The Fishing Report

My daily drive takes me past a lake which in another couple of months will be a destination swimming hole, a picnic site, a leisurely canoe spot.  It also provides reasonably good fishing.  The lake sits at the same elevation as another superior fishing lake, just beyond my destination.  Consequently every evening I am required to report to my fly-fisher husband how much ice is off the lake.  


I have been watching the lake, the patterns on the thinning ice, for almost six weeks.  When I began the drive I could see evidence of cross-country skiers; lines and holes.  From my mobile vantage point, which provides only a fleeting glimpse, I could see the tracks of animals taking advantage of an ice bridge and cutting the corners of the trail around the lake.  However the weather has been getting steadily warmer, and with the exception of one day, which saw a good dump of snow on the road and on the bluing ice, each day has seen more open water exposed around the shore like a fringe of thinning hair on a balding man.  Curiously the patterns on the currently exposed layer of ice appear to be the tracks of a vehicle, perhaps a quad testing the limits of stupidity by driving across the middle of the lake.  


There is a second lake I pass, a resort lake: larger, warmer, poorer fishing but better swimming and recreational boating.  Yesterday as I checked to see how much higher the water level was compared to the cabins and houses on the shore, I saw a fish rise and sip off the surface.  I too am a fisher.  The first time my husband took me fishing he observed, "You've got the bug".  
"I always had it", I replied, "It was just in remission".  


I have always loved fishing.  When I was young my grampa used to take my cousin and I fishing at small out-of-the-way lakes, rivers, and streams; I believe even then it wasn't so much about the fishing, we were occasionally successful, but about quality time.  I have to believe my grampa would have been more successful without two children tangling lines.  I remember watching my grampa casting, not understanding, but somehow recognizing the skill and beauty of an accomplished fly-fisher.  I see and feel that again when I watch my husband casting, especially on a river.  There is something inherently peaceful, graceful and natural about casting into a river.  I have always loved fishing and I loved the time with my grampa and my cousin. How many ten year old girls get a fishing rod for a birthday present? I remember I had an old metal tackle box that I spray painted blue.  I would go to the river that ran through town or the creek.  I don't think I ever caught anything, but I believe I have always seen fishing the way some people see the lottery; I'm not going to catch anything if I don't have a line in the water.  I don't remember when my grampa stopped taking us fishing.  It was probably around the time when my cousin and I became teenagers more interested in hanging with our friends than our family.  


It was more than ten years before I fished again;  I caught a 27 pound spring salmon while working for the summer in Rivers Inlet.  It was another twenty years until the first time I went with the man who would become my husband.  I have since taken a course in casting, learned some entomology, and re-discovered a passion.  I know I am nowhere near the fisher my grampa was, or that my husband is, but I love it. When I received new wading boots and a sleeve for my         G Loomis rod for Christmas I felt like I was ten again.  I love the thrill when the reel sings, the challenge of landing the catch,  the sun, the water, even the rain.  I love the sense of accomplishment when a fish is caught on a fly my husband made, and when we're catching while others are merely fishing.