ISSUE 2 • winter/spring 2013
Sporting Classics
ishing F
F
eatur
res
At the top of the world 66
Tossing colorful streamers and even dry flies to char and grayling while dodging ice floes is just another day of fishing in this Arctic wilderness. By Todd Tanner
The dance goes on 82
To the accomplished woman angler, the grace, agility and power in casting a flyline is like a waltz, a ballet in which the music of the water never ends and . . . By Laurie Morrow
days of silver 100
Angling adventures in the Alaskan wilderness.By Gary Kramer
T
Columns
fishing 12
Unlike Superman, I could not imagine stopping a locomotive, but that’s what started pulling me toward the river. By Paul Quinnett
fly fishing 22
The music of the West Fork played soft and sweet. Happy it seemed, but perhaps a little nervous about the future. Yet maybe those were his emotions rather than the creek’s. By Todd Tanner
Tells to tell 28
Many happy hours await you on the nearest lake or pond where a six-inch bluegill will stir your heart and a pounder is the stuff of dreams. By Michael McIntosh
horizons 38
In 130 feet of water, the bottom of Puget Sound must have been shingled with flounder. There was a lot of reeling to do. By Roger Pinckney
ramblings 48
They called it Corporate Cove and it had gotten its name honestly. Few were ever invited there, but even fewer were ever invited back. By Michael Altizer
ishing F Sporting Classics
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Unlike Superman, I could not imagine sto but that’s what started pulling m
opping a locomotive, me toward the river.
Fishing By Paul Quinnett
photo by art carter
Fishing
A 14 SPORTING CLASSICS FISHING
Mr. Fred Butler of the UK has published a book entitled, The Doomsday Book of Giant Salmon: a Record of the Largest Atlantic Salmon Ever Caught. A weighty volume I have yet to read, the first print-run of 5,000 sold out in just a month, and a special edition priced at 650 pounds ($1,311 USD) sold out before it was ready to be shipped. What gives? How can a book about big Atlantic salmon become a surprise bestseller, especially at such steep prices in the current economy? There is nothing in the title about sex, violence or Brittney Spears, so I must assume something darker is at work. But what? A chaser of big fish myself, I believe the draw must have something to do with the notion that, deep down, every fisherman wants to catch a fish big enough to pose a mortal threat. You know, the Jaws effect. The psychic trauma inflicted on millions of movie-goers by a thumping, heartbeat song and a big rubber shark was nothing short of amazing. I gave up surfing before I walked out of the theater. Big fish have haunted me since childhood. Jaws only reinforced a primordial terror. My own Moby Dick moment unfolded in the spring of 1947 when I was but a lad of seven. I don’t remember much of 1947, but I do remember the fish that tried to kill me.
A
t the time my mother and my two brothers and I were living with my grandparents on the family farm in Iowa – first homesteaded by my ancestors in the mid 1800s. My father had gone broke in a failed business deal out in Oregon and was starting a new job in Southern California and so, for a long spring-to-winter retreat, mother and the kids moved in with kin while dad got back on his feet. Maybe because summer is a special time, or because summer is a Kipling-like world-within-a-world for children, or perhaps because great adventures are possible around an old farms at the edges of the woods, for a long summer my older brother John and I found ourselves living like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn but, I must add, without the mutual affection. You see, I hated my brother. He was not a year older than me (363 days), but always a little taller and a little quicker; uglier, but taller and quicker. Mom and dad loved John best and of course, the new baby (Jim) next best. I was the middle child; the unwanted one; the “love mistake.” In those distant days, if you looked up sibling rivalry in Webster’s dictionary you would see our pictures, “John” “Paul” – both scowling at having to be photographed together, each clutching a weapon. Enter my fishing grandfather, a problem solver. Grandpa’s name was
Fishing
16 SPORTING CLASSICS FISHING
Garfield Guthrie. Everyone called him “Gar.” “You boys shouldn’t fight so much,” Gar would say. “Enjoy each other’s company! Be gentlemen.” These repeated admonishments following fisticuffs would cause me to pause and reconsider how I truly felt about my older brother. Then my hands would quietly return to braiding a noose for his scrawny throat. “Would you boys like to go fishing?” Grandpa asked one day when the chores were finished. Pushing and shoving for the window seat, we ran for the pickup. As we started down the country road to the Des Moines River and one of Grandpa’s carp holes, Gar explained, “These fish we’re going to catch are not those little trout your dad fishes for out in California. These are big fish!” “How big?” we chimed. “Big enough to pull you little fellers right into the river.” Our imaginations inflamed, we fell into a quarrel about who got to carry the bait can. My heart skipped at the thought of a fish big enough to pull a boy into the river. Why, seeing such a thing happen to my older brother might return justice to the universe. Setting up on his favorite sandbar, Grandpa rigged his fishing rod and threaded a big ball of reddish dough onto his hook. Made of flower, eggs, pig’s blood and two secrets, it was his magic carp formula. Tying on a large drop-sinker, Gar cast the works far out into the river and, when the lead had settled to the bottom, he reeled in the slack and set his jaw. You did not talk when fishing with Gar. You didn’t run around or run your mouth. You didn’t throw stones into the water. You did say stupid things like, “Gosh, it’s great to be out here in nature!” What you did was sit as still a stone and stare at the tip of the rod. Maintaining this monk-like posture proved especially challenging to small boys. For me, it became unbearable when a large hornet landed on the collar of my brother’s shirt. I’d have given anything to shout a warning but, as you know, fishing is fishing. After the hubbub died down and John stopped bawling like a baby, Grandpa packed the hornet bite with river mud and we got back to fishing. That’s when the bite came. “Wooooaaah!” cried Grandpa, snapping back the rod and setting the hook. We all watched line peel off the reel. Gar tested the fish to measure its strength and then said, “This is a biggun! Too big for me! Here, John, you bring him in!” As justification for sentiments to be described shortly, need I point out how the eldest son was given first rights on landing a trophy fish; not me, the middle boy, but the oldest boy, the first born, the prince, the chosen
Fishing
18 SPORTING CLASSICS FISHING
one, the heir to the bloody throne. Little wonder Hallmark doesn’t sell many happy birthday brother cards. That’s when it happened. As John took the rod, the fished stretched his arms straight out. Quickly sucking in air, he Our imaginations inflamed, we fell into hooted something a quarrel about who got to carry the bait unintelligible as his eyes popped can. My heart skipped at the thought of wonderfully out of a fish big enough to pull a boy into the his head. Feeling a touch river. Why, seeing such a thing happen to of slack, the big my older brother might return justice to fish turned and the universe. started downriver, leveraging a swift current. Unable to hold the big fish, John started running down the sandbar with the rod held high. As I recall he was screaming; unfortunately not in pain. Watching my much-loved older brother running out of sand and into what I prayed was deep water, I was overcome with a powerful and holy feeling that, somehow, there was a God. As I recall, this was my very first religious moment. “Stop that fish!” Grandpa shouted. “Don’t let him pull you into the river!” I was shouting, too, “Pull! Pull!” – not for John, but for the fish. John locked his legs and dug his heels into the sand to keep from plunging into the river. Grandpa, suddenly aware of the mounting hazard, charged down the sandbar and, at the last moment, jerked the rod from John and thumbed out more of the 50-pound-test to the monster. Then came my moment of truth, the moment when a small lad faces death. Grandpa was grinning. Without a word, he held the wildly pumping rod out to me, “Your turn!” Unlike Superman, I could not imagine stopping a locomotive, but that’s what started pulling me toward the river. Grandpa instructed me to “thumb the spool,” but I was having a hard time hearing over the screams. This time they were my screams, not John’s, as he was too busy cheering on the fish. A rush of pure terror passed over me as the water closed above my knees and I realized that this huge, unseen beast-of-the-deep was about to pull this poor little boy to a watery death. A boy, I should add, with a good heart, possessed of a kind and gentle spirit, helpful to his mother, trustworthy and honest – and yet, about to drown.
Fishing
20 SPORTING CLASSICS Hunting
I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t stop the devil fish. My body was frozen, but my mind was racing. In my mind I saw this lovely, thoughtful little boy being dragged into the deeps of the Des Moines River, thence down to the Mississippi and all the way to the Delta Country where, passing New Orleans, this poor little lad’s body would wash up on a levy and, finding him, the kind people of that understanding city would carefully dress him in a pure white suit – in keeping with his blameless nature – lay him out in a fine mahogany casket and, behind a team of pure white horses, carry him through the city behind a jazz band for all to see and worship and wonder at the saint of a man he might have become . . . “Give me the rod, boy!” I felt Grandpa’s rough hands on mine. “Here, give it to me!” My trance broken, I let go. I was up to my pockets in river water. My heart was beating like a jackhammer and, rescued from sure death, I had a sudden but clear vision. The scales fell from my eyes. A second religious awakening, a baptismal event, my dark heart was washed clean again. No longer would I hate my brother, John. Rather, I would love and cherish him. I would love him so much I would buy him a strong, unbreakable fishing rod for his birthday and personally make him some dough-ball baits. I would take him fishing on this very same river on this very same sandbar – just the two of us, with no adults around to screw things up. Because of my love for him, I would load his reel with 100-poundtest line to make sure there was no chance a really big fish could ever break away – even in the remote case that, tragically, his bony hands or big feet accidentally got tangled in the line. With a prayer forming on my lips, I could see myself dressed in black crape walking behind his New Orleans funeral train and trying not to grin. My hands, unconsciously, fell again to rehearsing how to make loops and snares and slipknots. Interrupting my sweet reverie, and on finally sliding the big carp up onto the sand nose first, Gar announced, “Go about fifteen pounds, boys. Corn and carp chowder tonight!” Well . . . that’s all the news from the Iowa farm country, out where the corn meets the sky, the men are all tall, the women are all good looking, and all the little children love each other.
The music of the West Fork played sweet. Happy it seemed, but perhap nervous about the future. Yet mayb were his emotions rather than the
PAINTING BY ROD CROSSMAN
soft and ps a little be those e creek’s.
Fly Fishing by Todd Tanner
Fly Fishing
I 24 SPORTING CLASSICS FISHING
drove over to the West Fork late this afternoon. Molly was gone for the day, off to Idaho with her friend Elizabeth, and I’d been holed up in the house with the doors and windows shut to keep the heat – low 90s in the shade, 102 outside in the direct sun – at bay. I never used to think of Montana as hot, but Lord, this was our fifth or seventh or tenth or some such outrageous number of consecutive days where we’d hit the century mark by mid-afternoon and I didn’t want to contemplate my withered brown lawn, my heat-whipped dogs or a forest that looked like a match poised for the strike. You wouldn’t ever guess that Montana would be like this. Not way up here on the Canadian border. Damn, it was hot. I slipped out just before six, figuring I’d better head down and get the mail. On my way back, with dust clouds welling up in my rear view mirror, the West Fork started calling my name. I knew it would be, if not cool, certainly cooler, and the overhanging cedar and larch would cast little reservoirs of shade on the water, offering some slight respite from the heat. The creek, as you might already have guessed, was low; not much more than a trickle. In fact, a raging torrent I couldn’t cross back in early June had been reduced by a rainless month to a thin, wet veneer over river cobble, maybe a foot deep in the little pools and plunges, and half that where the riffles glinted and sparkled in the soft golden sunlight. Golden even in that early hour because forest fires off to the west lent the air an ethereal, sensuous glow; a glow that came from smoke and dust and the vagaries of thermally-induced winds mixed with the oh-so-bright blue skies of July. Beautiful, even stunning, but a bad omen nonetheless. I wandered up the north bank, heading upstream towards the sinking sun and pausing here and there to take it all in – the huge boulders sculpted and formed by Mother Nature’s watery touch; the cedars, ancient sentinels who’d stood guard over the creek for centuries; the moss, the ferns and the mountain maple, all of whom seemed far too dry for this time of the season but who were still holding up, standing firm, just as we all do when our only other choice is to give up the ghost to a blast furnace of a summer. I looked for fish, of course, but I saw not a one. The West Fork holds rainbows, brookies, even a few cutts, but they all seemed to have vanished downstream into the big river or upstream into that huge, deep pool at the base of the falls. For just a second I wished I had brought my fly rod – in my mind, fly fishing is an infection, an affliction, a cellular-deep genetic imperative that haunts both my days and my dreams – but the desire passed as quickly as it came. Many things would have been appropriate at that moment – tearing off my clothes and soaking naked in the cool water, sleeping, meditating, even praying –
Fly Fishing
26 SPORTING CLASSICS FISHING
but fly fishing, in that heat, under those conditions, was no more the thing to do than pouring gasoline over my head and setting myself on fire. In all ways, in all things, we need balance. Thankfully, I’m finally starting to realize this particular truth. After a long time spent wandering the bank, I ended up sitting on a flat, midstream rock with my feet dangling in the water. The music of the West Fork played for me as it ran past, soft and sweet, and for a while I felt blessed. Happy, that water seemed, even joyful, but perhaps just a little nervous about the future. Yet maybe those were my emotions, rather than the creek’s. At some point conscious thought gave way to thoughtlessness, which is a wonderful, luxurious thing indeed, and then, slowly, eventually, to the dawning awareness that something, some unknown thing, had changed. All of the sudden, pretty much out of nowhere, I had the powerful feeling that I was being watched. I didn’t know who, or what, had awakened my subconscious defenses, but in a wild land full of griz and cougar it’s not wise to automatically attribute such feelings to a jay or a white-tailed deer. The foliage down on the creek is thick; plenty heavy enough to lend cover to a predator come down off the mountain for a drink or, perhaps, to explore the possibility of an evening meal. And as much as I like sharing my home with the coyotes and the wolves and the bears and the mountain lions and the ravens, I have no desire to assuage their hunger. Consequently, I stood up, looked around for a few wary moments and then made my way back downstream to the spot where I’d parked my truck. As I drove away from the creek, I started thinking about my fly rods and long bows. With summer galloping past, it won’t be long before the elk start to bugle and the fishing perks up; it won’t be long before my retrievers beg to go bird hunting and the deer polish their antlers on aromatic cedar saplings. In fact, it won’t be long before the frost settles and the leaves turn and the days savage my emotions with their poignancy, their too-short autumn perfection. But even with fall just over the horizon I’m going to concentrate on living in the moment. And that means embracing the dust and the fires and the heat. My rod and my bow will just have to wait. I do think that tomorrow I’m going to drive back down to the West Fork. I’ll park my truck and walk upstream and jump from rock to exposed rock until I decide that it’s time to stop being so damn hot. Then I’m going to slip into the water and get an otter-eye view of the world. Afterwards, I think I’ll just sit there and luxuriate in the wildness of this place. I’ll listen to the creek flow past, and keep an eye out for trout and bears and lions, and, if the spirit strikes me, I may pray for rain, which we really, truly, need. Most of all, though, I’m going to shed the hot, sticky skin of civilization and surrender to the cool waters of the West Fork. It’s funny, but that little creek just won’t stop calling my name.
Many happy hours await you on the nearest lake or pond where a six-inch bluegill will stir your heart and a pounder is the stuff of dreams.
Tales to Tell By Michael McIntosh
soc clay
Tales to Tell
In 30 SPORTING CLASSICS Fishing
spring, a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love. Somebody said that. In spring, an old man’s fancy turns to thoughts of fishing for bluegill. I said that. Moreover, it is a fancy that endures from spring through summer and into early fall. Bluegill, green sunfish, the hybrid they produce, redear, and a couple more all come under the collective title of “sunfish,” “panfish,” or in the South, simply “brim.” For the purposes of this, I’ll call them sunfish or bluegill. By any name, catching and subsequently eating them is about as good as it gets when you have your pants on. Bass are close relatives, and if bluegill grew as large as bass, I’m not sure what it would take to land one – perhaps a fighting chair with a harness. I suppose the first fish I caught were bullheads from a farm pond or catfish from the Des Moines River, shades of Huckleberry Finn. That was my father’s idea of fishing – flinging out a wad of stink-bait or chicken guts and then sitting interminably in hope that some bottomfeeding scavenger would find and eat it. In time I found this pastime unutterably boring and started tucking books into my tackle box. Left to my own devices, I’d tie my rod onto my bike and pedal about a mile and a half to a town park that featured a pond. We skated there in winter, but in summer it was a place to fish. My rod was a steel implement made for ice-fishing. Dad got it somewhere, probably for the princely sum of about fifty cents. I don’t know where the reel came from, only that it wasn’t new and was spooled up with old-fashioned braided bait-casting line. But I could tie on a hook, thread on an earthworm, sit on the wooden bridge that crossed the upper end of the pond, dangle the line in the water, and actually catch fish – bluegill. The largest I ever caught there was possibly four inches long, but size didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that they were voracious feeders and thus gave me the satisfaction of catching one about every couple of minutes or less. I still went to the river with Dad and endured his exercises in terminal boredom, but my heart was elsewhere. The ice-fishing rod got replaced by a fiberglass bait-casting rod and then by a spinning outfit. They were more fun than that stubby steel thing, especially as I found some farm ponds where the bluegill were larger. The epiphany, though, came when my uncle loaned me his fly rod. It, too, was fiberglass and no great shakes in the rod world, but it changed me for all time. After much trial and countless errors I learned some competency with it, and in the process learned that sunfish, and the occasional bass, hitched to a fly rod is the way to go.
Tales to Tell
32 SPORTING CLASSICS fishing
My own first fly rod was an old bamboo that Dad inherited when one of his fishing buddies died. I wish I could say it’s a Payne or an early Orvis, but it isn’t – just some cheapie that once had a very soft action. I still have it, but the tips have taken sets in so many directions that I doubt it’s fishable. But it was when I got it, and it cranked the whole sunfish business to a new level. Subsequently I forsook all other forms of gear and tackle, and have fished nothing but fly rods ever since – trout and salmon and steelhead and arctic char in Alaska, trout wherever I could find them in the Lower 48, even the mighty peacock bass in Brazil. (Remember I said that North American bass are actually sunfish? The peacock isn’t really a bass but rather a cichlid. This is called Ichthyology.) A big peacock hooked up on even a 9-weight rod is a ride you won’t soon forget, but their smaller cousins, called butterflies, are even more fun. The largest I ever caught was about five pounds, but they are ferocious fighters and will swarm a foam popper in little gangs. They remind me of . . . well, bluegill. And they are delicious.
T
he bluegill clan ranges all over the Midwest and the South. I’ve caught them in northern Minnesota and northern Michigan. They thrive best in warmer water – farm ponds, lake margins and slow-moving rivers – and the farther south you go, the bigger they get. I know of two state records that top two pounds, and I’m sure there are others even larger. The thought of being tied up to a two-pound bluegill is the stuff of dreams. I’ve caught lots and lots of one-pounders, and that’s probably as much as this old heart could stand. Certain states will voluntarily stock newly built farm pounds. Missouri, where I lived for many years, is one. There, the standard mix involves three species –bass, bluegill and catfish. In theory, the little sunfish provide forage for the bass, and the catfish are free to prowl around the bottom, doing their catfishy thing. And when the intention is to grow bass as large as possible, it works. A few landowners, not so enamored with bass, reverse the food chain and provide tiny bass for the sunfish to eat. This, too, works. I had a friend in northwest Missouri who did it, and he grew some splendid bluegill, up to a pound or just a bit more. I spent some happy hours around that pond and enjoyed many a good dinner as a result. A pond meant specifically for bluegill needs some management. Because sunfish are highly prolific, they can soon overpopulate a small space, and everyone except the softer-headed preservationists
Tales to Tell
34 SPORTING CLASSICS fishing
understands the ultimate effect of overpopulation. It applies to any species of animal, deer to birds to fish to people. Too many individuals stress the resources to the point where the resources are simply used up; then the whole population eventually dies off. Managing a bluegill pond isn’t difficult, so long as you’re willing to suffer the agony of catching them, turning back the small ones, and keeping the big ones. As they say, someone has to do it. My friend’s pond, incidentally, came to a sad end. It wasn’t very deep and during an unusually brutal winter, froze clear to the bottom. Not a single fish survived. He started over, but that sort of thing takes a few years to develop, and I moved to a distant part of the state before the program once again bore fruit. The ones you keep offer another sort of fruit that is second to none, for sunfish are splendid table fare. Filet them, turn them over to skin-side down and slice the meat from the skin. Whip up an egg, dip the filets in that, roll them in cornmeal, and pop them into a skillet with a half-inch of fairly hot oil. Sizzle them till they’re browned but no more, and drain them on paper towels. Serve with greens – spinach or collard – potato salad or sliced onion and cucumber that’s marinated in vinegar and a touch of sugar. A glass of really good beer is the perfect compliment. Fishing for bluegill is the soul of simplicity. They require no heroic deception, nor do they demonstrate the piscine hysteria that trout do. Drop something in the water and they’ll take it – a quality I much admire in a fish. They also do not require elaborate gear. You could tie some line onto a length of re-bar or a tree branch, and if you can get your offering to where the fish are, you’re in business. Sunfish hang out in the shallows, so you’ll do best casting parallel to the bank, a few feet out. Fishing from a boat, you can cast straight into the bank. If something doesn’t grab your lure the moment it hits the water, let it lie for a few seconds and then pull it in with eight- or teninch strips. When the fish are actively feeding, you’ll see dimples on the surface, and you can cast right into the middle of them. The best armament I’ve found in all these years of chasing bluegill is a lightweight fly rod with appropriate line, about a six-foot leader, and a rather fine tippet. My favorite rig for quite some time has been a 5-weight Thomas & Thomas (lovely rods, by the way). It has the backbone to lay out an ungodly amount of line and the sensitivity to let you really feel the fish. But you don’t need to cast half a coil of line for bluegill. A 20- or 25foot pitch is a long one. Now that I’m back in the Midwest, where all
Tales to Tell
36 SPORTING CLASSICS fishing
this began, I’m thinking of a 2-weight with slow action, something that communicates the bluegill’s wild energy to my hand, right down my arm, and into my heart. I’ve caught sunfish on dry flies, nymphs even streamers so small that you can go bog-eyed tying them. But they are not sophisticates when it comes to terminal tackle. You can catch all you want from a box of poppers painted in bright colors – red and yellow and black, pale and orange. I really don’t think color matters; it’s the surface disturbance that prompts the strike. Poppers offer the same appeal to a fisherman as dry flies but without the bother of drying them occasionally and applying a fresh drop of floatant. Some fish for the thrill. I fish for the serenity. Which is not to say that fishing for bluegill is without its moments. I once hooked a curious Holstein that had wandered up behind me without my knowing it, got her by the ear on a backcast. She tossed her head, which set the hook, and then set off at what passes for a gallop in a milk cow. I’m here to tell you that you just can’t turn a stampeding Holstein with a 6X tippet. I did the same thing with my old farm dog, who loved to go fishing with me. I got him in the thick hair of his ruff. I don’t think he even noticed – and it would take a lot more than that to make Waldo stampede. I called him to me and untangled the popper while he stood looking at me as if wondering what the fuss was about. Just another of Dad’s weird quirks . . . Such occasional high drama aside, fishing for bluegill is as peaceful as you could hope for – which is different from going comatose while waiting for catfish. With bluegill, you can catch fish without uproar. Consequently, evening is my favorite time to play with sunfish, especially after a day’s work, when it’s time to shed away the stresses of whatever you’ve done during the past hours. The fish like to feed then and start rising all around. The only sound usually is a blackbird or two, calling from a patch of cattails, interrupted by the soft splash of a doughty little fish snatching something from the surface. Often enough, that something is tied to the end of your tippet. I no longer need to pursue serenity to the extent I once did, but that’s not to say that I’ll turn it down in whatever form it takes. And for that, sunfish are every bit as reliable as they were when I was a kid and a young man. To an aging Midwestern boy, it’s good to be back, and part of the charm of being back anywhere is reconnecting with old friends.
In 130 feet of water, the bottom of Puget Sound must h shingled with flounder. There was a lot of reel
photo by art carter
have been ling to do.
Horizons By Roger Pinckney
Horizons
I 40 SPORTING CLASSICS FISHING
hit Seattle just in time for Gay Pride Week, when the Gold Rush Saloon brought in a couple of mechanical bulls for Queers on Steers Nite. And no, I did not make this up. I saw it all from the Edgewater Hotel. The Edgewater was just across the street, not on the edge of the water, but out in it, suspended over a twenty foot tide on pilings. The Beatles stayed at the Edgewater, Frank Zappa, too, and Led Zeplin’s drummer once wrestled a sizable shark through a window of a waterfront room. There are still tooth marks on the sill, locals swear, but I never got to see them. My room was facing the other way, overlooking the swelling crowd before the Gold Rush. Seattle is a town where a man might light up a joint in public, but hardly a Camel Straight, where women aren’t used to having doors opened for them or being called Darlin’. You can get lattes and frappes and cappuccinos, but infrequently just plain old coffee. There are a enough vegans, pagans and hoboes to satisfy just about anybody and in a true spirit of atmospheric equality, it tries to rain a little bit every day. Pacifists, Socialists and Green Peacers, I felt like some obscure Old Testament prophet, fallen into The Camp of Mine Enemies. But I didn’t fall into Seattle, I went there on purpose. I have two daughters out there and they were bungee-jumping from Daddy’s frayed heartstrings. Daughter Two said, “How am I supposed to have meaningful relationships with men if I don’t have one with my father?” At least she mentioned men. Daughter One just got hitched so she couldn’t pull that line, good thing. But then she called to tell me Daughter Two just fell off the porch and broke her leg, stone cold sober it seems, and was laid up in the hospital. So there went that Ansley Fox 16 I was fixing to buy, you know, the one that carries like a twenty and shoots like a twelve, the Gulf Stream fishing, too. But with daughters like this, a daddy’s got no right to complain. They are both tall, beautiful and smart. Daughter One, with more degrees than your mill-run Shriner, was working for the biggest bank in town. By the time I got there, Daughter Two was crutching around, organizing for a fledging labor union. They showed me all the places they expected Daddy would want to see: natural history museum, docks where the sea-battered Alaska fishing fleet put in, locks where the sockeye salmon leapt their way upstream to spawn. That was Sunday. Come Monday the girls went off to work and I was left to my own devices. Lonesome and a long way from home, I got to thinking about Buddy Lubkin and Zoo Von Harten.
Horizons
B 42 SPORTING CLASSICS FISHING
uddy Lubkin ran the county motor-grader back when I was a boy. He was big as an oil drum and it took two and a half cases of Black Label beer to get him through a weekend. His buddy Zoo Von Harten kept the motorgrader running. He drank Black Label, too, but he was a skinny whipsnake of a man. Together, they were masters of a tin and plywood fish camp on Pritchard’s Island, South Carolina, where the winding Skull Creek ebbtide finally met the sea. They kept that camp for thirty-odd years, rowing and sailing twenty miles downriver, and later wheezing along in a seepy cypress skiff with a Buccaneer twenty-five, a rig they called Big Mo. There were spottails in the swash, mullet and flounder in the shallows, and so many clams you never even bothered to rake them up. There were marsh hens, too, and you could pole after them when the September new moon sent the tide roaring over the spartina flats. There were deer and wild hogs in the palmetto thickets, a defunct Southern Bell phone booth for a smokehouse, and the hams and bacon nailed to the kitchen rafters dripped grease on your head when you sat around the stove winter nights. I was just a tag-along kid and such hospitality came with a price. Mr. Zoo was liberal with his twist-mouth sarcasms but Mr. Buddy just stuck out his belly and bellered. “Boy, is your laig broke?” when I was slow attending the many chores he assigned. If I sassed him, he’d say, “Ass keeps, boy!” First time I heard that one, I was safely out of reach and requested an explanation. Mr. Buddy hollered back, “I can kick yours when I catch you later!” And when I was finally done, he’d sharpen the knife, oil the skillet, hand me a pail of cut mullet and say, “If you don’t know what else to do, boy, go fishing.” Buddy Lubkin’s dead, Zoo Von Harten, too, and when the camp finally got hurricaned away, rusted, faded and battered, Black Label cans littered the downwind riverbank for miles. But for the men who got to be boys there, and for the boys who learned to be men, Mr. Buddy and Mr. Zoo will live forever and the camp will always be just around the next broad bend in the river.
I
f you don’t know what else to do, go fishing. I pawed the Yellow Pages, and got Captain Carl Nyman on the line. Must have been a cell phone. “Can’t talk now, I’m busy with the fish. Can you call back in an hour?” That might have been a line, but it sure worked on me. Salty
Horizons
44 SPORTING CLASSICS FISHING
Dog was a seventies-something Uniflite, twenty-eight feet with a fourfifty-four Chevy, cuddy cabin, coffee-maker, marine head. Tackle, bait, license, fish cleaned and packed, for about half of what I expected. We motored out to deep water as the early sun burned the last of seafog off the Mr. Buddy hollered back, “I can slick waters of kick yours when I catch you later!” Puget Sound and snow-capped And when I was finally done, he’d and majestic Mt. sharpen the knife, oil the skillet, Hood slowly rose hand me a pail of cut mullet and say, above the skyline of Seattle. “If you don’t know what else to do, Captain Carl boy, go fishing.” is Norwegian and he wears it well: blonde, big-faced and blue eyed, a great-grandson of the immigrant loggers, fishermen and sailors who blew ashor here back in the 1880s. He grew up on the waterfront, fishing when he could, working when had to till he finally took to fishing full time. We’d start with king salmon, trolling back and forth across a shallow spot, only a hundred and thirty feet deep. Salty Dog was nothing fancy, but Captain Carl had her fitted right. Remote-controlled ten-horse on a trolling bracket, four electricpowered downriggers, an armload of graphite rods with good old Penn 209s spooled with sixteen-pound mono. He shut down the big engine, fired the troller, doped the technicolor spoons with fish oil, and set them to working ten feet off the bottom. We blubbered along, rocking in the wake from an inbound freighter, a pack of seals following like hungry wolves. It was catch and release till the first of July, but we had to watch those seals. “If we can’t eat salmon, they can’t either,” Captain Carl said and flung a seal bomb their way. A seal bomb is about twice the size of those M-80s they’d sell from firecracker stands up and down US 17 in the old days. Fizzle, sizzle, kerthump. The water bulged and bubbled. The seals kept out of range of Captain Carl’s good arm, but still followed. “Ever shoot em?” I asked. “Can’t shoot em,” he said. “Can’t even shoot at em?” “Can’t even shoot at em,” he said and tossed another bomb their way.
Horizons
46 SPORTING CLASSICS FISHING
Captain Carl scooped that first salmon onto the cleaning table, gently worked the hook from its jaw and held it there for me to admire, all shimmery silver in the cold gray light. He threw it back and it shot into the depths. Another fish, t h e n a n o t h e r, y e t a n o t h e r i n s h o r t o r d e r. T h i r t y i n c h e s e a c h , ten pounds, I figured. I had skipped breakfast and about the time I threw fish number ten back overboard, I got the question every honest catch-and-release man must eventually ask himself, Why am I bothering these fish? That was in private. Then I hollered at Captain Carl, “Hey Cap, get me some fish I can eat!” Maybe he heard my belly growl. He grinned up from his work a n d a s k e d , “ Yo u g o t a n y t h i n g a g a i n s t f l o u n d e r ? ” I ’ d p i c k e d u p a f e w o n P r i t c h a r d ’s I s l a n d , b o u n c i n g a y e l l o w bucktail across the saltmarsh bottom, or maybe sometimes gigging them on lowtide midnights beneath a dangling Coleman, while jumping mullet did their best to knock out the l i g h t . We ’ d c a l l u p a p o r p o i s e b y b e a t i n g a n o a r a g a i n s t t h e bottom of the boat. He’d ease along beside us, running the f i s h t o s h a l l o w w a t e r, s n a p p i n g u p t h o s e w e ’ d m i s s . But there were no porpoises here, and the seals were not helping at all. Captain Carl tossed a final bomb, turned to w o r k i n g a j i g , q u i c k l y r e e l e d i n a t w o - p o u n d f l o u n d e r. H e threaded pieces onto a double-hook bottom rig as we drifted i n t h e g e n t l e s w e l l s . B i n g o , I h a d a f l o u n d e r o n f l o u n d e r, o n e o n e a c h h o o k . T h a t b o t t o m m u s t h a v e b e e n s h i n g l e d w i t h f l o u n d e r. I r e e l e d and reeled and at 130 feet, there was a lot of reeling to do. Captain Carl scaled, gutted and headed. I caught my limit and his, too, and then we turned back towards Seattle, Mount Hood shrinking and the high-rises growing and the natural world becoming an unnatural world once again. B u t s o m e h o w t h a t d i d n o t s e e m t o m a t t e r. I ’ d f r y s o m e f i s h a n d m a k e s o m e g r a v y. M a y b e I ’ d h a v e t o s k i p t h e g r i t s a n d look for rice instead, but the hippies were truck farming the hills to the east and surely I could find tomatoes. The girls w o u l d e a t a n d I w o u l d t e l l s t o r i e s a n d M r. B u d d y a n d M r. Z o o w o u l d l i v e f o r e v e r.
They called it Corporate Cove and it had got its name honestly. Few were ever invited th but even fewer were ever invited ba morning frost by Lanford Monroe
tten here, ack.
Ramblings By Michael Altizer
Ramblings
“Hawk.” 50 SPORTING CLASSICS FISHING
I still don’t know why I even bothered saying it. He, of all people, would probably have no interest at all in the great bird. And so I was completely surprised when he replied, “Yeah . . . redtail. In about two miles we’ll see another one.” It was at that moment that things between us began to change. We were headed south on I-75, Ted Brosseau and I, on my first visit to one of his old and trusted clients. I was the new art director in the agency, callow and young and full of vinegar, totally oblivious to all I didn’t know and ready to change the world. But Ted had worked with them for years. I had been warned about him: “You watch that guy . . . he’s a real hard-nose, tough to work with, very demanding and never satisfied with anything we do. Thinks he knows more than us or the clients. Way too picky. You watch him.” On the other hand, Ted and I had already achieved some success together. Our first photo session had gone pretty smoothly and he seemed to be pleased with the results, though it was still hard for me to get a read on what he was really thinking. So when he asked me to come with him to show the client the results, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the trip, and at first we’d had an awkward time finding something new to talk about. But now we’d seen the hawk. And two miles later we saw another one, just like he said we would, perched high on a snag, her dusky belly blending with the grey morning sky as she sat overlooking an old field, searching for any movement that might imply breakfast. I don’t remember much else about that day – except the client was unusually pleased with our photographs and so were we, and by the time we rolled back into town that night, Ted had invited me to come fishing with him sometime. And that was serious.
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ishing had always been serious. And once again I was warned: “You won’t believe this guy . . . he can lay a fly between a water strider’s knees from a mile away and never wet its belly.” This from the same people who had warned me what a hard-nose he was. “You just wait . . . you’d better be good if you’re gonna to fish with him.” But we had worked together long enough for me to realize that he was a man from whom I could learn much, in business and in fishing. And while we had a common point of reference with the hawk and the photography, our relationship rested primarily in the professional arena and we hadn’t yet made the jump from associates to friends. I would never have presumed to invite myself into in his canoe. He was at least 30 years my senior and seemed to have everyone else in the agency pretty well
Ramblings
intimidated. But I had already decided that they’d been right about at least two things – he did know more about our clients’ business than they did. And he certainly was picky. But then so was I. And now I found myself looking forward to the fishing.
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hey called it Corporate Cove. And it had gotten its name honestly, for he would occasionally invite someone from the agency to join him there – so long as they had some semblance of skill with a fly rod. But few were ever invited back. It lay 30 miles west of downtown, a mile-long lead bearing east off the main channel, and it was his favorite after-hours haunt for bluegills and the occasional bass. And when I at last returned alone a few years after he died, his old canoe was still there. We pulled out of the parking lot the following Friday afternoon. At first he was the same senior vice president I had come to know over the past few weeks. Except, of course, for his more casual attire. But by the time we got to the cove, his demeanor had begun to ease. His square stern canoe sat tucked in the edge of the woods next to a neatly stacked pile of wood, and I noticed his fly rod carried the marks and scuffs of many years’ use as he threaded line through its faded, weathered guides. As for me, I had rigged up the night before, if for no other reason than to avoid the embarrassment of holding up the proceedings once we arrived. Now he looked over at the fly I had chosen and grinned and shook his head and offered me one of his. “You take the front,” he said as we slid the canoe into the water. I didn’t know whether it was because he wanted to give me the best seat or because he didn’t trust my paddling skills. But I did know that now I was out front where he could easily observe every flaw in my casting. He stepped nimbly into the rear seat, and as he pushed us off, I reached for the spare paddle. “Nope,” he said as he headed across the cove. “I’ll paddle . . . you just get ready to cast.” And now all eyes were on me. “You cast right-handed or left?” “Right,” I responded, and 50 feet offshore he swung the canoe hard to starboard where an ancient poplar stretched far out into the water. I laid my first cast ten feet to the right of its mossy trunk, leaving the left side open for him, and winced as the fly landed with a splash. I let the water settle before giving it a twitch. A few seconds later Ted’s fly landed with barely a ripple, six inches to the left of a small staub sticking up from the log. Smack! And a big, slab-sided bluegill took the little fly and headed deep.
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Ted’s line swung hard left and the canoe suddenly slipped backward. He had clearly done this before, alone, and a minute later he lifted the fish from the water, slipped the tiny barbless hook from its lip and released it with a grin. “Dang, that was a nice bluegill!” I exclaimed. “Yeah, that was fun,” he said. And I could tell he meant it as he glanced at my fly sitting untouched on the water. “You need to lay it closer to the snag.” And so I did, hoping it would land softer this time. “Good cast,” he said, and within seconds another big bluegill hammered my offering. “Are they all this big?” I asked. “No, those two were larger than usual. But sometimes you get a big one like that. Sometimes even bigger. Now and then you’ll even hook a bass.” “Largemouth or smallmouth?” “Mostly largemouth. But once in a while you’ll tie into a nice smallie.” “I’ll bet that can be a real rodeo in a canoe like this.” “Yeah, it can be. The trick is to get out into open water as quickly as possible. It’s hard to manage if you’re alone.” Then continuing . . . “Now if you do hook a really big one, try to keep him out of the thick stuff, and I’ll back us into deep water where you can play him.”
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e took two more fish before Ted said to reel in, then turned toward the main channel. We stopped to make a few casts at every rock and root and overhang along the bank and caught fish off most of them. At the mouth of the cove, we eased across to the opposite point and then started working back up the far bank, where for the next hour we caught fish after fish as we made our way along beneath the dimming trees. It was as fine an evening’s fishing as I could remember. And so with the light fading fast, I reeled in my line and secured the hook and took a moment to simply look around, then over at Ted as he began one final cast. His line scribed a long, searching arc against the porcelain sky, and he lightly laid the fly less than a foot from a rocky ledge protruding from shore. As I watched, I saw an ease and serenity in him I had never witnessed. And then the water exploded. Ted’s rod arched high as the big fish dove deep, a fine mist flying from his line as it ripped a long, telling gash through the surface of the lake. He was stripping line furiously as I snatched the spare paddle and began backstroking into the center of the cove. But he never said a word, only glanced over at me with a sly nod and a quick approving grin as I struggled to get us into open water and away from the shallow rocks and roots near shore. It was a grand adventure – this big, unruly fish somewhere deep and unseen, Ted
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playing her like a virtuoso, me trying to maintain our position and hoping that together we might somehow manage to bring this all to a proper end. We still hadn’t seen the fish, and I wondered what it might be. Until Ted broke the silence. “Big smallmouth.” “You think?” “Has to be. A largemouth would have jumped by now.” “Are we okay?” I asked. “Yeah, you’re doing fine. Just keep us out deep.” But the fish was still on the move, pulsing left, pulsing right, then pulsing away – always opposite the angle of pressure that Ted was applying as he countered its every move. And then we saw her, at first just a broad, boiling swirl, and then the biggest smallmouth either of us had ever beheld. I wondered at the skill it had taken to control her with a diminutive 3-weight bluegill rod. But now she was beginning to tire and the angle of the line was becoming steeper as Ted patiently worked her closer, ever closer, until he was finally able to reach over the gunwale and grasp her by the lower jaw. He kept her upright in the water, for she was much too grand and noble a creature to risk injuring by raising her into the air for show. As he worked the fly free, I started easing us out toward the open end of the cove, letting the rejuvenating water flow freely through her gills. It took a minute or so before she began to complain in earnest, and when she left, she fittingly flung water into Ted’s face. It was dark before we made it back to the launch site, where we unloaded our gear and again stowed the canoe by the woodpile. We stopped for supper that night up at the truck stop on I-75, and Monday morning when everyone anxiously asked me how it had gone, all I said was, “ . . . fine.”
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e fished together for 23 years, Ted and I. He was there the night Carly was born, and when she was big enough to come with us, we taught her to use a fly rod. She caught her first bluegill on one of Ted’s secret flies when she was 5 and her first wild trout on an elkhair caddis when she was 8. She always called him “Uncle Ted,” and he called her “Double Haul.” And as I said, when I went back to the cove alone a few years after he died, his old canoe was still there.
THE LAST BES A TROUT FISHER’S
PERSPECTIVE By Mike Altize
ST DAY –
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r , !
Tossing colorful streamers and dodging ice floes is just another
Wo
At the Top of the
d even dry flies to char and grayling while r day of fishing in this Arctic wilderness.
orld
Story & Photography by Todd Tanner
At the Top of the World
I don’t know what trade
68 SPORTING CLASSICS Fishing
I would have followed if I’d been born a couple hundred years ago. Maybe a tanner, like one of my ancestors. Maybe a farmer. Maybe even a writer, though I suspect not. But barring some unimaginable change in my personality, I’m pretty sure I would have been a fisherman and a hunter. While some of us become sportsmen seemingly by chance, the rest of us, and I include myself in this group, have no choice in the matter. It’s who and what we are, and we live for the time we spend outdoors, moving to the age-old rhythms of the natural world and drinking in the purity of Creation. You just don’t take something like that out of a man. Which is why I went to the Arctic. It’s different up there. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s just different. Longer days, at least if you travel on the summer side of the two equinoxes, and no trees, and a sense of place that’s not so much new as it is ancient, as if our distant forbearers once lived in a similar landscape, back in the time of mastodons and cave bears. In fact, the first sights and smells and sounds of those bare-boned mountains north of the Arctic Circle unleashed a handful of dim ancestral memories from some long-forgotten cairn, and for the first couple hours I felt as if the Old Ones were standing off in the distance, watching me in silence. Yet the river – she’s called the Kongakut – was familiar, in the ways that rivers are, and even if there wasn’t a trout for hundreds of miles, rumor had it that there were both arctic grayling and arctic char in that cold, clear water.
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he Brooks Range is one of the wildest places on the continent and I can promise you there’s nothing quite like getting dropped off on a lonesome gravel bar in the middle of nowhere and watching your only connection to civilization fly off and hightail it south for the distant comforts of Fairbanks. Our little group had everything we needed, though, with enough tents and rafts and fly rods for an expedition. Any more gear would have been too much of an umbilical cord for such pristine land. There were eight of us on the trip. Ron and Jennifer were the guides, and you’d have to go a long ways to find better. Mark, Jad and I were writers hoping to get a taste of the Far North, while Julie was Mark’s wife and Bart and Betsy were our hosts. It took me a little while to set up my tent and get my gear squared away after the plane left – it was cold and rainy, which always complicates things a bit – but I eventually got my act together and headed for the river with my 7-weight in hand. Jennifer stopped me on the way out of camp and asked if I had my pepper spray. I guess she figured it was bad form for one of her charges to get mauled the first day out, but I was already packing. I’d found some two-day-old griz tracks about twenty yards from where I’d pitched my tent and I wasn’t about to wander off without some sort of protection. The river, as I mentioned earlier, seemed familiar. Which was a good thing, as I didn’t know much about the Kongakut and you could have stuffed all my char and
Bart Semcer and guide Jennifer van den Berg discuss the best dry flies for enticing the beautiful char and grayling that, despite the intense cold, were feeding with abandon.
The anglers had to stop several times at the very end of their float, not only to stretch their legs and warm up, but to find a channel through the vast ice fields.
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grayling experience inside my water bottle. I started out with a big black leech – I’d read somewhere that black leeches were the go-to fly on the north-flowing rivers that dump into the Arctic Ocean – yet despite covering a bunch of gorgeous water, I didn’t coax a single strike. If there was a char or a grayling in that clear current, you couldn’t have proved it by me. At least until I saw a fish rise. At which point it was back to camp for the 5-weight and then right back out with the new rod and a box of dry flies. Hell, you can’t chuck a great big streamer at rising fish. It isn’t moral, at least not when they’re ignoring the damn thing. So dry flies it was. It still took me three or four fly changes before I found the right pattern – a little Griffith’s gnat – but then I had solid action on grayling for a couple hours. And not little guys, either. The fish I hooked ran from fourteen inches all the way up to twenty, and they were incredibly strong. I’m only speculating here, but I’d imagine that such wild, harsh country breeds its share of extra-tough fish. Perhaps there’s some truth to the old saw that anything that doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. In any case, those fish fought like crazy.
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hile I’m on the subject, I should probably mention that there’s something about grayling that just blows me away. Maybe it’s their huge dorsal fin, or their not-quite blue, not-quite-purple electric, underwater sheen that makes it seem like they’ve been swimming through the Northern Lights. Or maybe it’s simply the fact that they love to eat off the surface. But whatever the reason, grayling are a real treat, especially when you’ve been working a steady diet of browns and rainbows all year long and you’re hankering for a bit of a change. At the time, I really thought that first afternoon’s angling was special, but the next day, a couple of miles downstream, we hit the grayling mother lode. We were just about ready for lunch when we came floating around a corner into a pool alive with slashing rises. We beached the rafts and spread out. If the fish had been a little less gluttonous, or for that matter, if I’d been a little less gluttonous, I’d probably be able to fill you in on how everyone else fared. But I’m afraid that I allowed myself to slip into that predatory zone where everything out on the periphery simply fades away. For the next couple of hours those grayling were like black holes and they sucked me in, one after the other until the thoughtful, logical part of my mind was stripped away and the whole experience condensed into instinct and reaction. Outwardly, nothing changed. Inside . . . well, we come alive when we allow ourselves to live in the moment. That hard, dry husk that surrounds us, the persona we wear for society, is revealed as little more than an empty shell and we’re left with the knowledge – no, that’s no quite right; let’s say the intuitive understanding – that we are something far greater, far more elemental and connected. For a time – minutes if we’re lucky, hours if we’re blessed – we can touch the living world around us; we can forget ourselves and surrender to the natural rhythms we usually ignore. That night, lying warm in my sleeping bag beneath the bare slopes of the Brooks Range, I hoped I wasn’t the only one who’d felt it. Maybe some of the others touched it, too; that place where words begin to falter.
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here were four of us to a raft, along with a huge mound of gear, and for most of the trip we paddled almost as much as we fished. The first couple days I was in Ron’s raft with Bart and Betsy, and Ron kept us amused with tales we probably wouldn’t have believed if we’d heard them under different circumstances. But out there in the middle of the great beyond, with the Arctic Ocean a couple days to the north and the Brooks Range funneling the Kongakut ever farther
At the Top of the World
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e spent that second night on a brushy bench over the river and in the morning, after breakfast, I walked down to the water with my 7weight in hand. It was a gorgeous spot, and I started wading down through a boulder-strewn stretch of water, hoping for a char or two. I was facing east, casting into the newly risen sun and soaking up the warmth, when my line stopped. I set the hook and there was the trip’s very first arctic char. I don’t think she was more than a stone’s throw from where a big fish had followed Ron’s spoon back to the bank the evening before. She fought hard and deep, then up on the surface for a second, and then back down into the rocks, and it was all I could do to land her. She turned out to be incredibly bright silver, with brilliant pink spots and fins edged in white. Yet in all honesty my description doesn’t do her justice. She was literally the Kongakut come alive, condensed from river water and sunlight into six pounds of absolute perfection. I don’t know that I’ve ever touched a more beautiful living creature and I was overcome by the realization that I was not worthy of this place. I wasn’t selfless enough; I wasn’t wise enough. And yet here I was, standing in some of the purest, cleanest water on the planet and holding an incredible gift – albeit one I didn’t deserve. It’s still a little hard to believe. I’m not even going to tell you about what came afterwards. (Suffice it to say that there was more than one beautiful char in that run, and the Good Lord was very, very generous to me that morning.) With one exception. I’d ended up fishing my way downstream with the kind of singular focus that you might expect of an angling junkie, only to become aware – slowly, painfully aware – that rocks were falling behind me as something skirted a cliff face just back from the water’s edge. Rocks were falling. In serious bear country. Did you ever feel like you were born stupid and had only gotten dumber? Because that’s how I felt right then. I swore a blue streak at myself and then silently mouthed something along the lines of, “You need to stay aware of everything around you. You can’t get so caught up in your fishing. Not with all the grizzly bears around here.” The rocks kept falling. So I turned around, figuring that I’d better find out what the hell was going on behind me, and there they were. A dozen, maybe fourteen, Dall sheep, eating lichen off the rocks. Wild, wild stuff.
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from civilization, all those stories about griz and caribou and musk ox seemed incredibly real. Of course, when you’re walking along the river’s edge and brand new stories are literally laid out for you to read in the sand – here a bear track, there a wolf track, with caribou tracks scattered in between – well, Ron’s yarns tended to become more vivid every time we stepped over a clear print or came floating around a bend in the river and saw the track-makers themselves. It’s actually hard to concentrate on the angling when you’re in such amazing country but we did a pretty good job of it. Mark, who’s the managing editor at Bowhunting World, ended up hooking more fish than just about anybody else, and his eight-pound char proved to be the trip’s biggest. I think Julie actually would have outfished her husband if she’d ever gotten serious, but you know how that goes – she’d catch a bunch of nice char and grayling and then put the rod away for a while. Bart and Betsy hooked their fair share, too, leaving Jad, who’s more of a photographer than an angler, as the only one who didn’t wet a line on a regular basis.
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ondensing a week’s worth of sights, sounds and experiences into a few thousand words is hard enough under ordinary circumstances. In this case it’s almost impossible. We had days where the temps were up in the 60s and the haze from forest fires far to our south dropped an ethereal curtain around us, as well as days where it was sunny and beautiful. We had wind and then calm, rain and then blue skies, the occasional (and sometimes more than occasional) mosquito, and a river that started out low and clear and got progressively higher and dirtier as we dropped down out of the Brooks Range. We floated through mountains that would take your breath away, and then down onto the coastal plain, the tundra, where the river braided out and the fog came in. We saw bears and caribou and snowy owls and enough waterfowl for an entire lifetime. There were even, and I swear I’m not making this up, rising fish eating mayflies a couple of miles from where the Kongakut hit the cold saltwater of the Arctic Ocean. And then, after seven days of great company and great fishing and Jennifer’s incredible griz story – when was the last time you heard the words “bear” and “bra” in the same sentence? – we ended up paddling through huge slabs of blue-green ice to reach our destination; a little gravel island just off the coast. That monstrous ice field was surreal and stunning and otherworldly, not to mention cold as a witch’s teat, and I don’t think there’s any way you can appreciate how truly strange it is to take a couple of rafts into a labyrinth of ice and running water. Not without being there yourself. Thank God for Jennifer and Ron. Lesser guides might never have found their way through that freezing maze. Of course, lesser guides probably wouldn’t be working at the top of the world, floating ice-fed rivers through the wilds of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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78 SPORTING CLASSICS Fishing
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here’s one last thing I want to touch on before I wrap up this story. On our journey up to the Refuge, we flew from Fairbanks to Arctic Village, where we changed planes and spent some time wandering around and getting a feel for that far north country. The Gwich’in people, who live in Arctic Village as well as a number of other settlements in Alaska and northern Canada, still maintain a subsistence lifestyle. They hunt and fish for their living, and the caribou, who calve on the coastal plain in the Refuge, are far-and-away the most important part of their diet. Without the caribou, the Gwich’in, who call themselves “Caribou People,” would cease to exist. Now you’ve probably heard the arguments over protecting ANWR. Drilling advocates say that the oil we’re sure to find – enough to supply all our domestic needs for about six months, according to most accounts – is worth whatever ecological risks are entailed. On the other hand, the folks who want to protect ANWR point out the amazing wildlife values of the area, and how the coastal plain is incredibly important to the Porcupine Caribou herd as well as to untold numbers of waterfowl. Now I can attest to the fact that the Refuge is a magnificent place, with beautiful vistas, tons of wildlife, and great hunting and fishing opportunities. But nobody wants to talk about the Gwich’in. Well, here it is in black and white. The Gwich’in Nation will not survive without a healthy Porcupine caribou herd, and the herd will go the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon if drilling disturbs their only calving site. The coastal plane is the one place where the caribou can give birth to their young without being decimated by predators or overwhelmed by biting insects. The Gwich’in call the calving grounds, “Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit” – “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins.” As a reader of Sporting Classics, you’re likely an angler, a hunter or both. And as such, I believe you have a moral and ethical obligation to stand by other hunters and fishermen. We all bear that burden, and we need to make it clear – crystal clear – to the politicians in Washington, D.C. that we support our own. We won’t throw an entire hunting culture under the bus. Not for six month’s worth of crude, not for any price. We need to do the right thing, which means supporting the Gwich’in people and protecting the caribou. It’s just that simple. We’re hunters and fishermen. We stand up for each other. I’ve been blessed to spend time with rod, gun and bow in an awful lot of wonderful places, but I’ve never been anywhere quite like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It’s truly so far outside the scope of my other experiences as to defy comparison. I don’t know that you’ll ever have the chance to visit the Refuge – not many of us do – but if the opportunity arises, you should go. Go for the fishing, which is excellent, or for the hunting, which by all accounts is superb, or simply to touch and feel a place that can’t help but resonate in your heart. And if you do go, give thanks for a vast landscape that holds everything from griz and caribou and Dall sheep to polar bear and musk ox. It’s a damn special place, and we should all pray that it stays that way.
The anglers relished the long days – up to eighteen hours of sunlight – while fishing some of the purest water on the planet.
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To the accomplished woman ang in casting a flyline is like a waltz of the water never ends and . . .
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PHOTO by Denver bryan
nce goes on
gler, the grace, agility and power z, a ballet in which the music
by Laurie Morrow
PHOTO by Mike barlow
PHOTO by Denver bryan
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t the very beginning there was a woman, a noblewoman, the Prioress of Sopwell Nunnery. It was Dame Juliana Berners who 506 years ago wrote The Treatise of Fishing With an Angle, thus becoming the first to take quill to paper to write about the art and sport of flyfishing. In her historic work, she instructs on how to build a flyrod, tie flies to match the hatch, braid flylines with horsehair. She even waxes lyrical on how the hours, the weather, the mood of the day affect the fish, the fishing and the fisherman. It is with rare and intimate insight that Dame Juliana wrote: “ . . . good recreations and honorable pastimes are the cause of a man’s old age and long life. The best, in my simple judgment, is fishing, called angling, with a rod and a line and a hook. He (who fishes) has his wholesome and merry walk at his ease . . . And if the angler catches fish, surely then there is no man merrier than he is in his spirit.” Nor a woman merrier than she is in hers, we might add. For at day’s end, energized by the thrill and enriched by the memories, she finds comfort in her reaffirmation of Dame Juliana’s time-honored legacy.
PHOTO by Denver bryan
PHOTO by Denver bryan
PHOTO by Mike barlow
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like a ballet, this water dance of hers – a graceful arch of the arm, a flick of a wrist, her body poised in anticipation. It’s a precise and practiced routine, inspired by the woods and the water around her, the lilies flowering in reedy shallows, the pines boughs framing sun-dappled ripples and dark pools where trout glide just under the surface – all beneath a cornflower blue sky.
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he line soars across the water, almost defying gravity, then falls like a leaf on a quiet autumn day. Slowly she draws the weightless tuft of hair and feathers across the water, and this time the fish is fooled. It rises. Leaps into the air. She will play it, and another and yet one more. She will engage in this ancient contest today and tomorrow and all her days. For when she is on the water, flyrod in hand, she is complete – a life in harmony with God’s lesser creatures, under the magnificent expanse of the outdoors.
PHOTO by Denver bryan
“The Russell Gentleman’s Classic is also a Great Fishing Boot”
Own this magnificent bronze by acclaimed sculptor Fred Boyer depicts a brown bear “fishing� for salmon. This big 29x18x15-inch sculpture is from a limited edition of 50 bronzes. {Click Here!}
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Angling adventures in the Alaskan wilderness. by ary ramer
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n a fog-shrouded September morning we boarded the DeHaviland Beaver floatplane bound for the remote east coast of Cook Inlet. On our flight from Lake Iliamna, the lake below reflected the crimson-tinged cumulus clouds of the early hour. In late summer, silver salmon gather in spectacular numbers in the coastal estuaries and rivers of Alaska in preparation for their long journey to ancestral spawning grounds. My friend Leigh Bailey and I were bound for such a place.
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fter a 35-minute flight, the floatplane landed on saltwater, then a short hike from the beach brought us to the river. I launched a flashy silver-and-red weighted fly, and just before the end of the drift I felt a certain heaviness on my line. I raised the 8-weight rod to set the hook and the fish reacted with a blistering run, the line hissing as it shot upstream. A streak of bright silver flashed in the air, then the fish turned with the current and raced toward the sea. Ten minutes later I landed the 12-pound salmon – a beautiful male, blue-backed and chrome silver with black spots. I unhooked the fly and slid him back into the dark water.
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ur Alaskan adventure brought many unforgettable encounters faor Leigh and myself, not only with salmon and trophy rainbow trout, but with bears, moose, red fox and bald eagles. To book your trip to Rainbow Bay Resort, one of southwestern Alaska’s premier fly-out operations, contact Trek International Safaris at 800-654-9915; www.treksafaris.com.
FIELD to FEAST –
The Remington Cook By Jim & Ann Casada
This is a game cookbook f and their families. Inventi the recipes cover venison, upland birds, wild fruits an
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for sportsmen ive and delicious, waterfowl, nd vegetables.
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From kitchen to camp, Sotheby’s to Savile antiques to art, house to hunt, forest to stream, stream football, baseball, golf and everything in betw Sporting Classics’ Creative Director, Ryan Stalvey l life revolving around all things sport and spo Don’t miss The Sporting Life Blog Tuesdays & Thurs
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