Traditional Gray

 

The day began in the gray magic between dark and light.  Mornings like this had been the norm for both of us all season but today was different. Everything was different. The light beginning to creep into the sky no longer had the “full speed ahead” energy of summer. Instead it seemed to linger as it spread across the water, softened by the filter of autumn. The air had changed as well, not a lot, but enough to notice.

Seasons were changing.

We met at the boat ramp with the usual handshake and bearhug. Little was said as gear was loaded and the boat was splashed. The breeze met us as we headed out the inlet carrying a bouquet of salt, oil fumes and baitfish. Weighing the time against the tide, we agreed to run in search of bass and blues before heading to “The Spot”. We found a few bass, but no blues. The tide slacked and everything went quiet. Before moving on we changed rods and flies. As he finished, I pulled out bacon and egg sandwiches I had made at 0300 and poured Folgers out of the beat-up Stanley I have had since college. Talk turned to the reason we had planned this day for weeks: albies. His clients the day before had been on them. Hard. We hoped for a repeat performance.

We motored slowly to “The Spot,” watching the horizon for birds and any abrupt splashes in our peripheral vision. They were there. As were three other boats executing the “run and gun” attack plan on them. We joked about the proverbial old bull and young bull and set up on the outside of the circus. I took the bow and began casting, watching the water in front of us for sign. The albies blew up around us and we both got several shots into what we thought was the zone. This happened several times as we moved, reset, and waited. Between the two of us, at least one fish should have made it to the boat. I paused to watch the bait as he continued to cast, curse and retrieve.

Decision time.

I stripped in my sinking line, grabbed my other rod with an intermediate line and opened my fly box. I tied on an off-sized, off-colored fly and began casting. My choice received a chuckle from the stern. I ignored it. A few casts later, as my drag was singing, I heard, “You got any more of those?”

It was a draw for the morning; four albies each. Not a bad day. The action had disappeared and rather than follow the fleet we discussed going back for bass. He pawed through my fly box as he finished the last of the coffee. Holding up a zonker strip Deceiver he had shown me how to tie years ago, he said, “Tie this on, the twelve weight, I know where we’re going.”

I sat in the bow and went to work as he pointed the boat northeast. I finished rigging the rod and returned it to the rod holder. As I took my place beside him, for the first time in all the years of our friendship, I noticed he looked old. His face darkly tanned from another season in the sun and weathered from years on the water. Hair and mustache, once brown, I think, now a multi shade of gray. The kind of gray you only see on the coast in the pilings and wood shingled structures that have withstood the wind and weather and all that the sea can throw at them. Shoulders, still powerful and square despite carrying not only his own freight, but that of others. Eyes, still bright and all-seeing but tired around the edges. Twenty years my senior, I hoped to be half of his sum at his age.

We ran for nearly an hour and then he dropped down to trolling speed. He told me to take the wheel as he stepped up to the bow. “I was here two days ago and found something.” After scanning the water around us he turned to me with that wild and crazy look that only he possessed and said one word.

“Tuna!”

He handed me the twelve weight as we switched places. It took a while, but he found them. It took just as long for me, despite his patient coaching, to get over myself and drop the fly in front of the outside edge of the school. For almost thirty minutes I fought twenty pounds of muscle. I felt like I had just run a marathon and fought ten rounds, all at ten thousand feet. My hands were cramped to the point I could barely hold the fish as he handed it to me. He torpedoed it back into the water and turned to me with that rabid look in his eyes.

“Let’s go get another one!”

“Okay, you cast, I’ll drive.”

“You sure?”

 “Oh, yeah. I’m spent.”

He retied the leader as I motored along looking for the tuna. We caught up to them as bluefin from twenty pounds to a hundred crashed bait on the surface. I tried to get him in for a close shot but kept missing it, apologizing each time as he got ready to cast and then stopped.

“It’s ok, these bastards are smarter than we are, just drive like we do for blues or albies…same thing.”

Eventually I got him on, he hooked up and I tailed the fish for him. A little bigger than mine and proportionately more pissed off. True to his way, he spent the next fifteen minutes explaining his process for approaching bluefin and running me through it at the helm.

And then he pulled two warm cans of Miller Genuine from the cooler and we toasted the ocean, life, and each other. Smiling at me he said, “Buddy,” in that slow, low tone way only he could, “what a fuckin’ day! Let’s get out of here.”

The ride back to the ramp was long. I stood beside my mentor and replayed the events of the day in mind as I fought to stay awake despite the rough ride. I kicked myself for not bringing a camera or thinking to get pictures on his phone. This had been a day for the books, as they say. I wanted some record of it.

We hauled the boat and agreed to meet up for dinner. We sat at the bar at Land Ho’ and ate, laughed and lamented it would be next season before we would see each other again. I brought up the fact we had not taken any pictures during the day, especially of the tuna. He laughed and said something about bringing a camera next time.

“You know, the coolest part of the whole day was that all the fish we caught today were on flies you tied.”

“Yeah, but most of them you showed me how to tie.”

He finished his whiskey, looked me square in the eye and said, “That’s the best part. Family tradition.”

The day ended as it had begun. A handshake and a bearhug in the gray magic between dark and light. At a stoplight I caught my reflection in the rearview as the lights from a passing car lit up the inside of the truck. My face was darkly tanned from another season in the sun and a little more weathered from another year on the water. For the first time, I noticed a gray highlight starting to take root in my temples and in my beard.

 

From the abyss, September 2012

12 August 2020