poretti shot. Or was it one of the Gibaski brothers on an entirely di erent river and an entirely di erent day? ere were so many rivers, so many cars, so many ri es and rods in those days. And it was all so very long ago. Still, every time he sees a Pomeranian he has to marvel at how foxlike those darned things look.

Dances With People, Places & Equipment GSJ

Dawn to Dusk (page 20)

Sammy Chang hunted Osceola turkeys in late March on a private Okeechobee County ranch in southcentral Florida with outdoorsman and fellow photographer Ryan Sparks (www.flywatermedley.com).

Pure Osceolas are found only in south Florida, as they often breed with Eastern wild turkeys in the northern part of their range. The Florida natives typically have longer spurs than their larger, more widelydistributed cousins.

Mousing for Dorado (page 38)

Barry and Cathy Beck fished the headwaters of Iberá Marsh near Corrientes, Argentina in January, typically a low water month ideal for bringing dorado to the surface. Fish average 6-to-12 pounds, but fish up to 20 pounds are not unusual. The Becks suggest 7- and 8-weight graphite rods spooled with RIO Outbound Short floating lines. Booking information can be found at www.frontierstravel.com.

Freedom. Resurrection.Recovery.

(page 56)

Over the course of the summer, Mark Fryt explored the Yaak River in Montana, along with Sullivan Creek, North Fork Calispell Creek, and the Spokane River in Washington. Of particular note is the middle section of Sullivan Creek, where a dam removal project has returned it to good health. In addition to its excellent fishing for redband, rainbow, and cutthroat trout, he recommends the area for its camping, rock collecting and berrypicking opportunities.

Gordon Allen

An artist from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Gordon has been contributing to Gray’s for years. His line art is scattered throughout this issue. You can see more of Gordon’s work at www.gordonallenart.com

Continued from page 36 mostly, and the safety equipment was seat-belts, windshield wipers and rearview mirrors. But Daimler-Benz or Hung-Chow Industries it don’t matter when the air gets thin at 10,000 feet, we talking bout the Andes now. A turbo force-feeds the engine enough air to keep it going, in second gear, at least.

“Olvidalo.” Never mind.

I’d own some sketchy aircraft in my day, Argentina, Africa and oat planes way up in the Canadian bush where the wrecks of the less air-worthy littered the muskeg below, so the Puerto Jimenez community graveyard at the end of the runway didn’t bother me much, at least at rst.

I crawled aboard and strapped in, minus my sh. But instead of east, the pilot bore north to another jungle airstrip, more shermen heading for San Jose. ey led from the terminal, a glori ed tin-roof chicken coop with a Coke machine, bottled beer and rum.

e pilot took one look and started mumbling and cussing in Spanish, with much invocation of the term for horizontal relations. e last man in line was a giant, a rolling jiggling blob, 350 if he was an ounce.

We all disembarked. All our luggage went onto the gravel and was crammed into an empty compartment in the nose.

e fat man got in rst, grunted his way into a far rear seat. With no one else aboard, the plane squatted, tail on the ground, front wheel eight feet o the ground. Much more lingo, this time adding motherhood to the equation.

e fat man was extracted and the plane slowly came to rest on the nose wheel as he labored uphill.

e pilot whistled up help, a teenage boy fetched a strut from the weeds behind the terminal. It was a goodly length of two-by-six, carpet on one end, a scrap of tire on the other. Chocked beneath the tail of the aircraft, it kept all three wheels on the ground as the fat man reboarded. Seemed the logical thing to do.

e boy came back with four jerry-cans of fuel, but the pilot waved

him away. Fat man already ate up the weight limit. Wasn’t room for me either, excepting the co-pilot’s seat. God was my co-pilot on this ight, and He could sit on my lap if He needed.

e Britten needs 1,300 feet to get o the ground, a little over a quarter mile, a wonderment. But that considers easy rolling and no trees at the far end. e pilot taxied to the end of the strip, yea, beyond the end of the strip, way out onto the grass. He turned us around, locked up the brakes and advanced both engines to full throttle. Such a whamming and bamming and framming you never heard, liked to shook the llings from my back teeth. e pilot released the brakes and we started to roll, ip, op and come on baby, let’s y, please y!

e gear came up as we cleared the gravel and I don’t know if we would have cleared the palms any other way. Heavy laden as we were, there was no way to y over the mountains, so we ew the passes instead, jagged snow-capped peaks to the left and right. ere were big holes in the dash where the navigational aids should have been. e pilot ew by a hand-held GPS duct-taped to the center of the steering wheel instead. e fuel tanks were in the wings and the fuel gauges were right in front of me. irty gallons in each, soon 20 and the pilot got on the radio and hailed San Jose. His Spanish was rapid re stress, but I caught one word, emergencia. Clear the runway, clear the airspace, we’re coming in!

We landed with 30 gallons to spare, 15 in each tank. I hailed a cab idling at the terminal door. “Llevame a la catedra, por favor.”

I wasn’t raised Catholic, but right then, that didn’t matter. S

Roger Pinckney lives and writes on Daufuskie Island, S.C. He is pleased to still be among the living, at this writing, at least.

Gar sh

Continued from page 18

bogs, witnessed the rise and fall of the dinosaurs. It survived the apocalyptic Chicxulub asteroid, which killed three quarters of all the animal and plant species on earth, including the dinosaurs. In an unforgiving system of survival through adaptation and change, the gar sh, along with the honeybee and golden orb spider, remained the same through 1,500 millennia. Built right the rst time, its kind will be around with the cockroaches and spiders long after homo sapiens, the new kids on the block, have polluted the planet beyond human habitation. She looks at us as though she knows all this, the corners of her mouth permanently curled into a sardonic smile. With a blood memory of countless centuries, how could this relic not be wise? What creature in the food chain could prey on her? Bull alligator?

Diving Pterodactyl?

e girls scream. I do too. I wrap both arms around my daughters and try to kick the monster back into the bilge. Needle like teeth snag my tennis shoe. I kick loose with the other foot, tearing o the toe. e unmanned tiller of the Evinrude spins sideways, smacking against the transom, turning the boat in a quick circle. e puppy yips. e motor coughs and dies. e girls burst into tears. “Moo!” cries Mary Catherine. “Moo!” e hair on the back of my neck bristles all the way up to my cowlick. We drift downstream for a while, catching our breath. e gar sh, longer than the width of the boat, lies quietly in a silver crescent between the gunnels, toothy beak agape. Have I killed her with the double kick of a tennis shoe?

My spirits, spiked with adrenaline, become ebullient now that we are safe from those ugly teeth. I start feeling pretty good about myself. I decide to take this missing link to a taxidermist to have it mounted as a memento to the girls’ adventure at Little Dent. e mount will serve as a conversation piece to hang a story on. I’ll never let the girls forget the day their daddy grappled barehanded with a living fossil. I’ll tell them bedtime stories of epic heroes who

also battled monsters: of Beowulf, of St. George, of eseus, Perseus and Ahab. I’ll be a hero to my children, the best thing a daddy can be.

Or a clown, it suddenly occurs to me. What if I’d su ered a fatal heart attack while catching a sh? Would friends repeat the story and laugh at my demise? I’m more concerned about being ridiculed than of dying. Dying’s not so bad once you get used to it, but how you die constitutes an essential part of your legacy. Comedy and tragedy are next of kin. I’m determined to have a more distinguished departure when the time comes again, as if I’ll have a choice in the matter.

Pink lined thunderheads gather on the horizon. By the time we get to the boat ramp it’s drizzling rain. When we arrive at our home upriver, it’s raining steadily. It doesn’t take the girls’ mother long to decide she doesn’t want a vefoot gar sh going through her house. I drag my dead trophy by its beak around to the backyard, high above the riverbank. e girls, studded with mosquito bites and exposed to poison ivy, are bathing together, leaving a dirty ring in the bathtub, having cobwebs combed out of their hair.

It rains all night. e next morning when I go out to fetch the gar sh for the taxidermist, she has disappeared. I look for her over the backyard and down to the edge of the river, but she has vanished. She sure seemed dead when I left her, her limp, hard body having lost the turgidity of living tissue. I can’t believe her capable of reviving and squirming her way across a wet lawn to the waters’ edge, but she has. I feel empty, confounded and a little frightened, like a man puzzled by an interrupted dream. Gone is the absolute proof of yesterday’s adventure. I feel robbed and saddened, foolish for being outsmarted by a sh. I know it’s crazy, but that’s how I’m thinking. Most thinking doesn’t make much sense.

For a while I tell the story of the great gar sh to the girls, hoping to keep the memory alive. Without the mount, the sh grows in the telling, and the battle intensi es in ferocity—absence of hard evidence being an incentive to

hyperbole. Over time the girls tire of the story with all its exaggerated variations, eventually outgrowing bedtime stories altogether. e puppy develops into a dog and that dog grows old and gray around the muzzle. My daughters marry and beget children who will believe, at least for a while, the tale of the giant gar sh of Little Dent, the one that got away. S

Retired English professor O. Vic Miller spends his hours on the banks of the Flint River, contemplating his nal chapter. Miller recently published  Buzzard Luck, a collection of creative non- ction available on Amazon.

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Continued from page 67 into his 80s. He claimed to have preferred the old days, except for the way women were treated back then. He paid attention to his life and tried to better the world around him, in other words, and did so with a wink and a smile. Interviewed at 82, he noted that “I like scotch at lunch. At dinner time I prefer gin.” at marriage of ebullience and empathy emerged in Uncle Eb, the novel’s hero. Plot-wise, Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country begins with a Vermont boy whose parents die and is whisked o by a hired man (Uncle Eb) before the youngster can be remanded to the care of a “dissolute uncle.” After a harrowing trek across Lake Champlain into northern New York, the pair and their faithful dog, Fred, are taken in by a loving farm family, the Browers.

From that point, the novel loosely tracks Bacheller’s own life, with some predictable Victorian dramas added in for good measure—a love lost and regained; a scam perpetrated on the father; a lost family member reappearing at the novel’s end. Readers of Twain will recognize other characters and situations. In this chapter, for example, Uncle Eb nds it necessary to pull out the old “ ll the sh with lead shot” trick, with its nod to “ e Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”

By any measure, Bacheller found an eager audience. His book ranked in the top 10 for sales in the rst two years of its publication, with more than 1,000,000 copies selling over its lifetime. Uncle Eb’s rural adventures applied the literary brakes to the pace of industrialism and the exploding cities and immigration and resulting modern culture; his innate kindness marked him as the sort of moral compass the modern community needed more than ever. Readers enjoyed the nostalgia of small-town familiar, when everyone knew all there was to know about everyone else, or at least everything that mattered. e slow pace meant that each hamlet could still claim a distinctiveness. Tip Taylor, for example, comes from “Sucker Brook Country,” a reference to a particular inlet to Cranberry Lake 35 miles away, where the folks had some “distinct” attitudes, at least about suckers. e world might be small, but the homespun dialect held truth beneath the glitter of the Gilded Age. Mose Tupper, he of the unlovely face, causes Uncle

Eb (elsewhere in the novel) to observe, “[Mose] had a large red nose, and a mouth vastly too big for any proper use. If Mose Tupper uv had the makin’ uv himself, he’d oughter done it more careful.”

Few “he men” gallop through this narrative. ose romantic characters had fallen out of favor, given their hand in the carnage of Civil War. Heroes of the Local Color Movement, as the literary genre was called, tended to be women, children, old men and animals—in this case, the narrator, Uncle Eb, and “the ol settler,” respectively. Uncle Eb works the controls, even if he remains in the background. In subsequent chapters, he makes sure the narrator gets the girl, recti es the father’s nancial situation and reunites the Brower family with their lost son. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but wrinkled old Uncle Eb is one clever dude.

Always a step ahead, Uncle Eb realizes in this excerpt that Mose’s biggest problem is really himself. He can’t see that destroying the town’s legend will amount to throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath. Destroy the great unknown beneath the surface of the water, and you lose the shared wonder and liveliness that folds people into a community. And with that, there goes the fun of shing, the very element that carries Uncle Eb away from his mundane life and lets him be a child again.

Fortunately for Eb’s plan, Mose has a big mouth and vows to “punish” the alleged sh, campaign shouting that if he doesn’t, anglers might be led to sin. As much as he loves shing, Uncle Eb knows enough not to get positioned as pro-sin. No, the way to get Mose is to encourage him; he’ll start to believe his own bloviating and keep going too fast and trip over his own feet, if you give him half a chance.

Really, Mose should know better: You can’t go around threatening to reveal the truth about the piscatorial lies we depend on. Do that, and a real sherman just might come along and do what he must do to maintain the integrity of the sport.

Will Ryan grew up in the 1000 Islands region of New York and spent many spring days shing the rivers and streams of Bacheller’s North Country. Like the characters in this story, he has felt the tug of “ e Ol’ Settler”—or so he thinks.

The thrill of a new place, like the onset of love itself, might never manage to enchant one the way it can at first blush. When we arrived at Cedar Lodge and asked about fish, gesturing toward the Makarora River, somewhere beyond the heli ad mowed as a circle into asture ri ling with wind, Scottie Little, the lodge manager, said they re there all right. ut these ones get fished. They can be tough. I ll buy anyone a beer who gets one.

Rivers big and small beg for dry ies and delicate casts throughout the lush mountains common to New Zealand’s South Island.

We put up rods and wade through the billowing grass. The wind whistles through our guides, strums lines and taut leaders. Downriver on the bank, built up out of rip-rap to protect the pasture from highwater, our other lodge mate for a cou le of days, osh Mills from ellow Dog Flyfishing, waves at us, hands overhead, and then gestures emphatically toward the water below.

We creep to the edge of the stacked boulders and get a look. Fish? Hardly. Where I come from, a trout like this is called a blankety-blank trophy. I start down the rocks.

Wading boots and your best polarized sunglasses get you in range of enough trout to ll any angler’s day.

If drifting big dry ies over rising trout is your thing, then the South Island is well worth the e ort it takes to get there.

ou re going to fish it from above I ignore the concern in osh s voice.

I m going to climb down and swing a y over it and see what ha ens.

ut by the time I near the water, gusts of wind have shattered my viewing window. In a rare act of caution, I hold fire.

Middle of the current, calls osh.

Kevin Jurgens, one of two hotshot angler/photographers I’ve arrived with, approaches downstream of the lie. He nds a casting platform, a at rock splashed by brusque wavelets pushed by the snorting wind. He eases himself into position.

“ ree meters upstream,” says Josh.

A fresh blast hurls Kevin’s cast back at him. He gets about half the distance he needs. But before he can pick up and try again, Josh tells him to wait.

“Don’t move it,” he adds, his voice now taut, excited—just the tone you want to hear from your guide with your y on the water.

When Kevin’s rod comes up, the tip remains anchored to the water; the wind-whipped waves do nothing to hide the commotion that follows, a thrashing I normally associate with swimming dogs or small, frightened children.

First cast. It takes me a few moments to settle down. Of course, maybe this

was just the odd sh, a bit of lucky happenstance. I climb down the riprap and wade through the head of the channel and cross a wide sweep of freestone cobble, the main river spreading out before me. Between the wind and the current, chattering unrelieved through a broad arc of shallow ri e, I can’t see much but a narrow band of quiet water right alongside my path.

en something catches my eye. Immediately it vanishes. I back o , stare, try to re-imagine what I may or may not have seen in the rst place.

It doesn’t hurt to cast. e y, a big Humpy-like thing with tall white wings you could see in a gale, a Blow y Scottie called it when I plucked it from his box, lands more or less where I want it and rides my way, a brave little sailing dinghy cresting the treacherous waves. When the y’s almost to me, threatening to drag, the surface of the river suddenly explodes.

en…nothing. Not even a touch. Still.

I back o , move downstream, start up again. It occurs to me I should consider returning to the lodge, make sure I’m not late for our rst dinner. I pause, spot Kevin, far upriver, creeping along the bank. e next moment I glimpse something in the shallows, the ghost of an image I suspect, without conviction, is another sh.

is time it reveals itself as the y slides its way. It rises toward the surface, only to let the rocking sails pass. en, miraculously, with a sweep of its tail, it turns downstream and pivots abruptly and lifts its gaze again. I can hardly believe it; another beast of a trout. I watch it tilt, the nose rise, the critical distance shrink toward nothing until nally, at the very last moment, the trout says no, giving up on the o er the instant before it could have balanced the y, seal like, atop its nose.

Gray’s angling editor Scott Sadil pitches a size 4 Cicada toward a willing rainbow.

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It’s almost too good for words, beer or no beer.

Later, I’d like to blame the calamari, the loin of lamb, the mango parfait, maybe even a wee bit too much local Pinot Noir. But I’ve seen this movie before, felt the twinges of worry and selfdoubt, as familiar as my own breathing, haunting me throughout the short, closeto-solstice, southern hemisphere night.

Show up at a fabled place like New Zealand’s South Island and, frankly, I’m concerned I might not meet the challenge, that my game may lack what it takes to fool big, sighted trout and bring them to hand.

I’m sure I’m the only one who ever feels this way.

At one point my fragile sleep is shattered by a loud crash. More wind? Before dawn I nd the rack of soap and shampoo lying on the oor of the shower. When I stumble at rst light into the lounge, searching for co ee, Scottie informs me of

a nearby earthquake, a common enough feature of South Island life, and no doubt cause of the shower racket, if not echoes in my tedious dreams.

I’m convinced, anyway, that the rest of my party doesn’t su er these grave notions, that they never lose sleep over their capacity to step up and deliver the goods. Brian O’Keefe, for example. You may have heard stories. My take? Believe them.

At risk of narrative discontinuity, I’ll just mention a moment during our one day together on the water, after Kevin and Brian had spent several days on their own, collecting digital imagery of sh and scenery that would make any angler’s heart ache—and some of us reach for our phones and possibly even wallets. Nick, our guide that day, spotted a sh moving up the far side of the Okuru River, where Brian and Kevin, on the opposite bank, were bushwhacking upstream. Nick hollered, said the sh was just about “out of range.” Brian hopped up onto

a dry boulder, yanked his entire y line, and then some, o his reel, and let y. I think Nick gave out a little gasp. Brian had lined the target, his cast landing 20 or 30 feet too far upstream, the trout vanishing who knows where. Nick and I looked at each other. “Next time maybe give him a distance,” I suggested. “I think he was making a point about out of range.”

Now where was I?

Over Eggs Benedict and all the extras, enough calories, I imagine, for one of the World Cup soccer squads preparing to play this morning in Qatar, Scottie lays out the day’s schedule: Josh and I to the Young; Kevin and Brian to the Wilkin. Cedar Lodge, it turns out, has access to some 20 di erent rivers and streams— or burns, as smaller tributaries are often called, evidence of the Scottish in uence on Kiwi culture, especially here on the South Island.

Helicopters, I should add, make that access, weather pending, quick and easy. Josh and I, and our guide Hen, are

Brian O’Keefe doing just one of the many things he does so well.

Kevin Jurgens lifts a typical South Island rainbow from the type of crystal clear waters you can expect to sh out of Cedar Lodge.

put down on a patch of lawn-like grass amidst bunches of tussocks, a seemingly manicured setting overlooking an elegant blue river bend in the middle of...paradise? Sheer walls, cushioned by beech forest, o er the feel of a canyon as much as a narrow river valley, the oor itself a wide ramp falling, gently here, fartherdown through a boulderriddled gorge, toward the Makarora and its eventual mouth at the top of Lake Wanaka.

Slender waterfalls cascade all but overhead through rock creases carved into the curtained walls. e gray sky, spotted with blue, trembles above us, ringing, perhaps, if only our senses were keen enough to capture the sound.

By the time Josh and I have nished putting up rods and tied on tippets and ies, Hen has waded the tailout, crept up the far bank and spotted a sh.

Come the end of the day, the loud thrum of our helicopter approaching, I’m no longer worried—not too much at least—about getting sh to agree with the point of the y.

Itis, in fact, a di erent kind of trout shing—di erent, that is, from the hatch-driven sport that occupies so much of the literature, the recognized milieu so often described. In a week I see but a handful of trout actually rise before I cast to them, not one sh eating any identi able fare, never a rise that seems more than a single pluck at a randomly passing speck of invisible manna.

ere’s more to it. Almost every sighted sh is alone, all by itself in ri e, run or pool. And, truth be known, there are very few of them—at least in comparison to the numbers we associate with, say, a healthy Western trout stream.

Plus, I never see any such thing as a small sh.

e sport, then, is simple enough, a distillation of the fundamental elements of y shing into the drama that most of us like best: sighting a sh, casting to it, watching it move to and eat the y.

Simple, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean easy. You walk, and you walk, and you walk, until someone, either your guide or you or your shing partner, spots a sh. A conference, of sorts, often follows: First of all, are you sure it is a sh?

en: How are you going to pull this o ?

Fortunately, your support o ers a second or even third pair of eyes, especially helpful when you creep into casting position and suddenly the kaleidoscope of moving water obscures your view. Only once will you ever forget to triangulate some landmarks—a current seam, underwater rock, maybe a shifting foam line—reference points to help choose your target. For a brief moment I often try to ignore the sh, eyes lifted, instead, on where I want the y to land. I also nd it helpful to remind myself to breathe, while often recalling, as well, those 900 million indi erent Chinese who used to accompany McGuane when he backed his horse into the box, prepared to do a leetle jackpot roping.

Does it really matter—I mean, really—if I blow the cast?

But now, here’s the best of it: I’ve never seen so many big, visible, solitary trout willing to move to and eat a big dry y.

Iwon’t say we grow cocky. en again, we’ve got the helicopters, remote drainages, willing browns and rainbows both, the entire country just now reopening even as the long pandemic continues to send ripples around the rest of the world.

And Messi and company recover, making it out of the group stage and into the nal knockout rounds.

Good weather allows us, late in the week, to cross the divide and drop into our rst look at a west side watershed, emptying directly into the Tasman Sea.

e persistent beech forest gives way to pockets of tree ferns and a fresh mix of broadleaf evergreens, a temperate maritime blend reminiscent of Southern Chile, even portions of the Paci c Northwest. Rainfall gets measured in

meters. Some of the trout move to and from the sea.

“Browns only,” says Nick. He glances my way. “Make your rst cast count.”

Sure enough, this is the rst morning we nd ourselves covering tetchy sh. Body language speaks for itself: Our casts approach sh that look tense, or restless, or hugging the bottom—or gone before the y drifts their way. It happens several times, not so often that anybody feels we’ve missed any genuine opportunities, but enough that we can see sh today will have to be earned.

en Nick tells me to put a cast into a patch of juicy water alongside a swift chute pouring into the top of an emerald pool, one of the rare times any of the guides directs a blind cast over a likely lie. e rise, like all of them, seems both ridiculous and sublime. What have I ever done to deserve this? I ask myself—while six pounds in the net prove, once again, that a little luck can go a long way.

at evening the lodge crew joins us for dinner: seafood chowder, roast pork

loin, sweet potatoes, broccoli, Yorkshire pudding and gravy. Passionfruit Crème Brûlée. Spirits owing, Brian interrupts his nightly chronicles and o ers a generous toast. “It’s not the shing, it’s the shing experience.” Scottie adds his own spin: It’s not just the sh and shing, the scenery, the rivers, the food or the wine.

“It’s the Kiwis,” he says. Under the table, I pinch myself. Whatever the it is, there’s an inch or two more of me now to enjoy it. S

It took Gray’s Angling Editor Scott Sadil nearly a quarter of a century to return to New Zealand following his rst visit to Tūrangi, on the North Island, a visit he veiled lightly as ction in his novel, Cast From the Edge, from that same distant era. He doesn’t intend to wait that long before he visits again.

IfYou Go

Cedar Lodge is owned and operated by Eleven Angling (www.elevenexperience.

Helicopters, huge sh, and big dry ies? Sounds pretty good to most anglers who like shing for trout the way it was always meant to be done.

com), whose services worldwide cater to anglers looking for the best in sport, accommodations and all of the extras travelers have come to expect from a gold-star lodge. Visitors to New Zealand’s South Island generally y into Auckland, take a connecting domestic ight to Queenstown, then enjoy scenic ground transport to the lodge, easily arranged by contacting lodge manager Scottie Little directly (slittle@ elevenexperience.com).

One of the unusual pleasures of Cedar Lodge is that you can show up without gear of any sort and expect to be out tted with every piece of equipment you need: rods, reels, lines, ies, wading boots— the works. (Wet wading complements the need to hunt sh on foot.) New Zealand has a long history of battling invasive species; you’re encouraged, in fact, not to show up with equipment from out of the country. e best news about arriving light is that you get to sh one of Carl McNeil’s Epic y rods, built in nearby Wanaka. Epic rods, for those who don’t know about them, have captured attention worldwide, proving once again that anglers everywhere are looking for that sweet feel that answers every need they might encounter in a full day’s shing, rather than a rod that behaves more like a one-trick pony.

Trout season on the South Island means you will want to be prepared for all types of weather, especially wind and rain. at said, I was comfortable during the lodge’s opening week shing in a pair of tights under quickdry pants, a base-layer and eece vest on top, with a lightweight shell in my day pack. And a sun hat. Debates may rage about our changing climate, but everybody in New Zealand (and Australia) agrees that whatever is going on in the atmosphere, the sun Down Under has grown increasingly harmful to human skin. Sunshine or not, you can ruin a trip in a hurry if you neglect or forget to protect yourself.

e lodge operates on a smooth, well-ordered routine. Co ee and tea early, followed by a robust breakfast and daily shing assignments and heli lift-o times. Scottie’s aim, of course, is to get guests into sh, while at the same

time o ering opportunities to view the spectacular scenery and experience the rich variety of water available to the lodge.

Hearty appetites are met with après fare as soon as you return by helicopter to the lodge. Don’t overdo it. Gordon Sutherland, lodge chef, is going to try to knock your Crocs or dry socks o with dinner, served inside the main lounge or out on the deck, depending on the weather. Local wines enjoy a well-deserved reputation. If you think you can handle it, ask one night for the Kiwi version of Pavlova, the remarkable dessert made famous following an early 20th-century visit by the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, created rst in New Zealand or Australia, depending on who you ask—or maybe what side of the Tasman Sea you’re on.

I did leave Cedar Lodge with one question, however. Why did Scottie o er to buy us beers if we caught sh that rst night? It seemed every time I turned around, there was a fresh pilsner in front of me.

Alaska

Alaska Sportsman’s Lodge

PO Box 231985, Anchorage, AK 99523 (888)826-7376

E-Mail: bkraft@alaskasportsmanslodge.com

Strategically located on the Kvichak River in the heart of the Bristol Bay fishing paradise. This river is the only connection between Lake Iliamna and the ocean. Each year, millions of salmon use the Kvichak to travel to their spawning grounds. This provides an enormous food source for the native rainbow trout, which grow in excess of 20 lbs. Because of our location, we don’t need to spend countless hours flying to the fishing spots. www.fishasl. com

Alaska Wilderness Outfitting Company PO Box 1516, Soldotna, AK 99574 (907)424-5552

Experience incredible fishing, remote wilderness, and some of Alaska’s most spectacular beauty. Guided and self-guided trips to the pristine waters of Prince William Sound, the wild lakes and rivers of the Wrangell Mountains and the untamed wilderness of the North Gulf Coast. All trips are remote fly-in destinations that include fully outfitted self-guided trips in our one-of-akind outpost cabins and floating cabins as well as a full-service lodge on the Tsiu River. We accommodate groups of any size and offer discounts for large groups. www.alaskawilderness.com

Angler’s Paradise Lodge

4125 Aircraft Drive, Anchorage, AK 99502 (907)243-5448

E-mail: pete@katmailand.com

Since 1950, we have offered the world’s finest freshwater sport fishing. All lodges have superb fishing within walking distance and are in close proximity to the finest salmon, rainbow, char, and grayling rivers in Alaska. www.katmailand.com

EPIC Angling & Adventure

(512)656-2736

We offer two different fly fishing adventure trips located in remote areas of the Alaska Peninsula. On the Pacific side is a sophisticated camp that offers extreme isolation, a unique coastal fishery, breathtaking scenery, day hike options, and helicopter fly-outs. On the Bristol Bay side is a no-frills camp offering an affordable option for die-hard fishermen after BIG fish in a small stream. www.epicaaa.com

Stoney River Lodge

PO Box 62, Sleetmute, AK 99668 (907)526-5211

E-mail: Stoneyriverlodge22@gmail.com

Owned and operated by Curly and Betty Warren, Alaska Master Guide License #111. Built in 1984 as a prime base of operation for guided top quality hunting adventures. Grizzly, moose, sheep, caribou and black bear, as well as daily fly-out sport fishing adventures. Lodge offers custom designed trips. We cater to people that wish to enjoy rugged Alaska outdoor activities incorporated with a well-appointed full service lodge operated by 30 year plus Master Guide and experienced staff. www.stoneyriverlodge.com

Tikchik Narrows Lodge

(907)243-8450

E-mail: info@tikchik.com

World-class fly-in/fly-out sport fishing lodge hidden amid spectacular 1.5 millionacre wilderness park in pristine western Bristol Bay. Daily fly-out fishing for salmon, trout, char, grayling, and pike. Extraordinary service, accommodations, gourmet meals, and experienced guides. Owned and operated for nearly 30 years by Bud Hodson. www.tikchiklodge.com

Unalakleet River Lodge

(800)995-1978

E-mail: steve@unalakleet.com

Unalakleet River Lodge is a remote luxury fishing destination in the northwestern bush of Alaska. We have been sharing the natural beauty of the Unalakleet River and the surrounding Nulato Hills with our guests since 1998. We offer our clients Salmon fishing in the wilderness of Alaska with all the amenities and comforts of a full resort.The Unalakleet is recognized as a National Wild and Scenic River and is home to large runs of King Salmon, Chum Salmon, Pink Salmon, Silver or Coho Salmon, Dolly Varden, Arctic Char, and a native population of Arctic Grayling. The Unalakleet River offers 140 miles of prime Salmon fishing isolated from the pressures of road systems and fly out operations. www.unalakleet.com

Argentina

Argentina’s Best Hunting

(225)754-4368

E-mail: contact@argentinasbesthunting.com

The perfect blend between hunting, fishing, gourmet dining, and luxury accom-

modations. Look no further if your goal is to experience the best that Argentina has to offer, as we have a wide variety of species, lodges, and regions at our fingertips. To learn more, visit www.argentinasbesthunting.com

South Parana Outfitters

(804)693-3774

E-mail: wingsargentina@gmail.com

World class wingshooting in a classic Argentine setting! Argentina, in comparison to other countries, has the advantage of having no restrictions when it comes to the hunting of doves, due to the threat that they represent to agriculture. However, Entre Rios is known for its prolific fauna, its great care for the environment, and its deep respect for the law. We can proudly say that conservation is at the foundation of our company. All of our guides are bilingual and it is their job to accompany you during the hunt and they will take into account your personalized tastes and interests. Duck hunting season goes from May through August. Dove is available for hunting all year long. Combination shoots and customized package shoots are available. www.southparanaoutfitters.com

Belize

Belize River Lodge

(888)275-4843

E-mail: info@belizeriverlodge.com

Belize River Lodge rests quietly on the lush, green banks of the Belize Olde River, only 3.5 miles from the mouth of the river—the entrance into the Caribbean Sea and classic Flats fishing, where anglers will pursue bonefish, tarpon, permit, and snook. This beautiful historic mahogany lodge is situated amidst an abundant tropical setting. Balmy breezes rich with the sound of bird song drift among the private cottages creating a naturalist’s paradise. Relax and delight in our Belizean hospitality and our delicious combination of fine Belizean-Creole cuisine. www.belizeriverlodge.com

British Columbia

Legacy Lodge

(877)347-4534

E-mail: info@legacylodge.com

Wonderfully remote yet easily accessible, Legacy Lodge offers a premier sport fishing experience found nowhere else in the world. In harmony with the natural environment and in a world all its own, here on the protected waters of Rivers Inlet, surrounded by

the panoramic beauty of British Columbia, all the elements converge for epic battles with world class salmon and halibut. For couples and families, parties of friends to corporate groups, Legacy Lodge was made for those who yearn for the perfect fishing vacation. www.legacylodge.com

California

Wing & Barrel Ranch

(707)721-8845

E-mail: info@wingandbarrelranch.com.

Escape to Sonoma, CA and enjoy a private hunting club just minutes from the Golden Gate Bridge. Wing & Barrel Ranch brings together the best of the shooting, food, wine, and wine country lifestyle in an elegant setting. Here, legendary memories are made with menus inspired by the surrounding countryside, world-class wines, exceptional shooting opportunities, and incomparable hospitality. www.wingandbarrelranch.com.

Colorado

GR Bar Ranch

(800)523-6832

E-mail: info@grbarranch.com

Nestled along the Grand Mesas, just nine miles outside the town of Paonia, CO, this working cattle ranch has thousands of back-

country acres, trout lakes, miles of trails, and endless fishing and hunting opportunities on our private paradise. A vacation at our ranch is the trip of a lifetime. www.grbarranch.com

Georgia

Pine Ridge Plantation is offering annual memberships for 12 members. Exclusive use with a full staff, equipment & amenities. Accommodation for 8 hunters & guests in the Plantation Cottage. Open during the season for quail, trophy deer, duck, turkey & trophy fishing. A rare opportunity to have a private plantation just for the member. For more information, 404-869-7149, PineRidgePlantation.com, Info@PineRidgePlantation.com

Pine Hill Plantation

2537 Spring Creek Road

Donalsonville, GA 39845 (229)758-2464

E-mail: dougcoe@pinehillplantation.com

An Orvis-endorsed wingshooting lodge, we provide private plantation amenities and hunt quality to discriminating upland bird hunters who appreciate finer traditions of plantation-style quail hunting. Experience the best Georgia has to offer from horseback and mule-drawn wagon. Pine Hill’s lodges

are arguably as nice as any private quail hunting plantation…you can trust Orvis on that! www.pinehillplantation.com

Berretta Shooting Grounds by High Adventure Company at Barnsley Resort

597 Barnsley Gardens Road, Adairsville, GA 30103

(770)773-7480

Beretta Shooring Grounds keeps alive a long Southern tradition of managing and preserving our game and lands. We o er upland game hunting and one of the Southeast’s most extensive shooting clays facilities— over water, in open eld and in the woods. Shooting guides ensure that all hunters— beginners and experts—fully enjoy their outing. Ladies and teens are particularly invited to experience our Southern shoot tradition at our luxury North Georgia quail hunting plantation, just an hour north of Atlanta. www.springbankplantation.com

Wynfield Plantation

5030 Leary Road, Albany, GA, 31721 (229)889-0193

E-Mail: lee@wynfieldplantation.com

Orvis Wing Shooting Lodge of the Year in 2005 and has also been named among Garden & Gun magazine’s “Top Fifty People, Places, and Things in the South.” With private cabins, southern cuisine, and

a sporting clays course, Wynfield’s accommodations have a unique charm. Located in the heart of quail country, Wynfield represents bobwhite hunting at its finest. Few things in life are more exciting than your dog locked down on a covey that flushes high and fast when the time is right! Book your quail hunting experience of a lifetime at Wynfield Plantation. www.wynfieldplantation.com.

Idaho

Flying B Ranch

2900 Lawyer Creek Road, Kamiah, ID 83536 (800)472-1945

E-mail: info@flyingbranch.com

Located in beautiful north-central Idaho, we are an Orvis-endorsed wing shooting and fly fishing destination with a complete big-game program. Flying B Ranch offers adventures that bring back guests again and again. Open year-round with a full-time staff, the Flying B Ranch delivers consistent quality. Enjoy no-limit wingshooting from our spacious western log lodge, pack into the backcountry for a big-game hunt, or fish for everything from wild westslope cutthroat trout to giant B-run steelhead. It’s all here for you, your family, and friends. www.flyingbranch.com

Kansas

Ravenwood Lodge

(800)656-2454

E-mail: ravenhpsc@aol.com

Contact Kenneth Corbet for reservations. Ravenwood is a place where hunters can have it all. Located on the eastern edge of Kansas Flint Hills, Ravenwood o ers great hunting grounds and a spectacular mix of hard- ying European driven pheasants, private guided eld hunts, or plantation hunts for wily bobwhites, big cock roosters, prairie chicken, turkey, deer, or sporting clays. Open year-round, reservations required, established 1985. www.ravenwoodlodge.com

Maine

Massachusetts

RMJ Ranch

Monroe, MA (305)773-4333

Unique property developed by pheasant hunters. Open year-round. One party, maximum two hunters. 220 acres of New England cover with over one mile of old stone walls, woodlands and elds. A beautiful walking property. Ranch location is quiet and remote, but only 15 minutes from upscale restaurants and unique hotels. Normal summer weather conditions in the Berkshire are very pleasant. Dogs required and available, or bring your own. About 2 hours from Boston, 3 hours from New York City. Reserve Your Hunt Today! Private Tower Shoots. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination required. www.rmjranch.com

Montana

Al Gadoury’s 6X Outfitters

Bozeman and Lewiston, MT (406)600-1835

E-Mail: al@6xoutfitters.com

Since 1979, guided walk trips on private spring creeks, Yellowstone River floats, and private lakes. Upland bird hunts are based in Lewiston. All wild birds—sage and sharptail grouse, Hungarian partridge, pheasant, and turkey. www.6xoutfitters.com

Gallatin River Lodge

9105 orpe Rd, Bozeman, MT 59718 (406)388-0148

Our resort is located on a quiet ranch on the Gallatin River west of Bozeman. We o er y shing guide service on the Madison, Yellowstone, and Missouri Rivers, plus many famous spring creeks nearby. Superb accommodations, exceptional dining, and conference facilities are available year-round. www.grlodge.com

New Mexico

Land of Enchantment Guides

discerning clientele seeking that rare combination of fine trophy, authentic stalk, and a personal approach. Set among the central South Island’s Southern Alps, the Guild family takes pride in hosting their clients individually on their private station in pursuit of famous Red Stag, Thar, Chamois, and Fallow Buck. www.highpeak.co.nz

North Dakota

Dakota Hills Hunting Lodge

HC56, Box 90, Oral, SD 57766

(605)424-2500 or (800)622-3603

E-mail: dakhills@gwtc.net

Contact Tom Lauing. We o er some of the nest world-class wingshooting available, with an abundance of pheasant, Hungarian partridge, chukar partridge, sharptail grouse, snipe, dove, and bobwhite quail. Allinclusive package includes rst-class lodging along the Cheyenne River, all beverages, three Western-cuisine meals per day, open bar, ammunition, clays, license, 21-bird limit, processing, and airport pickup.

www.dakhills.gwtc.net

Spain

Hunt Trip Spain

011-34-931162001

E-mail: contact@hunttripspain.com

A professional hunting company established by Francisco Rosich in 1986. Its exclusive purpose is hunting game trophies throughout Spain. Hunt Trip Spain has hunting concessions all over the country for the broad range of magni cent game animals available in Spain: 4 subspecies of Spanish Ibex (Beceite, Gredos, Southeastern & Ronda), Spanish Red Stag, Mou on Sheep, Fallow Deer, Pyrenean and Cantabrian Chamois, Feral Goat, Wild Boar, Roe Deer and Barbary Sheep. Outstanding hunts for RedLegged Partridges, driven or upland hunts are also available. HUNT TRIP SPAIN has served International hunters for more than 20 years. Come, let us transform your visit to Spain into an unforgettable adventure. www.hunttripspain.com

Libby Camps

PO Box 810, Ashland, ME 04732

(207)435-8274

E-mail: matt@libbycamps.com

Orvis-endorsed wing shooting and fishing lodge. Lakeside log cabins, home cooked meals, master guides, and sea planes to access the four million acre private timberlands of the North Maine Woods. Daily fly-outs for trophy native brook trout and land-locked salmon (May-Sept) and for wingshooting in October. Hunting for grouse, woodcock, moose, deer, and bear in the “big woods.” Fifth-generation owners, since 1890. Orvis Fishing Lodge of the Year 2006-07. www.libbycamps.com

(505)629-5688 or (505)927-5356

E-mail: trout@loeflyfishing.com

Offering single-day guided fly fishing trips and all inclusive, multi-day packages on the best rivers, streams, lakes, and private ranches in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Excellent year-round fishing. Experienced guides welcome beginners and experts alike. Orvis-endorsed.

www.loeflyfishing.com

New Zealand

High Peak

(643)318-6575

E-Mail: Simon@highpeak.co.nz

Where great hunting stories begin. Exclusive New Zealand hunting experiences for

Utah

Falcon’s Ledge

(435)454-3737

E-mail: info@falconsledge.com

One of the great western y- shing and wingshooting lodges. Cast to trophy trout on clear tail-waters, mountain freestone streams, private stillwaters, and enjoy a day oating the famous Green or Provo Rivers. Secure, pristine, and unpressured. Non- shing spouses stay free! Honored as the 2012 Orvis Endorsed Fly Fishing Lodge of the Year! www.falconsledge.com

Virginia

Chincoteague Hunting & Fishing Center (888)231-4868

Virginia’s Eastern Shore has one of the largest, most diverse populations of waterfowl in North America. Hunt puddlers, divers, sea ducks, mergansers, Atlantic brant, Canada, and snow geese all in the same day with over a 30bird limit. We also o er rail hunting in September and October. www.duckguide.com

Murray’s Fly Shop

PO Box 156, 121 Main Streeet Edinburg, VA 22824 (540)984-4212

E-mail: info@murrayflyship.com

Located in the Shenandoah Valley, 90 miles west of Washington, DC. Over 300 rods by Scott, Winston, Orvis, and St. Croix. More than 50,000 flies in stock. Harry Murray conducts 20 fly fishing schools for trout and bass. Complete guide services. Free mailorder catalog. www.murraysflyshop.com

Primland

2000 Busted Rock Road

Meadows of Dan, VA 24120 (866)960-7746

Join us for a rare opportunity to visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and experi-

ence driven pheasant shoots comparable to the best in the U.K. From pegs in a deep valley you’ll aim your double gun at the wild urry of game birds as they appear from the towering ridges above. Upland birds is also a signature activity with spacious grounds and hard- ushing birds. Primland is the ultimate retreat for world-class golf, re ned dining and outdoor activities in an environment of rare natural beauty. www.primland.com

Yukon Territory

Tincup Wilderness Lodge

(604)484- 4418 or +41 43 455 0101

E-Mail: info@tincup-lodge.com

Situated on the shores of Tincup Lake close to the Kluane National Park in Canada’s Yukon Territory, surrounded by mile up upon mile of unspoiled natural landscape, Tincup Wilderness Lodge enjoys a truly unique location. The surrounding Ruby Range provides views of breathtaking beauty from dawn to dusk. The Lodge can be reached only by floatplane. In order to ensure our undisturbed privacy in a family environment, we limit bookings to a maximum of 8-10 guests per week. This level of occupancy also enables us to welcome groups, giving all members plenty of scope to pursue their various interests and activities.

www.tincup-lodge.com

Gray’s Sporting Journal

NOTICE

The outfitters, guides, lodges and plantations listed here are advertisers in Gray’s. The copy is provided by the advertiser, and Gray’s makes no claim as to the value of the services provided by any advertiser. When hiring an outfitter or guide, shop with care, and check references before making a financial commitment.

Hunt thousands of acres from secluded cabins on private hi-country ranch that borders the Grand Mesa and Gunnison National Forests, and the BLM. Vacation: explore, hike, bike and 4 wheel. Fish trout stocked lakes. Breathtaking scenery. Nature getaway.

Remembering

Chris Dombrowski has followed his masterful Body of Water: A Sage, A Seeker, and the World’s Most Elusive Fish with a brilliant memoir, e River You Touch: Making a Life on Moving Water (Milkweed, hardbound, 321 pages, $25), a book that speaks in many registers about living a life sculpted by shing, hunting and a love of nature. In prose you could sharpen a knife on, the author accounts for 15 formative years of his life in Western Montana as a poet and shing guide, naturalist and hunter, husband and father. ese were years shing

brainy prose, somehow liquid and oaken at once. He knows his way around the tricky eddies of memoir; everything he writes feels like it’s being noticed for the rst time, coming to the page like newly discovered spring water: “I made a single instinctual cast, hooked the trout—it leapt high, knocking caddis from the overhanging willows—and fought it to the shallows ecked with granite and pyrite, small particles of the mountains I could not see but whose peaks I knew stood some miles away, severing land from sky. Holding it loosely underwater, watching its aring gills stir the pebbled streambed, I saw the sh

Western Montana’s brawling rivers and hunting its high country, years of trying to make a living, getting married, starting a family. Dombrowski understands that we live life traversing watersheds, actual and metaphoric. He is rst and foremost a river creature: “When I leave the river’s company for extended periods of time, I feel like I’ve been torn from it, missing it the way a young child might miss a cherished pillow or plush animal. Which is not to say that rivers are gentle teachers: What are they if not infallible authorities on gravity, force, and obstacles?”

e Bitterroot and the Big Blackfoot and other waters led him to a livelihood that complemented his writing life and allowed him to move forward with an extraordinary sense of wholeness.

A gifted poet, Dombrowski writes in earthy,

as an elemental composite of its entire surround.”

e heart of this book is the author’s journey into the thrilling expectations and unfathomable anxieties of marriage and fatherhood. No Hallmark cliches or sitcom hijinks, just a remarkable attentiveness to his wife’s pregnancy and the birth of his two children, events that form the braided headwaters of his happiness. at story is woven with his love of nature and language. He o ers a view of life in Western Montana somehow una ected by its recent gentri cation, as well as judgments about what history has done to nature and people, how carelessness and injustice dim the future we want for ourselves and our children. Among many other gems, there’s a ne essay about his friendship with the late Jim Harrison, another Michigan boy who

To learn the language of rivers is the task of many lifetimes.

Chris Dombrowski, The River You Touch

needed bigger country to stretch his soul. I can’t do justice to a book as perfect in tone as this, so generous in pace and written with the inviting but dangerous intensity of rivers—of gravity, force and the obstacles between remembering the past, living in the present and believing in the future.

Like Chris Dombrowski, Michael Garrigan traces some of his DNA as a poet to the late Jim Harrison. e rest derives from the world around him—family, woods, waters, history, myth. His new book of poems, River, Amen (Wayfarer Books, softbound, 124 pages, $25) is also ribboned with rivers: “River birch and rhododendrons / hemlocks and heartaches of lost sh, / Fall in love with river bends because they always bend again.” is ne volume of poetry “wanders down hills and across ravines...and eventually nds its way into the genetics of the forest, where everything grows or rusts. Garrigan writes poetry rooted in real experiences that reveal unadorned truths. He assays the truth in Pennsylvania’s hard-used coal country, the pathos of abandoned railbeds, the messages of petroglyphs, the slither of snakeheads up the Susquehanna. He enjoys the beauty of brook trout and shad, dainty sulfurs and fat green drakes, skittering caddis and erratic boulders. He takes his love of wild places to the Penobscot and the Androscoggin where big wild water teaches him things. Hungry and imaginative, he skins a woodchuck and spies “Buddha in a red canoe.” He confronts history and rural rustbelt realities: “ is fractured land holds me with its coal dust clinging to everything.” But he still nds places to wander that “are more rivers than roads.”

Amid it all, Garrigan knows balance is the thing: “ is is the balance of being we seek—casting a y rod while standing in a canoe.” And he nds, and accepts, unending mystery: “Each river swallows everything, keeping hidden what we are called to.”

Ron Ellis writes with an unvarnished clarity that e ortlessly—for the reader if not the writer— reveals the depth and complexity of his outdoor experiences. is was evident in his ne rst book, Cogan’s Woods: A Celebration of Hunting, Family, and Kentucky, and appears again in full, quiet force in

Yonder: Tales from an Outdoor Life (Prauss Press, hardbound, 160 pages, $30). Ellis writes out of Kentucky, a name with enduring resonance, still a “border state” in interesting ways—a hinge between east and Midwest, a stir of north and south with a rich hunting and shing tradition. In short essays you can sip like Bourbon, the author writes of his home woods with all the a ection and understanding of his rst book. He also ranges about, mostly pursuing grouse in other unsung places in the Upper Midwest and Western New York. And he shes for wild trout in the Great Smoky Mountains, where he keeps a cabin. e short essays that comprise this book are wellrendered narratives of ordinary experiences worth remembering: nding woodcock while hunting for grouse in Michigan, taking his rst bird dog a eld, hunting grouse the February after his father died. A thoroughly contemporary voice, Ellis has warm roots in the classic outdoor writing of Burton Spiller, William Harnden Foster, Dana Lamb, George Bird Evans and Frank Woolner.

I much admire the intimate scale of this apparent miscellany of essays that has so many strong unifying elements. All of Ellis’s local loves—coverts and streams, dogs and ushes, woods and elds—loom large on the page. And in Kentucky apparently, anything worth doing is done outdoors: shing for bluegills and pumpkinseeds with one’s father and grandfather, molding doughballs for carp, duck hunting, deer hunting, turkey hunting and, of course, ushing grouse out of autumn woods. A life held together by country things where redemption is found in the outdoors: “Within sight of the creek, I drift into the welcoming quiet of a sacred space protected by trees and running water, a place rich in everlasting memories, and, on this evening, a place marked by a slant of light bending toward hope, perhaps.” All this accompanied by a lifetime of bird dogs and the company of friends and family. “Box of Light,” a ne homage to his father’s memory, is perhaps where the book was headed all along. As he notes at the end of one hunting day: “with the sun sliding down to the horizon and the cigar smoke drifting to the heavens, I decided that it felt just like religion.” S

An author and essayist, Chris Camuto shuttles among past, present and future on Wolftree Farm in central Pennsylvania, where he lives and writes.

Bittersweet

e rst trout

I ever caught on a y took a garish purple patch of feathers and cloth I’d seen in a souvenir shop and bought blind, without a clue. A 15-year-old boy who’d never heard of nymphs or match-the-hatch, yet yearned to sh the way real anglers do. Somehow, dragging the thing deep like a sodden worm behind a pair of lead shot, I hooked a sh. “I caught a trout! I caught a trout! On a y!” I cried.

Of countless sh hooked, or yet to hook, that ageless thrill, none has meant so much, or will.

Kent Cowgill is a retired English professor living in Winona, Minn., with an abiding passion for steelhead angling in the tributaries of Lake Michigan. His most recent books are a travel narrative, Back in Time: Echoes of a Vanished America in the Heart of France, and a ction collection, Sunlit Ri es and Shadowed Runs: Stories of Fly shing in America. Both are available on Amazon.

Hickory, an original acrylic on panel, 30 x 24 inches, by Jeff Gandert

Back Cover: Deep Pocket, an original oil on board, 10 x 18 inches, by Adriano Manocchia