This is the place nobody knows about. If I were any good at it, I could tell you about the katydids and about how the breeze has just picked up because the sun is setting. I'd be able to tell you about the stream right over there. Smooth as glass, with just the few ripples, imperfections. The long, green crowfoot waving under the surface. There are doves calling. Then the breeze is still. And there's a little olive mayfly that's landed on my shirt. I blow on it gently and it moves over a quarter inch and stays put. The doves take to flight overhead and flutter on, squeaking as their wings beat through the air.
Nobody knows about this place...
I could get up and fish the stream right now, but I won't. This isn't a fishing trip. This is a trip just for watching. I learned about this some time ago from a damned good fisherman. He would go out in the evening, head out to the stream without his tackle, just to watch and to look for his big trout. He'd see it come up and gulp down a fly and he'd mark the spot in his mind, remember the pool and the run where that goddamn big trout lives. See, the whole beauty is you can think about that trout all night, all week. Fish the stream in your mind. Plan out ways to sneak up on that big trout without him knowing it. Decide what kind of a fly he might like. Where to wade in. It's almost as good as the real thing.
And if everything works out right. If the weather's right and it feels like a good time to try, you make your way out to the stream like you planned it out in your mind. Of course, it'll be a little different from how you thought about it, but if you keep your mind where it should be and don't get caught up in things that don't matter, it'll be just like poetry. And forever after, you can remember how it was, going out to the stream, taking each step slowly, the feel of the current on your legs, cool and kinda like little wind chimes. Casting, waiting, watching the fly or watching the line. Waiting for that amazing, heart-wrenching and light and beautiful feeling when that big goddamn trout hits. You can think about that forever.
I only found out about this place because I happened to be at the store down the road last September. I'd just bought a big fresh-made bologna and cheese sandwich, some potato chips and a bottle of Coca-cola. Oh, and a tin of tobacco, though I'm a little embarassed about that part. I was on my way out and this fellow came in and I thought by the look of him he was a fly-fisherman. He was tall and a little haggard and he had white hair and white stubble on his chin. But there was something different about him. Something different from the other old-timers around these parts.
Continued...When he came back out, I watched him putting some beer he'd bought in the cooler in his trunk and he moved a rod out of the way and I could see that there was a fly reel on it - an old brass fly reel.
"Ya fly-fishin?" I called over to him from my car window.
"Yeah." He grinned. "You?"
"Yeah, me too. At least I try."
"Catchin anything?" he asked, walking over toward my car.
"Well, I just got down here. I was just scoutin out good places."
"Well I'll tell ya a fine place. You go back upstream and cross that second bridge, the one they call Knight's bridge, and just on the other side is an old dirt road that's all overgrown with weeds. If you don't mind gettin your car all scratched up with brush and branches, you take that road on upstream bout a quarter mile and park and take this deer trail over to the stream. Well, I gotta tell ya, I seen some big trout takin flies around there all last week."
"You catch any big ones?"
"I wasn't fishin then. Just observin."
"Oh"
"I'm fixin to go up there tonight, if you wanna come with."
"Sure! That'd be great," I said.
One of the cardinal rules in fly-fishing is you never pass up an invitation from a local (provided you think he knows what he's doing).
He said I could follow him out to his house and leave my car there and we'd take his car, his old beat-up (or maybe I should say "well-weathered") station wagon on out to the stream. I followed him back up the road. He had a "For Sale" sign up in the back window of his car and I wondered why he'd want to get rid of such a characterful old car. It reminded me of our family car back when I was in kindergarten. If I remembered, I'd ask him about it, I thought. The road ran by the river and we headed upstream toward the hills. It was clear and cool and cheery weather with autumn just coming on. I drove with the window down and my arm up on the window.
His house was an old two-story farmhouse. I parked beside him, up behind the house by a shed. I got out and he walked over and put his hand out.
"My name's Flynn by the way."
"I'm Krane," I said and we shook hands.
He pointed to the house. "It don't look like much, but it's home," he said.
"Looks fine to me."
He laughed.
"And it's beautiful country out here," I said.
"That I'll agree with ya on. I'd show you around inside, but it's a mess."
"Naw, can't be any worse than my place" I said, trying to join in on the humility.
"Besides we got to get fishin," he said.
"Right." I nodded.
He stopped for a moment and looked off back up the road.
"I'm always having to fix things around here. I just put that new roofing on in the spring."
It was tin roofing and he'd painted it a rusty, brick-red color. It already looked weathered, but looked fine against the blue and the white clouds in the sky. He told me all about the roofing and how old man Collins had helped him, taking his bucket to spit tobacco juice in, on up the roof. How he'd been sure the old man in his nineties would surely fall off the roof and break into a hundred pieces, but how he'd had more stamina than himself and each night drank more beer and whiskey than he could after the hard day's work and then had walked down the road and up over the hill with dignity, to his house over in the next hollow.
I was afraid Flynn would forget about the fishing but soon enough he came back around to it and we climbed in his station wagon and headed back down the road to the bridge.
Flynn drove in a relaxed way, taking his time. The old station wagon looked lived-in and was dusty up on the dashboard. When we reached the bridge, he stopped out on the middle of it and we got out to have a look at the stream.
"It's up this year. I was worried that big rain we got two weeks ago would wash all the damn fish out."
"Really?"
"That's why I was out last week, observin. Seems like the fish stayed put."
We heard a buzzing sound and Flynn leaned so far over the rail I thought he'd fall in. He motioned with his head. I leaned over, too, and saw there was a fella up under the bridge and he was playing a fish.
"I don't know him," Flynn said.
"Hmmm."
"There's some good fish here, too. But not like the place I'll show ya." He motioned upstream with his head.
"Nobody goes up there cause they don't know the road and it's a pain in the ass to wade from here all the way up there. Sink holes and overgrown willows on the banks."
I nodded.
"And it's spooky!" He grinned.
---
Down the road, Flynn had turned off onto a dirt track that looked like it would go nowhere and he drove what seemed like a good while with the bushes scraping up against his car (and me when I didn't lean in away from the open window quick enough). Then after the road widened a bit and I could see more of the sky overhead and started daydreaming, he'd pulled off the road and parked. We got our rods and tackle out of the car.
"It's over thisaway," he said.
I couldn't see any path, but I followed him into the brush. Just ten yards in, it opened up and it was just bare earth under cover of big cedars. There was a deer trail and we followed it a good hundred yards and then it was swampy but somebody had built up a plank walkway through the swampy part. It was real serene out there. I could hear a woodpecker working on a tree somewhere through the forest. I could also hear a crow calling, but I couldn't hear the stream yet.
"My daddy built this walkway way back when he was young. I been keeping it up whenever it gets rotted up."
It was kind of rickety and I wondered when he'd last worked on it.
"I used to bring my wife out here. She loved it."
"This is a good place," I said.
Just about then we were up on the stream without me suspecting. I could see why now. It was smooth and quiet and like an English chalkstream. I'd never fished on this part before. I'd only been far downstream and I was surprised there was a place like this on the same river.
"Here's where I usually put in," Flynn said. "It's as good a place as any to drop our gear."
"Looks good," I said.
I put down my army pack and leaned it up against a tree by the bank. I had the plastic sack with my grub in it and I latched it onto the pack with an old Italian carabiner I'd had forever.
Flynn was getting out the six-pack of beer.
"We can sink this right here and it'll be nice and cold."
He waded in and worked the six-pack into the gravel so that it sort of blossomed out and the water could work between the cans.
I bent down and put my hand in the stream. It was nice and cold. God it was beautiful, clear water, I thought. Flynn had found a good rock to set on the beer and he was checking the underside. Musta been looking for wigglers and stoneflies. When he'd finished all his preparations he stood up straight and smiled.
"Well, let's fish goddamnit," he said.
"Good idea."
We waded out a few yards and he looked upstream for a while and then back downstream.
"Here's about where I saw that bigun. You give him a try." He was pointing downstream a little up under a cedar that was leaned out over the stream.
"Naw, you should try him," I said.
"Now I insist. You give him a try." There was a splash at the surface down by the big cedar. "Ya see, there's one now."
"Well, if you insist." I shrugged.
"I do," he said. "Besides, there's plenty of good ones further down, too, I'm sure."
He worked his way downstream staying close to the bank until he was a good sixty yards away and nearly around a bend down there. I had a little mayfly pattern already tied on that looked somewhat like bugs I'd seen on the stream before, down past the store where I'd fished before.
Right off the bat, I had a good splash at the fly, but no fish. I kept trying the same spot but didn't have any luck. Then I let it drift on down a bit further and there was a good splash and I had a fish on. He wasn't too big, but he was a fish and just as I was thinking that, he was off. "Damn!" I thought. "Damnit anyway," I said out loud.
---
I'd worked my way down slowly and it must've been an hour on and the sun was even lower when I heard some noise up on the bank back where we'd left our gear. When I looked up there, there was a big raven tearing at the sack with my food. I reached down into the stream and pulled up a rock about as big as his ugly head and I heaved it at him. But before it even left my hand he was flying off.
I went back to my fishing. I was down near the bend now and Flynn had worked all the way down to a fallen tree. I watched him a while. His casting was plain and skillful and I admired him already. Then he waded down below the tree and I couldn't see him anymore.
That's when I heard that same tearing up at my pack and this time I saw that damn ugly raven flying off before I could get another rock. He was carrying something in his beak and I tried to think what he'd gotten and realized it was a package of donuts.
"Goddamned raven," I said.
I could hear Flynn whoop down there by the sunken log. He waded out from behind the fallen tree and his rod was bending and pumping. I watched him play the fish and could see him look back upstream at me from time to time to make sure I was watching. When he landed it, I could see it was a pretty big trout. He let it go and started back up toward me, grinning real big.
When he got within comfortable talking distance he said, "That wasn't him, but it was a good one!"
"Sure was!"
"You have any luck?"
"Not really," I said. "Well I did have some luck. Just it was bad luck. Goddamned raven flew off with my donuts!"
"I'll be!"
"Guess he earned it, though."
"Whaddaya mean?"
"Well, the first time, I heaved a rock at him."
"Oh..." Flynn chuckled. "Well, let's go back up and drink some beer."
"Good idea," I said.
Later, we were drinking the beer, leaning up against trees at the stream's edge, watching the light fade.
"Don't worry. The fish just need a time or two more to get used to ya," Flynn said. "See that you're friendly and all."
I laughed and said, "Guess so."
