A Perfect Drift - Part One

It was cold in the shade along the shoulder of the road. Heavy dew and even a little frost in places. Jack knew it would be awhile before the sun cleared the blufftop and began warming the valley, so he took his time with preparations, methodically retrieving his gear, vest, waders, boots from the back of the truck, assembling his rod and reel. Like a cleric preparing for a great liturgical service, the tailgate his alter, each movement was slow, thoughtful, organized, deliberate.

Jack loved this part of trout fishing. Once you picked your spot, arrived at your destination, there’s no need to rush. The fish aren’t going anywhere. On a busy day you might not want to delay too much, watching for claim jumpers, but this morning the turnouts and roadside were vacant, making him relaxed and pleased with plenty of time to let the ritual unfold naturally.

When he stands before the clear, cold water of a trout stream, flyrod in hand, Jack is a different person. This is the place he goes to be restored. To be healed. Returned as close as possible to the condition of original sin, or so he imagines. A place where he can watch and feel all the past transgressions of his life float away in the form of a cast and perfect drift. And in this world of absolute perfection where the birds sing, the trout dance, and mistakes are made only by anglers, Jack’s skill as a benevolent predator is tested and defined.

A quick chill passed through Jack, as he leaned against the truck while finishing off his coffee. From the shoulder of the road he could see the end of the path where it stopped at the first riffle above the first hole that always looks so promising but rarely yields a fish. Every angler who stops here makes their first cast of the day to this spot. And every angler approaches the hole wrong. Jack knew if you wanted to catch a fish here it had to be the last cast of the day, not the first. You can’t just walk down to it like everyone does. It must be carefully circled from behind. But it’s too tempting, so everyone hits it first thing and ignores it on the return trip when they’re tired, hungry, or too close to the road home to stop and work it with the respect it deserves.

From somewhere downstream a barred owl called and a turkey gave away his position with a reactive gobble from the steep towering hillside above the Bad Axe River. Jack turned his head instinctively scanning with his eyes until he found the silhouette of the big bird perched on the branch of an oak tree with a view taking in most of the valley. No hens will escape his eye from this position he thought and then he wondered about the people who own this valley. Several hundred acres of paradise. Turkey, deer, a few pheasants. On the drive in he saw a pair of sandhills standing near the road with two colts. And most importantly, three miles of trout water. If only he knew about such places when he was a young man his life would’ve been different, he thought. Vastly different from the concrete jungle of his youth where fishless water followed curbs, disappearing through iron grates into dark sludgy tubes and underground rivers with unknown destinations.

The river looked good. Jack walked upstream along the low bank to a familiar run, adjusted his float and pitched a nymph next to a patch of watercress near a tiny spring feeder emerging from under the drooping vegetation. The cast was clumsy and a quick mend was needed to recover the drift. It always takes a couple of attempts to calibrate eyes and flesh with the bamboo appendage, but quickly his touch was found, his rhythm achieved, and Jack’s heartbeat slowed and headspace began to fill with a serenity known only to fly fishers.

As the winnowing of snipe evaporated from the morning sky, so did the rules and boundaries of time. The day stretched out quickly with only thirst or a tinge of hunger to remind Jack of his physical limits. He couldn’t believe he had so much river all to himself for such a long period, and even with long fruitless moments flanked by the occasional hook and release, his  concentration intensified and he became fastidiously focused. He studied the flow, every undercut, every shadow, every seam. He placed limits on himself and his effort, made imaginary rules and then broke them, carefully walked the banks of the river as if he were in the rooms of a gallery or museum. And with eyes wide open, he dreamt.

The bright sunshine of the afternoon made fishing tough. Stopping to sit on a steep bank, Jack rested and watched over a hole where the river took a hard bend, the clear water revealing fusiform shadows waving above the sandy bottom in the current. In the shade of an undercut, a submerged willow branch bobbed and pulsed with the precision of a metronome. A kingfisher rattled in flight and perched above the water upstream looking for a meal or a mate. As he rummaged through his pack looking for a suitable spent-wing that might entice the eyes of trout upward, Jack saw a plop into the water and watched as a field mouse swam the current for a few feet until it snagged some vegetation and pulled itself out, unaware of its own good fortune. He smiled. Even a mouse with a death wish can’t get a rise, he thought.

There’s fishing and then there’s catching, each governed, somewhat, by intent. A point emphasized mid-afternoon when he unexpectedly encountered Choj and his wife walking back to the road, spinning rods in hand, each with a limit of trout on rope stringers. Jack met Choj last year while fishing further upstream, startling one another when each emerged from the dense vegetation only yards away. Likely not recognizing him, Choj did a quick wave, keeping his head down as the couple hastened their pace a bit on the trail back to the road. For this family of Hmong, the intent is food, and Jack wondered if the flowing water of the Bad Axe was where the similarities between them began and ended or was there more to it than that.

“Maybe the fishing would be better if I were hungry,” Jack muttered aloud to himself. Maybe if I were hungry I wouldn’t be fishing, he mused.

A quarter mile away, through brush and branches, Jack could see the occasional reflection of the setting sun off the back window of his truck. While folks up top are basking in another hour of sunshine and warmth, dusk arrives early in this deep narrow valley. He removed his sunglasses, snugged the bandanna around his neck, zipped up the jacket under his vest to preserve warmth. It was time to figure out his next move. Where to fish in the fading light with a strategy for getting out in the dark.