four days from my island

Today began without last night ever ending. Wide awake for most of it, I greeted the orange rumbling of dawn with a second cup of coffee on the front porch. The kitchen thermometer read thirty-seven, a clear sign the season is over but something inside me said, "Wait, not yet." Weighing the idea of beginning the fall clean up against floating the river one last time I walked through the leaves in the backyard and pulled the kayak off the rack. Ten minutes later I was paddling downriver as the sun finally made its way into the sky to my right. The river, empty, quiet and smooth as glass, reflected my thoughts back at me as I went from spot to spot searching for one fish to end the season on. Three hours of wet wading the mud and grass at the lower end of my tolerance of hypothermia. With no sign of any straggling striped bass, I turned and made my way for home making one final stop to throw a Hail Mary at my personal Last Ditch Gulch. There was no gold to be found but after two or three dozen "last cast's" the line went tight and I touched silver stripes one more time.

Cold and wet but feeling alive and happy, I sat on the sand wrapped around my coffee bottle as the sun finally created some warmth. I watched the light on the water and thought about the season, the people who drifted through it and the world on the dry side of the water's edge I sometimes don't see so clearly.  In the here-today-gone-tomorrow, who-am-I-today, swipe left or right instant world, it's easy to overlook the heart of a moment and the soul of those in it. The truth in a personal or shared experience gets edited, filtered and defined by awareness, engagement, conversion and consumer metrics while we get lost in the "climb" with the herd. I find myself retreating from all that more and more, surrounding myself with fewer personae, less "stuff" and replacing screen time with listening to "Peace of Mind" by Boston over and over.  Comfortable with where I am, I just don't care if I get left behind.  I was recently at a cocktail party where an old acquaintance brought this up. After giving me his review of my personal and business social media pages and activity, he favored me with several suggestions to increase my "market presence" based on what other people in the fly tying / fly fishing world do. Turning away to visit the bar, I responded by paraphrasing Thoreau and asserting that fools stand on their own island of opportunity and look toward another land losing sight of their own existence.

I sifted these thoughts as I got back in the boat and paddled upriver, carrying my island with me.

In May I spent a morning in the very spots I fished today with my friend and favorite writer, Matt Smythe. Our friendship is one of those where few words are necessary to share a complex conversation and when it comes to fishing, it's about the act of it, and the place that it occurs. Catch or no catch, it's the passion for the next stretch of water, anticipation of the next cast and the suspense of the retrieve we placidly share. It was a privilege to share that time with him as he got in on some early season striped bass action, the serenity of the day outdone only by his statement to me of, "I see why you're where you're at."

Matt Smythe

Somewhere along the way Jill and I were fishing a piece of grass bank when she walked off on her own and set up on a piece of water I had pointed out earlier in the spring while explaining when and how to fish it. In short order she hooked up and released a striper on her own without saying a word. There has been much written about fishing with your significant other. It may not be for everyone but it works for us. Jill and I both cringe when we introduce the other as "girlfriend" or "boyfriend," at our age it just doesn't sound right so we try to be hip and over-fifty cool by employing the term "life partner" when we can. We've looked at our relationship as a partnership from the beginning so it makes sense. It carries whether we're on the water, chasing an image or building a project on our "island." 

Jill Mason

In August Jill, Abby and I traveled to Vermont for the annual Fly Fishing Festival at the American Museum of Fly Fishing. I had the privilege of tying flies in the Tier's Tent with Scott Biron, Greg Brown, Mark Dysinger, Rhey Plumley, Nick Santolucito and Rich Strolis. These guys donated their time to help introduce people to fly tying, share some fishing stories and pass on a few tips. Behind the table, from years of friendship and respect for each other's work, we shared ideas and opinions with no lane changes, branding, influencing or pirating maneuvers. It was reaffirming to spend the day with friends, old and new, there for a shared love of the sport and respect of its history that is contained within the walls of the museum and understanding that what we do now is built on what was done by those before us.

Left to right: Nick Santolucito, Mud Dog, Rich Strolis, Mark Dysinger

Photo: American Museum of Fly Fishing / Alex Ford

The day got away from me. Lost in thought I had paddled farther upriver and out and back more side creeks than I had planned. I turned around and chased the setting sun and this last day of the season  along the edges of my island.

South River, MA

2 November 2019

Traipsing

I followed Matt out of town along Route 30 toward Dorset. Crammed into his rig along with fly rods, wading gear and fly boxes were his wife Amanda, and his sons, Cam and Jonah. We had no clear destination, just some mumbled words from the bar the night before about "...follow the road and you'll see water."

We had been in Manchester, VT at the American Museum of Fly Fishing for the weekend to attend the opening of the "On Fly in the Salt" exhibit and to participate in the annual Fly-Fishing Festival. Saturday night had turned into Sunday morning faster than I had anticipated after finishing a second bottle of Pinot while telling fishing and non-fishing stories with my buddy Alex. Thankfully, as is the case with most New England towns, Dunkin was there and a large regular and an Old Fashioned had muffled the sound of the windshield wipers and brought me back to life. It wasn't raining so much as the air was just saturated with water. But it was August and there was no reason not to go for a walk in the woods in the rain

Matt pulled off onto a side road and crept along as we passed over a small stream almost visible through the branches and leaves from the bridge above. We found parking in a clearing just past the stream and I savored the last of my coffee as he geared his family up. He went about rigging rods with flies I could barely see and gave tips to the boys as they forced wading boots on over neoprene socks, his words and tones seemingly dwarfed by the size of the flies he was tying to leaders. I wondered if he was reliving a similar moment with his father as I recalled my own quietly telling me to load my rifle and what to look for as we prepared to enter the woods next to the upper field at the farm. History repeating; different, but the same.

Gearing up.

I had opted not to fish, choosing instead to bring the camera and notebook along. I was looking forward to traipsing around the woods and exploring a new place. It had been a long time since I had followed a stream through the woods. After two decades of walking beaches, sand flats and muddy salt creeks, the art of silently and gracefully walking through understory and windthrow that was once second nature seemed foreign. Stepping into the trees was like stepping back in time, old instincts and reflexes returned without a thought. We made our way down a short ridgeline through broadleaf's and evergreens to a "flat" of sorts, blanketed with ferns and woody shrubs. The gray light penetrating the canopy above cast a metallic-green glow through the air around us and the drops of water falling off the leaves and branches reminding me of bioluminescent phytoplankton in the wake of ships at sea.

Standing at the edge of the stream, Matt had a few words with the boys and then watched them as they headed upstream on their own. The look on his face as they walked off on their own was one of pride and confidence. This was one of the moments I was fishing for that day, watching my friend, as a father, impart some of what he had been taught and learned on his own to his sons and observe history being passed on and made in the same heartbeat.

Matt and Amanda crossed to the far side of the stream and began making their way down to a deep hole in the elbow of a dogleg. I dropped down the other side trying to avoid getting too close to the stream bank and found a small clearing below where I watched Matt pointing out pieces of water and quietly explaining to Amanda what he was seeing.

Matt & Amanda Smythe

This was another moment I had wanted to see. Amanda had just started fly fishing earlier in the year and while this outing was just part of the beginning of her fishing experience, it was becoming part of their history together. I knew what that meant to them both.

They started casting into the hole and working the water around it making rod length casts and mending their lines in the current. I watched mesmerized by the delicacy and precision of their movements laughing to myself in the knowledge that later in the day I would be back in the marsh throwing eighty foot casts into the river with no concern or regard for anything other than getting the line out there believing all the while that I was being delicately precise in my delivery.

Matt & Amanda Smythe

It wasn't long before we heard Jonah shout from upstream. Matt and I made our way to him where he was beaming with a brookie at the end of his line. I looked around the water Jonah had been fishing, no more than ten or twelve inches deep and maybe six feet between the banks. I'm not a trout fisherman so the idea that he had caught a fish in that water was impressive to me. More so was his concern about releasing the fish without injuring it and the maturity he showed about the whole thing. Jonah just quietly told his father he needed help getting the fly out, which Matt did quickly, made up his rod and with a pat on the head took off to his next spot. The look on Matt's face? Pride and confidence.

Jonah's brookie

I decided to follow the boys from there and would circle around them, back and forth, along the stream watching them not only fish but as they would pause every few minutes to look around where they were, standing silent and seem to ponder it all. They continued separately up the stream bed around obstacles and through overgrowth, naturally moving with the innate and acquired skills of woodsmen. In a world where it seems most people, not just kids their ages, are physically and emotionally dependent on some sort of electrical device to navigate their way through an increasingly digital life it was refreshing to see these two boys make their way toward whatever was ahead and yet to be seen,  fully aware of, and engaged with, the natural world around them.

Jonah Smythe

I even found myself standing silent, immersed in both the mortality and immortality of where we were and what we were doing. Sitting on a boulder at the edge of the stream and watching Cam studying the water in front of him I was reminded of a poem his father had written. Some of the words washed through me and circled my mind like the water flowing over and around the rocks at my feet.

"I run solo but I'm not alone.

It's in my blood. My Blackfoot ancestry. I feel them running with me and the hair on my neck and forearms stands on end. I hear them in the wind off the lake and in the song of leafed branches overhead.

I was given endurance and two legs that respond when I say go.

I was not given excuses.

I run because I can and carry everything on these two feet and shoulders, until I carry nothing."

I don't think he knew I was there but if he had asked me what I was doing, I would have told him I was watching the poet's son living the poet's words.

Cam Smythe

The title of the poem is "Give Me Trails." Matt and his friends Denver Miller and J.R. Kraus put the poetry to film. You can watch it and hear it in Matt's voice HERE.

Eventually we regrouped and made our way back up the ridge to the clearing. We packed up, said our good-byes and began the trek back to our lives.

We came together to celebrate the history held by the American Museum of Fly Fishing. On our walk in the woods, I hope we made some, and found some, of our own.


Manchester, VT
12 August 2018