In mid-winter, I’ll sometimes consider a favorite memory of the fishing year. Often, this turns out to be a moment gifted by a small stream or a fish taken when I figured out a conundrum (or — almost as likely — when there’s a wholly unexpected catch), and lately, a smallmouth or trout taken between bat strikes during an evening on a lake after casts and a sunset have relaxed the muscles in my neck.
This favorite memory idea isn’t a contest, however. Some years have several top contenders, and in 2014, three of the four came courtesy of fish landed by somebody else. I know that also happens to readers, because over years, I’ve read about trips with fathers, mothers, siblings, children, and friends. With that in mind. . . .
Two 2014 memories found their way into print. The first was a steelhead taken from a remote place where I didn’t know they ran, which ate a size 16 Pheasant Tail Nymph and played me hard on a 3-weight. The second came from the same place and species — the very first steelie caught by a normally stoical pal, who afterward glowed so brightly he might have been newly in love and pregnant with twins who’d both waved winning lottery tickets at a sonogram tech. Driving home with him that night was like sitting beside a Jim Beam vaporizer.
Memory number three stares at me from my screen saver. That’s eight-year-old Daniel, for whom I’m Grampa Seth through a technically complex, but viscerally simple set of relationships. His father, my Eric for thirty-four years, promised his stepson that I would help him catch his first fish . . .
. . . in goddamn November, during a Thanksgiving visit when waters around here are closed to fishing, and if it’s not raining, its snowing — or just straight-up subfreezing — and while every river within a hundred miles was edging above flood stage.
Even so, that’s Daniel grinning at me almost life-size from beneath the tail of a salmon too big for him to lift. I’d compare his smile to that of the big gray fellow who’s hoisting it for him, but the point is, they both look pretty happy.
So is the kid in the first photo on my iPhone. It’s a similar shot, though this salmon is even bigger, and this one was caught on a fly. The boy looks like Daniel’s older brother, but isn’t; he’s the son of a surgeon who looked after my son Max after a serious accident. I heard from a friend that the doctor was eager to fulfill the desire of his seventh-grade fishing fiend to use a long rod, so I leaped at the chance. We did a casting lesson on a dock, raising a few fish to his practice roll casts — tufts of yarn, since the season was over — then three weeks later caught an almost miraculous break in the weather the same day that a long-delayed run arrived in full force. I was happy we had the water to ourselves, because playing a fresh 16-pound buck in fast water isn’t easy, even with an 8-weight and 12-pound tippet, and especially when there’s no slow current around where you can bring the fish to hand. One advantage to the long fight was that it melted the fiend’s keenly attentive, but shy demeanor enough that soon he was crying, “This is the biggest fish ever!” and, forgetting about his braces at last, smiling wide and deep.
We’re now just a tad past gift-giving season, and I hope you got good ones. Obviously, I already have. And during a conversation with the Editor, I remembered a favorite memory related to this year’s, which made for a chapter of a book — a “close as I could come to fact” story about a boy whose eyes got big and gleamed in the dusk. He said something I hope also will resonate with you because you have attended or sometime will attend:
The Best Party Ever
(From Meanderings of a Fly Fisherman)
So far, I had behaved very well, I thought, mindful of Lisa’s edict. “Remember — it’s a party. You’ve fished that pond before, and you can fish it next week, if you want. But today is a party.”
Understand that I’m not antisocial. I particularly enjoy these hosts, who set some sort of standard for using money well: everything about their property is quietly, comfortably beautiful, from the simple elegance of crafted coat hooks to the many long views framed by flowers. The house is a home, the gardens lush with fruit. Pleasant twin mongrels wrestled on the lawn when we drove up, while a gelding galloped happily across a hillside. And the pond —
It was a party all day. Professional couples, mostly, some kids. Not another angler among them, as was easy to tell as the sun dropped and the barbecue hissed on a deck from which I watched bass begin to move in the pond fifty feet below. Tules spread, lily pads pulsed, something swirled in the new shadows —
“Remember,” said Lisa at my shoulder. “I didn’t make a sound.”
“Don’t. And stop looking woeful.”
Good food, better wine, and there were still two hours of light left when our hostess approached me, smiling and smoothing her skirt. “I hate to do this. Please feel free to say no. But I did sort of promise Jaime and Jesse.” She laughed. “Well . . . they would love to go fishing.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Promises are important to children.”
“They are.”
“You’ll explain that to Lisa, when she asks where I’ve gone?”
“Oh yes. Thank you so much. I do appreciate this.”
“My pleasure.”
Stay rigged is my Prime Directive, so it was a matter of minutes before I had fetched my fly rod, as well as the spinning outfit, tackle box, and night crawlers I had brought in case of kids. Jaime, seven-year-old son to the estate, carried another rig I had given to the family some Christmas back.
Down through the oak woods, out onto the swimming beach beneath a great weeping willow, then into the fiberglass johnboat. By then, Jaime was chatting and waving his arms. “I’ve caught a bluegill already, a huge one! I caught a bass, but he spit it out.”
Jesse was strangely quiet. I looked him over. Three or four years older than his pal, he had light eyes and an unfortunate haircut. His hands pressed together, palm to palm, and he was shivering.
“Cold?”
He shook his head once. “No. No, no. Only, I can’t believe I’m going fishing. I just can’t believe it.”
No father, I thought.
I’ve fished with children before. My own adopted trio, the kids of friends who drag them across states for a pilgrimage on water. I favor boats for such outings, and bluegills. It’s often challenging and sometimes special. I had sense this outing would be something else.
No father. Or none around: Jesse confirmed this as I strung rods, speaking softly between Jamie’s outbursts. “Dad always says he’ll take me. But he lives in Los Angeles, so he hasn’t, yet. But I think he will.”
“Jaime, here you go. Jesse, you’ll use mine.”
“This one?” He reached for the fly rod. “No. That kind is sort of complicated.”
I showed him how to open the bail on the spinning reel, a few basics about baiting and casting. Jaime insisted he “knew how” and promptly flung a night crawler off the hook into a tule bank. “It got off! I need another one! I can’t put it on!”
“Hang on, Jaime.”
“I’ll help him,” said Jesse. “I think I can.” He did, baiting Jamie’s hook just as I’d showed him moments before. Before, even, he had ever baited a hook for himself.
I watched. When Jesse finished, I handed him the rod. Carefully, silently mouthing the instructions I’d given, he lobbed a little cast. “Like that?”
“Yeah,” I said, as Jaime zinged another worm into orbit.
“Dang it! They don’t hang on!”
I baited Jaime this time, tossing the worm overboard before he could practice his hurling technique.
The little bluegill must have been stalking my wristwatch. Its jerk on the rod seemed to pop open Jamie’s mouth.
“Got one!” “Jamie’s got one!”
“Easy. Stay still —” “I got one! I —”
Lest we forget that a rod is a lever and that a seven-year-old is stronger than a seven-inch fish . . . if not for the leash of line, this ’gill might have landed on the Hubble’s lens. Instead, its plunge boatward provoked my third-baseman’s instinct, a fast grab secured by dorsal spines stabbing my thumb.
“Judas —”
“Got him!”
“Way to go, Jaime! And . . . good catch, sir!”
“Let’s all sit down.”
“I caught a bluegill!”
“Is that a bluegill? It’s a beauty!”
We celebrated with high fives — “What a big hand, sir!” said Jesse. “Is this your blood?” — then I showed them each how to hold the little fish, cradling its belly in wet hands. Jamie’s cries of joy reached adults on the hill above, who shouted and waved. Jesse was mesmerized by the fish’s iridescent scales and bright eyes. “It’s so alive, isn’t it?”
It stayed that way, with explanation. Jamie’s next fish was a bass not as long as his worm. Jaime was disappointed, but Jesse wanted to hold this one, too. “He’s different, isn’t he? Shaped, colored — what a big mouth. He’s bleeding a tiny but, though not as so much as you are, still. But he’ll be all right, won’t he?”
The third fish was another small bluegill, also Jamie’s. Jesse praised him as highly as he had for both earlier fish, but I could tell he was worried.
There came a lull after that, while I rowed the johnboat across deeper water. Jesse’s back was to me, hunched a little, but when his head turned I saw he was simply soaking in the scene. He inhaled deeply, held the moist air, sighed. “Maybe I won’t catch a fish,” he murmured, “but it’s so pretty here. I never knew it would be so pretty.”
Pretty nice kid. And right about the setting. The sun was falling behind the garden hill, glowing orange off the canyon wall opposite. That light also reflected warm from the water, describing tiny gold ribbons where the willow’s great limbs trailed across the surface. From above the oak woods came laughter. Closer by, on his slope, the gelding watched our progress.
Jaime hooked a bass and lost him. As I rebaited him, Jesse cocked a questioning eye at me. I couldn’t think of any answer, save “This is the place.”
He nodded. “If you say so, sir.” Then his gaze fell to the fly rod. “Aren’t you going to fish with that one?”
“Oh, probably not.”
He considered. “I’ll put a worm on for you.”
I pointed out the fly, a streamer called Mickey Finn, explained that it mimicked a minnow. Jesse examined the streamer with interest, then asked if he could hold it. “It weighs almost nothing,” he said. “So how do you throw it out there?”
“That’s the complicated part,” I assured him. “The fat fly line is what’s heavy and loads the rod for the cast.”
“I’d sure like to see how you do that,” he said. “Just once?”
“I’m getting cold,” advised Jaime.
We were drifting into a cove where shallow flats met a deep bank of tules. To our right was big bluegill water, to our left, the bank where I’d always caught my best bass. “Once,” I allowed.
After a couple of false casts I dropped the Finn to the right. The deer-hair wing floated an instant. That’s all it took.”
“He kissed it!” Jesse cried.
So he had, a bluegill of half a pound. Jesse leaned over as the fish planed in. “Look how fat he is! Why’s he so orange? Doesn’t he look just like the sun did a second ago?”
Yes, he did. And I decided I would stay out till I got this boy a fish. But Jaime was colder, and getting cranky, and although Jesse insisted otherwise, he was shivering again, so. . .
I took back his rod, peeled away his bait, removed the split shot from his line. “Jesse. Find us the biggest night crawler in the box.”
He searched with such concentration, weighed the last two contenders in his palm, held the winner out to me.
“Oh no,” I said. “You put it on. You’re getting expert at baiting.”
He liked that. I smiled. “Okay, partner. Are you ready? Because right now, Jesse we’re going to get one together.”
He looked a little disappointed when he realized I was going to cast, but the partner role had appeal. “I’m ready, partner,” he said hopefully.
“You’re sure? Because it’s going to be big. A bass — enormous. The biggest.”
If he didn’t believe, his grin suggested he was at least enjoying the drama.
“Doesn’t have to be the biggest,” he said.”
I laughed, flipped a cast to my hot spot, a place where the tules were broken up by a bankside tree. Then I handed Jessie the rod with the reel in free spool. “When he bites, I want you to let him take it. Just leave the line loose and let him play with it for ten seconds.”
“You mean like ‘thousand-one?’ ” “Right.” The big worm drifted down and I saw the line twitch. “What was that?”
“Starting now. ‘Thousand one’ — count, Jesse!”
“Now? That’s a fish?” “Thousand three . . .”
“Thousand four! Thousand five!” Then, in a whisper, “Whoopsss. Thousand . . .six.”
“Wait. Wait. Now . . . gently turn over the bail.”
“That’s the wire thing.” “Yes.”
“OK.”
“Now when he pulls tight, you pull back. Hard but not too hard Now!”
No magic. No real surprise: the best bass was always in this spot. But when I saw the rod bow, I suddenly realized how much the best bass had grown.
“HOLY GOSH!”
“Jesse —” cried Jamie “I got one! I got a fish!”
Jesse actually stopped to look at me, mouth open like a bluegill, as if to show me his astonishment, then ripped his gaze to back to where the line tore water near the stern. He pulled back harder on the rod, felt the fish moving in, and because he couldn’t wait, leaned over the gunwale to try and see it —
“Jessie, sit up —”
— and so it was that his face was two feet foot from the surface when three pounds of bass exploded up in a cover-photo shot — gills flaring, body twisting — leaping up higher than Jesse’s head, then plunging down hard enough to splash water all across his face.
Jaime screamed. Jesse gurgled. “Hold on!”
“OH MY —” gasp — “GOSH OH MY GOSH OH —”
“I’m all wet!” shouted indignant Jamie.
“Jesse —” I reached for the rod. “I’VE GOT HIM.”
And he certainly did.
I was still laughing, off and on again, as I rowed us back toward the beach beside the willow. Laughing to myself, anyway. It’s nice to live a fairy tale once in a while. Jaime was “Hecka-cold” now, still piqued at being soaked, but Jesse looped an arm around him as he sat staring out into a memory ten minutes old, but already a reverie. “Quite a bass, Jesse,” I said. “Your first fish was a beast.”
He nodded, looked thoughtful. “ Well you know,” he said gravely, “it wasn’t all mine.”
“A technicality, I think.”
“Not completely mine, I mean. We were partners But partly mine.”
“The big part,” I said, and left it at that. But a dozen yards from shore, nearly to the weeping willow, I paused at the end of a long stroke.
“Why are we stopping?” demanded Jamie, but I was watching Jesse, the way he was looking around shore to shore, water to sky, from bright horizon to the gathering dark.
At last he raised his gaze, steadied on the lighted deck far above, way up to the silhouettes of people and what sounded like the conversation of birds.
Jesse nodded, then put out a hand he swept slowly over all he surveyed, the deep greens and blues, gold and blues of his domain for that moment.
“This,” he said gently, “this . . . is the best party ever. This is the best party of all my life.” He turned to look at me with curious gravity, an expression that seemed somehow older than he had been before. It might have unnerved me, had Jesse not suddenly smiled and defiantly mimed a false cast.
Jamie’s mom thanked me again, with a wink and shrug toward the back that Lisa was keeping turned to me. “Not to worry,” she whispered.
I had doubts. But it was Jesse’s mother who caught up with us at the car just as Lisa’s grim silence was cracking toward comment. She stooped beside the passenger side window, smiled at Lisa, then across to me. She was silent long enough to confuse me, then said, “Thank you. Thank you. You have no idea.”
I said it had been my pleasure, that Jesse seemed like a fine young man. But she would have none of that. “No. Really. You have no idea.”
OK. “Well, I think your son is a fisher and will be all his life. So you might not be quite so happy he’s started.”
She laughed shortly, made a reference to her ex’s good intentions. “We’re not local, so I know Jesse won’t see you again. Still ” She shrugged, stood, and with small smile looked at Lisa. “Thank you, also. For the loan.”
That helped. Or maybe not. One way or another, a half an hour into the drive home, I got “You’re forgiven.” Then, a few long minutes after that, “But you really did miss a lovely party.”
Then I was in trouble again, because I laughed, and because I’m so antisocial, I was still grinning when I thought, “But not the best party ever.”
