The Longest Silence (38 page)

I have a seven-and-a-half foot Payne, two-piece, for a five line because I always wanted a Payne and even named the hero of one of my novels after this maker. I consider Payne to be the finest cane rod builder of all time. When you pick this rod up you can tell everything you need to know; it’s startlingly good.

Now, the rod I discussed earlier: a nine-foot six-weight Loomis GLX, a tremendous fly rod designed by Steve Rajeff and otherwise a thoroughly impersonal artifact. The guides are single-footed; there is glitter thread in the windings; the reel seat is air weight spun nylon. It’s the fly rod as pure idea. It tracks perfectly, dampens perfectly; the action seems to progress through infinity without ever hitting bottom. You forget about the rod and think about the line. I don’t believe
it weighs three ounces. I can fish big western rivers for ten-hour days and never want for another rod.

I have an eight-foot nine-inch Russ Peak Zenith for a seven line. Russ Peak was a genius who understood better than anyone what could be done with glass. He was the ne plus ultra rodmaker in the seventies, when I was fishing two hundred days a year, so there is sentimental value. By today’s standards it’s a deliberate number that requires the angler to recalibrate his timing somewhat. But once I’m actually fishing with it, usually on the Yellowstone in the fall, I quickly fall back into its rhythms. It is perfectly built.

I have an eight-foot nine-inch Winston cane rod, for a seven, goes best with a Wulff 7/8, that was built by the great Glenn Brackett and was a gift of the Winston Rod company. I enjoy fishing this rod enormously, for it is entirely in the spirit of the West Coast glory days in steelheading when Winston and Powell were kings. I can accept the extra weight of the rod because of the time between casts in steelheading. It is a great roll casting or single-handed Spey casting rod.

I just traded for a nine-foot two-piece Payne light salmon rod for an eight line, beautiful with a detachable fighting butt, ferrule plugs, case, and canvas overcase. It weighs the same as a thirteen-weight billfish rod. What will I do with it? I’m bound to come up with something.

The eight-weights and the age of excess: my Sage eight-foot nine, an outstanding, wind-penetrating bonefish rod, doesn’t seem much good for anything else I do. My Sage nine-foot for an eight-weight, the 890 RPL, as much of a classic as the old Fenwick FF85. My Loomis four-piece nine-foot for an eight, designed by Steve Rajeff and Mel Krieger, is an outstanding travel rod, the only rod I know of better in the multipiece than in the two-piece.

My faithful permit rod, a nine-foot for a ten-line Winston graphite, though somewhat sluggish by current standards, seems to absorb the vagaries of big, heavy permit flies better than stiffer rods. It’s a good all-around striped bass rod, too.

A nine-foot for eleven-weight Sage built for me as a gift by George Anderson. I use a twelve-weight line on this rod and it is a rod which, when used carefully is adequate for big tarpon. It won’t wear me out on active days the way the twelve does. It is simply built, no fighting
grip, and full of happy memories. I couldn’t retire this rod, even though the twelves and thirteens are nicer once the fish is hooked.

Perhaps it would be wise to leave out my three Spey rods. I have good single-handed steelhead and salmon rods but I may never go back to them. The Spey rods just work too well. The English are not pleased that we call them “Spey rods” at all, in the conviction that “double-handed rods” is the correct form. All the English anglers I know feel this way and all are using American made rods. It perfectly symbolizes the relationship between the two nations.

I subject the reader to my inventory for two reasons. First, I myself love to read this sort of thing, sniffing around the author’s tackle room; and second, to suggest that what’s at work here has nothing to do with necessity but rather with the elaboration of the dream that is fishing.

M
OST REELS
are sold to the public by suggesting some unheard-of emergency involving a running fish and guaranteeing that this reel is the only available product capable of bringing the trophy to a standstill before it changes area codes. Right now, a large variety of magnificent reels is available to choose from. Most have one thing in common: they’re far better than they need to be. Reels evolve slowly: the ninety-year-old Vom Hofes are still among the best. I have a number of Pfleuger Medalists made in Ohio, and even in the most awful conditions they have never failed me. There were Japanese knockoffs of these reels and they’re great, too. Though built to appalling tolerances, they keep on ticking.

The backing on a trout reel usually dies of old age before it sees the light of day. Rarely does a salmon or steelhead go a hundred yards, yet most reels designed for this purpose carry a quarter-mile of backing. If a tarpon, permit, or bonefish gets more than a hundred yards from you, your problems have nothing to do with your backing. The last time I got spooled was on the Henry’s Fork when a big rainbow got downstream where I couldn’t wade after it. It didn’t matter how much backing I had, I was meant to view the spindle.

I’m not sure about the great drag systems, either. I don’t believe
any freshwater reel needs a drag at all. A good, strong click will suffice. Anyone who is not enough of a hand to palm the reel or put a couple of fingers through the arbor is already fighting a fish too big for him.

Leader strength is based as much on margin of error for nicks and abrasions as it is on real breaking strength. Many anglers feel that the ultra-thin leader materials now available do not equal their breaking-strength counterparts because the thin stuff weakens steeply if at all abraded. There is a very long list of things which can quickly change the breaking strength of tippets; touching bottom, hinging at the knots, scraping on teeth and gill plates, and so on. The real reason why many anglers, especially steelheaders and salmon anglers who cast a lot between bites, stick with the low-tech stuff is this: it doesn’t have to be terribly heavy because there are few rods which are comfortable to cast that can break anything over a ten-pound test at all.

As to flies, I asked the greatest trout fisherman of my era, who is himself an out-of-control proliferator of equipment and technical doodads, what percentage of his annual catch would remain if he were reduced to Adamses and Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear nymphs. His answer: “Certainly over ninety percent.” When pressed about the staggering variety of patterns available in his fly shop, he said, “I don’t sell flies to fish.”

I’ve become fairly avid about my fly-tying because it is, as I do it, a modest craft that I can master. More importantly, it enables me to tie flies that look exactly right to me, which means I will fish them with conviction. For example, my usual searching pattern combines several favorite traits: moosehair tail, because there’s something that feels right about those crisp black fibers; the body is wrapped turkey quill barbs as on my first favorite fly, the Borcher Special, a Michigan favorite; white calf-body hair wings, à la the Wulff flies; brown and grizzly palmered hackle as on an Adams. When looking at it, I believe I’m going to catch a fish. That feeling affects the way I cast and read water. You have to have that feeling, wait-and-see being an approach preferred by losers. If you are anxious to kick major butt on your local stream or lake, try my fabulous fly. It turns blank days into bonanzas, depression into jubilation.

In fishing, many traits separate the men from the boys, but in my opinion, one thing we should all work toward is what I would call, for want of a better term, smoothness. Many of the great anglers I have fished with have had this trait above all others and it is the one thing that I continually strive for. This is the trait that unites sportsmen as diverse as the Grand Prix driver Juan Fangio, who was so smooth he rarely strained the cars he drove, golfers like Bobby Jones, and baseball players like Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. There are always a few anglers blessed with genius and inspiration: towering casters, lead-footed deep river waders, anglers with astounding vision, and so on. But the angler who accepts both his gifts and limitations, who recognizes the importance of keeping his fly in the water, who abjures tackle tinkering once he reaches the river, and who strives to fish coherently throughout the day will usually, finally, succeed. Steelhead and salmon fishing exaggerate the importance of this. And sometimes, relatively unskilled anglers who are otherwise persistent and capable of sustained focus will outfish flashier types, better casters and even more experienced companions. I have seen steelhead rivers act with great leveling effect, rewarding the scrupulous-if-limited anglers and penalizing mere technicians, tackle nuts, distance casters, and fishing experts. A great angler like Bill Schaadt was a tremendous caster, an outstanding schemer and intimate with the rivers he fished, but what impressed me about him the few times we fished together was that he was tougher and more persistent than anybody I’d ever seen. He kept the fly in the water longer than anyone, ever. He was smooth and efficient. All of his strength and talent—indeed the overall design of his life—was at the service of keeping the fly fishing, which begins with casting a straight line. There are armchair anglers who can cast four kinds of curve but never a straight line except in dead still conditions. A late start in the morning prevents the fly from fishing; a crooked cast delays a fly from fishing; fly changing, leisurely meals and a forgotten bailing can all play a part in separating the fly from its job. Schaadt’s term was “lost motion.” Every angler should strive for its elimination, not so as to become an automaton but to facilitate
smoothness
.

Why do fishermen lie? This interesting question ought to be dealt
with because it’s the single thing we are most famous for among the general public. I have a hunch that most anglers do not wish to compete but have found no successful way to avoid competition when fishing with others. I, for example, do not wish to compete and therefore do most of my fishing alone so that I may better absorb its mysteries, poetry, and intimations of mortality. On many occasions, however, I find myself fishing with others and it is then that I helplessly find myself competing, crowing at hookups, admiring some great thing about my tackle when I really mean myself. The lone angler, or even the one who just scooted around the bend from his companions, may fish and dawdle as he pleases, take in the migratory birds, the soaring hawk, the hunting mink, the glancing light on the riffle, the sound of a hollow bank. He may even catch fish. Moreover, upon meeting up with his retinue, he may dispense with matters of competition by lying about his results. How did he do? “Major poundage. A semi-load.” The most incredulous of his comrades have probably come by their disbelief honestly: they’ve been lying, too. So, all is well. A day in the life has been suitably taken in, and in this avalanche of lies, a kind of truth has been served. The only people any the wiser are the general public.

B
OTH MY PARENTS
were Irish Catholics from Massachusetts. My father had had enough of the Harp Way and was glad to get out of there and move to Michigan. My mother never accepted it and would have been happy to raise a nest of Micks anywhere between Boston and New Bedford. Every summer she did the next best thing and packed us children up and took us “home” to Fall River. My father seemed glad to watch us go. I still see him in our driveway with the parakeet in its cage, trying unsuccessfully to get my mother to take the bird too so he wouldn’t even have to hang around long enough to feed it. At the end of the summer, when we returned from Massachusetts, the bird would be perched in there but it was never the same bird. It was another $3.95 blue parakeet but without the gentleness of our old bird. When we reached into the cage to get our friend, we usually got bitten.

We traveled on one of the wonderful lake boats that crossed Lake Erie to Buffalo, and I remember the broad interior staircases and the brassbound window through which one contemplated the terrific paddlewheels. I hoped intensely that a fish would be swept up from deep in the lake and brought to my view but it never happened. Then we took the train, I guess it must’ve been to Boston. I mostly recall my rapture as we swept through the eastern countryside over brooks and rivers that I knew were the watery world of the fish and turtles I cared so madly about. One of these trips must have been made during hard
times, because my mother emphasized that there was only enough money for us children to eat; and it is true that we had wild highs and lows as my father tried to build a business.

Many wonderful things happened during my endless summers with my grandmother, aunts, and uncles in Fall River, but for present purposes, I am thinking only of fishing. Those original images are still so burning that I struggle to find a proper syntax for them. In the first, my father arrived and took me up to see some shirttail cousins up in Townsend. A little brook passed through their backyard and, lying on my stomach, I could look into one of its pools and see tiny brook trout swimming. It was something close to the ecstasy I felt when I held my ear against the slots of the toaster and heard a supernal music from heaven ringing through the toaster springs. The brook trout were water angels and part of the first America, the one owned by the Indians, whose music I’d listened to in the toaster. I had seen the old Indian trails, their burial mounds and the graves of settlers killed in the French and Indian wars. For some reason, I understood the brook trout had belonged to the paradise the Indians had fought to keep. I knew King Phillip—or Metacomet, as the Indians called him—had eaten them.