Wild Things

 2020.

It started out great. I had big plans based on the sum of 2019. Long days on old water, road trips to fish with friends on theirs. New stories to get out and make, others to watch and listen to. I had a shelf of empty notebooks and SD cards to fill.

Then the storm hit. For all of us. People got sick, people died, businesses closed, jobs were lost and our world changed hour by hour. Metaphorical drawbridges were raised in the name of practicality and trepidation. Nearly a year later it continues. Even as Covid-19 vaccines begin to make their way to the masses, the idea that we will ever "return to normal" seems inconceivable. Too much has changed.

I've been fortunate. I've worked everyday through the pandemic and remained healthy. It's been a struggle and concessions have been made, but the company I work for is still operating. Next week could be different. Everyday begins and ends with the question of what will tomorrow bring.

I've been lucky. I don't take it for granted. As it was for so many, the economic impact of the pandemic knocked on the door of our home. The company that Jill worked for furloughed most of its employees shortly after the initial lockdown and then soon after closed its doors and was gone. Like most we sat in the kitchen many nights wondering if this might be all that there is. The new normal. The line between hanging on and letting go that was once far out of sight suddenly could be seen outside the window.

But the human spirit is extraordinarily resilient. Outside that same kitchen window is our shed. The base for  Jill Mason Art. Up until now, Jill's business was a part-time labor of love built on the dream of some day making it a full time endeavor. With a dismal forecast for returning to her previous career, she wasted no time in getting out there and changing the dream into a reality. Rather than waiting for something to happen, she's worked ten to twelve hour days everyday making it happen.

Parallel to Jill's story, her friend and former co-worker, Bonnie Frost, chose not to wait for the next career opportunity and started her own business, Frost and Found. In partnership with her landscaper husband, Chad, Bonnie took her passion for design and applied it to plantings, flowers and antiques to offer custom container plantings, sustainable arrangements and unique gifts for the home, patio and office.

The two of them recently collaborated to host an event, "The Jingle Barn," showcasing their work as well as South Shore Candles for holiday shoppers. 

They worked on the planning of this for weeks and filled the barn at Bonnie and Chad's farmhouse with wreaths, floral arrangements, framed nautical images, Christmas ornaments and unique decorations. Despite hurricane-like conditions on the first day and cold temperatures on the second, the turnout was incredible, Not only was their work well received, but so to was the idea behind each of their businesses. 

At the end of the first day, as I poured a glass of wine for everyone, I said to the two of them, "I'm proud of you. It takes b*lls to do what you have done." Pardon my word usage, I write in my own voice and if you know me, well, that's how I speak. My point is, in a chaotic world and a down economy, starting a business is a questionable decision at best. And trust me, a lot of people have questioned their judgement. But they did it. And they're rocking it. Not to make a fortune, but to make a life.

As I've watched Jill and Bonnie leave their previous careers behind and build something new out of drive and determination, I think of those empty notebooks on my shelf. Selfishly I've thought all this time I was missing out on the stories I thought I'd fill them with because of the limitations thrown at us by Covid-19. As I sat down to write this I took a look around at "my people" I thought I'd find stories with and realize that they've been right at it working on and re-writing their own stories through the uncertainty of these times.

A few years back, in the film, "A Deliberate Life," our friend Matt Smythe made a comment about the chase of choice, chance and change. He said, "It's not going to be easy, but you can't go wrong."

He's right. And following his own words, in the midst of big life changes, Matt's gone back to his roots and rediscovered his voice and his focus. He's writing again. The good stuff. And continuing to inspire a lot of us.

My good friend, Rich Strolis, now semi-retired, is going at it full time on the vise at Catching Shadows cranking out flies while he waits for things to get to a point where he can guide full time. His plans got slapped around by the pandemic but he's adjusted and grinds it every day.

Nick Santolucito spent almost a year planning his new venture, M&D Outfitters, only to have Covid-19 hit just before he launched the new shop. Like Rich, he adjusted and made it work. Every day. 

My niece's husband, Max Ritchie, worked through the pandemic on his side project, Carlisle Island Oysters, and brought his first harvest to market just before Christmas.

The human spirit can be extraordinarily resilient.

I look at these people and what I've written and I think of my favorite poem, "Self-Pity,' by D.H. Lawrence:

I never saw a wild thing

sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself. 

With the year about to end, I'm thankful for all of you who have read the periodic posts here and all who continue to support whatever this place is. I appreciate it. And I wish us all the best in 2021.

And to the wild things,

You make my heart sing.

South River, MA

26 December 2020

somethng from nothing

Around this time of year, we see and hear words like happiness and joy tossed around and although I recognize the sentiment in which they’re used, I wonder if we understand the difference anymore. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a co-worker a while back while looking at a photo of a fish that I had caught the previous weekend.

 

A comment was made, more in the form of a question than an assertion, that I “must find happiness in fly fishing.” I began to respond in the affirmative and then paused, revising my response to say that I “receive joy” from the process of fly fishing but that the end result, catch or no catch, really has nothing to do with it. My co-worker seemed perplexed and asked why I would spend so much time doing something if I was not concerned with some form of a” prize” at the end. I dug way back in the memory bank to the psychology and philosophy classes I took in college and the study sessions we had over cheap beer. I explained happiness is corporeal, based on an attachment to an expected reward of doing or receiving something. It usually accompanies a successful completion of whatever is being done.  Joy is ethereal, connected more to the spiritual side or reason for doing something. The joy of doing something, if we’re lucky, is always present regardless of the outcome.



I know, a little deep. And while it is New Year’s Eve, no, I have not opened the tequila. Not yet.      



I went on to explain the events, the process if you will, behind the fish in the photograph. I had spent an hour fishing one section of water along an edge of an oyster bar that dropped off into a deeper channel. There were fish moving up on to the bar from the channel but were being selective. I had a few follows but none would commit and take the fly. I had considered changing the fly but the one I was using is my go-to pattern and I knew eventually it would get taken. I explained it’s like the twenty-dollar Casio that’s been on my wrist for almost as long as I can remember. It’s beat to hell, isn’t fancy and just keeps working. Even when the battery runs out, it’s still correct twice a day.

I kept casting at those fish, watching them follow the fly, relying on the strong sense of confidence that years of the ebb and flow of trial and error impart. It is still life’s greatest teacher, earned and then learned. Eventually one fish followed the fly and turned off it and paused. I water-hauled the fly and put it back out in front of him off to his left. I knew he was going to take it before he did. Two strips into the retrieve he turned on it and ate it. I felt “happy” as the line went tight, but it lasted only for as long as it took it to release him. I have no immediate recollection of that “happiness” today. The joy from the process of working those fish, staying with that one fly, watching the take and then seeing him swim away afterward…I feel that as I write this today as I do the blood in my veins.



So, in the final hours of 2019, I bid all a Happy New Year and hope that in that happiness, whether you fish or not, we all find joy in 2020.



See you on the other side.



South River, MA

31 December 2019

memories left

Yesterday marked one year since my mother passed. It was really no different than any other day since, significant only that it was marked by a milestone. I chose to unplug, keep quiet and got through the day doing what I had to do until I could escape into my tying room. Mom was always fascinated with my fly tying and the number of flies I tied. She asked me once how I learned to tie so many different patterns. I showed her a book, the first one I bought when I was just learning to tie and told her that it and the man who wrote it had changed my life.

That man passed yesterday.

I took the book of the shelf last night and thumbed through the pages as I have done millions of times while memories of mom and the author alternately flooded my mind.

I met Lefty Kreh several times over the years at shows I was tying at. I say “met” because we never spent more than a few minutes together nor had conversations that people who have “known” each other for years do. Lefty would stop by my table, paw through my display box and pick up a fly, look at it and nod or give me a wink and then put it in the box as he asked me how I was and how striper fishing had been the previous season. I’m not sure he ever knew my name, he would always greet me with, “Hey, Mad Dog…” I never corrected him, doing so seemed disrespectful and to be honest, I thought it was cool.

There was an occasion nine or ten years ago at the Bears Den Fly Show where I shared a moment with Lefty that I will never forget. It was late in the afternoon, the crowd was thinning out and a gentleman and his son were at my table watching me tie a sand eel pattern. The boy was probably twelve or thirteen and had just bought a fly tying kit. He was full of questions about materials and asked me to tie another sand eel so he could see all the steps. As I put a fresh hook in the vise Lefty sat down in a chair at the table next to me and watched and listened as I went through each step of building the fly. When I finished I gave the boy the fly out of the vise and reached for another that was finished with epoxy.

Lefty grabbed the finished fly from my hand and asked me what I called it. I said, “That’s called the Cichetti’s Sand Eel.”

He asked, “Who is Cichetti?” I told him how one of my customers had been given one of the flies by a fisherman on Cape Cod named Rob Cichetti and asked me to duplicate it. I explained that after talking to Rob and asking for his blessing to copy it, I added it to my line. Lefty nodded and said, “Good man. That’s a neat fly.” Handing the fly to the boy, he said, “That’s gonna catch you some fish.”

I asked Lefty if he wanted one of the flies and he just smiled, tapped the side of his temple with a finger and said, “I got it right here.”   

The boy and his father thanked me and as they walked away Lefty put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You made that kid’s day.”    

Lefty, you made this kid’s day every time we met, as you did with everyone blessed to share time with you over the years.

Thank you, sir. You will be missed.

Rest in peace.

South River, MA

15 March 2018

hands free commandos

It was an early September morning, the beginning of what we call the “Fall Run” and the fishing had been unbelievable. It wasn't because I had cracked any code, I had just wandered into the right place at the right time. Things had started as the sun rose over slack-water at the top of the tide and had stayed consistent during the first of the drop. The fish were all cookie-cutter twenty to twenty-two-inch striped bass. I was casting from a high spot into a rock garden that held about six feet of water. The water was exceptionally clear and as the sun climbed higher and the tide dropped I could see the fish swimming back and forth among the rocks. The stripes had a mix of bait penned into the rocks and were feeding sub-surface. It was a big school. I had fished this spot several times during the fall in the past out of my boat and had seen schools of hundreds of stripers in these rocks. I probably would have walked by on this morning had it not been for a few tails splashing that I caught out of the corner of my eye while rigging the nine-weight.

About halfway through the drop I saw two other fly fishermen a good distance down the beach. I designated them Tango One and Tango Two. In between casts I would check their position and noticed Tango One moving closer with each fish that I caught. After I had released a half dozen or so fish he was no more than thirty feet off my right shoulder.  He made a few casts and would make the infamous “rod-under-the-arm-two-handed-high-speed-turbo-retrieve.” As he did this I could hear him talking. I didn’t pass judgment; I talk to myself when I’m fishing. 

The water had dropped enough that he could get out to a small section of sandy bottom that I had been fishing the edge of. He started to walk out and I went tight to another fish and as I was stripping it in I heard him say, “Get up here, he caught another one…it’s on fire up here!”

At this point I realized Tango One was talking to Tango Two via Blue Tooth. I looked down the beach at Tango Two and saw him begin to make his way up to where we were. It was about to get crowded and I don’t like crowds. There was plenty of beach to move to but I had a good thing going and was not keen on giving it up. I decided to hold my ground and let things play out.

I released my fish and watched as they took up spots thirty feet in front of me and to my right. I was casting straight out from the rocks. The current was running at a soft angle from my left to the right which brought my fly just a few feet in front of them on the last few strips. I thought this would send them a message to back off a little. It did not. Instead they both started casting up-current and perpendicular to my casting lane. I stood in disbelief and watched them cast. They were both two-handed-turbo stripping but they couldn’t keep up with the current and their flies were making it back to them before the lines. Situational awareness was weak with these two.

I moved another thirty or forty feet to my left and went back to casting. All morning I had been retrieving the line in short, staggered strips. Nearly every fish had taken the fly on the drop in the pause between strips. These were happy fish and not expending a lot of energy to feed because there was so much bait in front of them. I think I could have drifted a Beanie Baby in front of them and they would have eaten it. The slow strip continued to work and I brought a couple more fish to hand. Each time the Tango Twins saw me hooked up they began to cast and turbo strip faster and faster. I understand the reasoning for the two-handed strip but it’s a tool, not necessarily something needed in every circumstance. Watching them made me think of the first fight between Batman and Bane in The Dark Knight Rises where Bane says, “You fight like a younger man, nothing held back…admirable but mistaken.”

I hooked up again and Tango Two broke out his fly box. He and Tango One spent several minutes thumbing through the box. I threw another cast and let my mind wander as I Granny-stripped the fly.

I had a Caesar Salad once at Carmichael’s in Chicago. It was amazing. I was there with my friends Jay and Z (not to be confused with the rapper) to watch the Patriots play the Bears. We didn’t have tickets. We watched the game at Mother Hubbard’s with about two hundred other Pats fans and my buddy, Mike Davis from FalseEchoes.com who had driven in to meet us. The night is a blur. I don’t remember who won the game, I’ve tried to forget saying I would cover the bar tab and I think it was snowing when we walked around the corner to Rossi’s. But I remember everything about that salad. The Romaine was torn to perfect fork size, the dressing had just enough anchovy and the grated parmesan added extra taste and texture to make it a full meal. I ate slow and savored every bite. For ten minutes, I blocked out everything around me other than that salad and the Jack and Diet in front of me. Salads like that don’t come along very often. Neither do mornings like that one. So, I did my best to block out the fly fashion show the two Tango’s were having and kept fishing.

Eventually they tied on new flies and went back to casting into the current and turbo stripping. I went tight to another fish and decided it was time to move. This time I held the fish up out of the water before I released it. Tango Two dug the fly box back out.

As I made up my line I walked over to them and said, “It ain’t the fly.”

Neither one said anything but confusion was in their eyes. And they were in fact both equipped with Blue Tooth’s.

“It ain’t the fly, anything you throw will get bit. Cast straight out, let the current swing the fly and work it back with slow strips. Let the current make the fly breath. Strip it with one hand. Slow.”

They both took heed and made casts straight out. It only took a few SLOW strips and Tango Two was on. Tango One stuck his rod under his arm and dug his camera out to capture the moment. As Tango Two held the fish for the photo, Tango One, who had left line in the water got bit and as the fish took the slack up in the line his rod went flying out from under his arm. It was a shit show for a few seconds but he grabbed it before it got too far.

All I could say was, “Wow. Hands free.”

I turned to head up the beach and one of them asked me if I was done for the day.

“Nah, I’m gonna’ go get a salad.”

From the Journal

2 August 2017

Edison, Bukowski and four dollars

A while back I was at the Mobil getting gas with my coffee and ran into a guy I know who had bought one fly from me at a fly show the previous winter. We were about two months into striper season so I asked him how the fishing had been. He told me that he had not caught any striped bass on the fly I sold him and asked if I offered a money-back guarantee. I choked a little on my coffee and inquired where he had been fishing. He told me the location and reiterated that the fly had not caught any fish. Either time he had been out.

“Either time, as in twice?”

“Yeah, both times, nothing…I don’t think it works.”

I suddenly thought of Thomas Edison saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work” when describing his work to improve the filament in the incandescent light bulb.

I reached for my phone to show my customer pictures of a dozen fish recently caught on the same fly he was questioning but chose the high road and bit my tongue. I thanked him for his business and gave him back his four dollars.

Half of it in coins.

Just because.

I thought about that encounter a couple of mornings ago as I sat in traffic on the commute to The Cube. Cruising north at seven miles per hour I watched people in the other cars applying face paint, taking selfies, updating their global status and one dude rolling a number. Traffic came to a halt as a radio commercial touted the “immediate results” of some magic pill. Instant gratification seems to dictate most of what we do. Mass media, marketing and advertising, social media influencers, hashtags – we’re all manipulated by the profit in impatience.

We’re messed up, I get it. At times I’m both a perpetrator and a casualty of the game and to be contrite I’ll be checking Blogger an hour after I post this to see how many views it gets.

There is a phrase we use in fishing about a particular catch being a “fish of a thousand casts.” Much like Edison and the carbonized filament, there are times that the difference between fishing and catching is the result of persistence. Despite all the fancy gear, the electronics technology and real-time information available today, in the end, it comes down to putting in the time, cast after cast, sometimes day after day.

A friend of mine from Nantucket, Chris Lydon, recently sent me an email that illustrates this.

“I have been dying to get a bass on those foam popper flies since last season. I don’t know why, but it’s been a personal mission. I spent a lot of time at the end of last season searching for my final bass with them to no avail. I’ve been tying it on a lot this year so far. I have had countless missed strikes, explosions and tail swirls but yesterday I finally got the deal done. All the heartache was worth it. In my opinion, there is no more exciting way to catch a bass than watching it come up and clobber a popper.”

 

Photo by Chris Lydon

  

Persistence.

Charles Bukowski said it best; “Any asshole can chase a skirt, art takes discipline.”

I have no idea in what context Bukowski made his remark. If you've read Bukowski, well, use your imagination. I’d like to think it’s universal and can be applied to just about anything, especially fishing.

Merriam - Webster lists one definition of art as “skill acquired by experience, study, or observation.” The same could be said of fly fishing.

The season is upon us. Be persistent.

And keep making art.

South River, MA

25 May 2017