The Cycle of the Seasons and Our Lives

Whether thou liv’st more winters, or thy last
Be this, which Tyrrhen waves ’gainst rocks do cast.
Be wise! drink free, and in so short a space
Do not protracted hopes of life embrace,
Whilst we are talking, envious time doth slide:
This day’s thine own; the next may be denied.

HORACE
23 B.C.

We often overlook the joy of hanging out together casually when we are fishing.  I was grateful to everyone who came out with me in 2013.  There was a different face on my boat almost every outing and I enjoyed that.  But I didn't stop to think about it.  Not until January when I answered my cell phone and heard bad news on  a gray, rainy afternoon. 

Mike, my brother in Michigan, fell victim to an aneurysm and was gone at the tender age of forty-six, leaving behind a grieving wife and six kids, not to mention the entire congregation of the Bible Church he pastored.  I had just talked to him at Christmas about the air miles I was saving for the fall and the rivers we would fish together.  Instead I spent the miles on a flight to snowy Michigan in the heart of winter to attend a funeral that broke my heart.  The snow and ice and nine-degree weather seemed oppressive and all the hugs and tears only worked to amplify the nagging feeling that the world was either coming to an end or was stuck in time in a place I didn't want to be.

 

The seasons cycle as they must.  Winter will turn to spring shortly and then I will be surprised to be out on my favorite lakes again so soon.  Life cycles, too.  We just don't like to think about it.  I thought I would pass before my little brother but God had other plans.  I took for granted all those casual times we fished together and now I vow I won't do that with my friends and family this coming season.  

 

The seasons of life having cycled, there will be no more trips with Mike.  I wish it wasn't that way. 

 

But I look forward to seeing him in eternity and I trust, as many do not have the faith to do, that God will let us fish again together.  After all, everyone knows the disciples were fisherman and John, Jesus' favorite, was a dry fly fisherman...   I have faith.

 

 

Rod and Mike (1975)

  

 

Fishing a creek from our childhood in western Washington (2006)

Bass fishing together in the Everglades - his favorite place (2000)

 

 

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;

and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

Jn 11:25-26

 

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.

Ps 116:15

 



2013 Was a Great Year

What to say about the year past?  Another big year on the water should result in a lot of great memories but for some reason I go into 2014 thinking about the year to come instead.  I guess I'm writing this so late that I am already excited for spring to arrive.  But I can't shake the nagging suspicion that last season was all a prelude for what will follow here shortly...  Hope I'm right. 

 

I hit all of the usual haunts in 2013 and fished with more people than usual - I must have been out with 25 different folks and that's a lot for me.  They all shared various levels of interest in the sport, by which I am hinting that some were lowly gear guys quickly blessed and forgiven for their sins so we could enjoy a selection of venues together. 

Here is a sampling of what we saw together.  And here’s hoping your time on the fly was even better.

 

SPRING

High desert lakes on the east side of the state dominate the spring.  Bass are mandatory fun in May but I am sick and tired of being outfished by my friends.  Dang it!  One of these years the best Bass photo will be of one I caught. 

 

A healthy Largemouth Bass

A boy and his truck equal good times

 

The bay boat on Banks Lake

 

 

SUMMER

Mid-July to September was all about the lowly Pink Salmon.  A pest to the guys who chase Kings and a godsend to in-shore shallow water boys like me and my compadres.   Up at 4AM for each outing and out on the salt in time for sunrise.  There were 26 trips made and 88 fish landed.  It's too bad the word "awesome" is over-used...  So is "epic" and so is...  Well, you get the point. 

 

View of Mt. Rainier from Puget Sound

David with a nice 6 1/2 pound Pink Salmon

 

Sunset on the salt

 

 

 FALL

A little lake in October became the stuff of dreams as I found one eighteen-inch trout after another to slam the Sealbugger I was slinging.  One guy was doing better than me with Chironomids but I figured I was having more fun strip-setting on aggressive takes than he was half-asleep waiting for his bobber, I mean strike indicator, to wiggle.  A couple other guys paddled by looking a little downcast and having trouble finding any biting fish.  I wished them well, knowing that could easily be me on the next lake.  But on this day I was king and enjoyed my time in charge of the kingdom. 

 

Lilly pads and quiet water

 

 

A fat Rainbow Trout in western Washington

 

 

There were thirty-seven outings in 2013.  Not bad for a guy with a day job.  And with any luck, I'll have a similar story to tell next season... 

 

The Seattle skyline

as seen from a boat launch in West Seattle

 



 

 

 

Catching up on the Year

Somehow 2012 zoomed by when I wasn't paying attention.  At about the same speed I noticed in my kids' childhood years... 

Fished some beautiful water with Frank in July on the Yakima River.

 

Got to watch David catch a nice Silver Salmon on my boat in Puget Sound in August.

And I caught a mess of Sea-Run Cutthroat on my boat, too.  With enough size to keep a simple guy like me pretty happy.  I really do love being out in the quiet saltwater of south Puget Sound. 

It was a summer of backyard BBQ's and periodic fishing and now I find myself at the end of October, one of my favorite fishing months, wondering why I didn't get out more.  Of course, I'm not helping myself by deciding to learn a new lake in October and also deciding to put in more time on Tiger Muskie.  I'm basically trading all the great October fishing that's out there to learn some new things.  That translates into low fish counts and zero bragging rights.  Oh, well...  You have to put in your time, right?

Tomorrow morning I am headed out on my boat at the crack of dawn to try to learn a bit more about Chum Salmon.  These fish, too, are apparently picky about who they let catch them.  Maybe I can crack the code...  Or maybe not.

Either way, I guess I'm ready for a quiet winter and will think fondly of the fast and furious spring I had while regretting that I let the summer mostly get away from me.  Such is life...

 

Northern Idaho in June

They said at the fly shop that the river was running twice it's normal level for this time of the year.  We shrugged and quietly went despite the advice to wait until later in July.  One of the things that is pretty easy for me to do these days is trade crowded water and lots of fish for solitude and tougher conditions.  And that's what we got.  There was hardly anyone on the river, despite its popularity, and the few holes we found that were fishable gave up some decent trout.  Not tons of fish but enough to keep us happy. 

I love Westslope Cutthroat.  And I really love fishing for them with a big parachute Adams.  We caught a fish or two in every hole we tried and we lived a contented life for five days in the Bitterroot Mountains. 

Say that out loud to yourself and you know how great that is: "five days in the Bitterroot Mountains."  It's like a windy echo, repeating itself in the back of my head even after my return home...

 

High Desert Escapades

Two weeks in the high desert of eastern Washington and now I'm exhausted.  Actually guided a few days on a big Cutthroat Lake and then took family and friends for some so-so Bass fishing on Banks Lake.  But that's the fun thing about bass fishing.  It's casual and no one expects great things.  Instead, you give each other a rash and while away the hours mocking each other between getting bites and landing fish. 

The weather was good the first week and bad the second.  We caught some two to three foot waves on Banks Lake that were almost too much for my bay boat.  Of course, the good news is that there is not another bass boat in sight during such times...

Here's my favorite story from week two:

Banks Lake provides nothing if not variety in the species you can target.  We were there to chase Smallmouth Bass in pre-spawn.  But the first night I hooked and landed an eight-pound Carp which taxed my 5-weight to it's limit.  The fish actually hit a gray Puglisi minnow pattern I was slinging on an intermediate sink line.  I've never had one hit a minnow fly before and I was surprised.  Pleasantly surprised. 

A few days later, I was out with Adam and we were dragging deep, looking for more Smallies.  I was less surprised to find that I'd hooked a Walleye on a crawdad pattern in twelve feet of water.  I had caught a chunky Crappie the evening before so variety was becoming the theme for the week. 

Later that afternoon Adam hooked something strong in a small cove and ultimately landed a good-size Rainbow Trout on a Clouser Minnow.  The next day when he was leaving, he gave departing instructions.

"You need keep it going and find another species to target." 

"Well, I'll be fishing with Duane.  He can probably catch a Perch or maybe a Whitefish." 

But then Duane got the last laugh.  We were moving through a series of islands and broken rocks about an hour before dark when Duane took a long cast between two small islands.  Within five or ten seconds he jerked up hard on the line and knew he'd hooked a good one.  A few minutes later I netted a Largemouth bass for him and handed him the net while I got the electronic scales out of one of the lockers. 

I held the top of the scales while Duane hooked the fish under one lip.  Three point eight...  Three point nine...

"Four Pounds!" I exclaimed. 

That's a big bass for my circle of friends and we were extremely happy.

I got to text a photo to Adam later that evening with the note, "your wish is our command."

May Muskie

In September, 2010, I bought a thick rod and a heavy line and made my first attempt to find Tiger Muskie on a lake near my home.  I still swear that the lone bump I felt on the line was one of those silent monsters.  Of course, I'll never know.  But the idea of a big Muskie has been lodged in my mind since that time and I don't know how I let last year slip by without trying again. 

So I went out during the first week of May and made my second play for one of these fish.  After a couple hours of casting in a strong wind on a very gray day, I was getting tired.  Or maybe a little frustrated.  Or both...  I knew the fish of a thousand casts can be ten times that for a fly fisherman but I was questioning, for the first time, my ability to stick with the task at hand.  Could I really cast and cast and cast all day, likely over the course of several outings, in order to earn this coveted prize?

God may have known that I wasn't capable of such fortitude. 

I was fighting the wind as it repeatedly blew my pontoon boat in toward the brush-covered shoreline in front of me.  I wanted to work my way along and try this entire stretch so I had decided not to drop the anchor.  But that meant that I only got one or two casts in and then had to grab the oars to move back out.  At one point I cast within a foot of a several branches that had fallen into two feet of water. One or two stuck up to mark the spot.  I made four or five strips and felt the line hang up.  I didn't have time to wonder if I had snagged a branch because the line started to vibrate and move.  Fish on.

The fish flashed and I saw it wasn't that big.  I then immediately assumed that golden gleam couldn't be a Muskie and must be a Smallmouth Bass.  But I was confused because if it was a Bass then it was a big one. 

It wasn't long and I got a better look, the long body giving away its identity.  I knew then that I had hooked a small Muskie.  Small by Musky standards, that is.  He would measure 28 inches.  Nothing to sneeze at for a guy's first Muskellunge.  And I was tickled. 

I'd done it.  And on only my second outing.  I'm a lucky boy...  And I'm still grinning.

April Redfish

My son is in the Army and stationed in Georgia at Ft Stewart. I went down for a visit the last weekend in April and we got to spend a Saturday together, out with a guide chasing Redfish on the coast in St. Simons Sound. For a coldwater boy like me, from the Pacific Northwest, this is exotic stuff.

  

We had the rare privelege of hitting things just right. It was low tide, pushing the fish out of the grass and onto the flats. It was a nip tide, moving a smaller amount of water and stirring less mud. Combined with the beautiful sunny day and no wind, it allowed us to see the fish and track every little wake they made in the calm, clear water. Fish after fish pushed passed us in a foot or two of water, going by two, three, or four at a time. We lost count of the number of fish we saw.

And, of course, this being a new thing for me and my son, we lost track of the number of fish we had a great shot at but missed because of a bad cast.  Too short, too long, too far in front, too far behind...  We found every way to get it wrong.  It was frustrating but we kept with it.  After a couple hours, a bad guide would have had it with the two of us but our guide stayed patient and kept instructing us. Eventually it paid off and my soldier-boy finally made a perfect cast, two feet in front of a feeding Red. The fish rolled over on its side in the shallow water to take something off the bottom. When he came back up, Tom's fly was just sinking. The fish took the fly without breaking stride and Tom made a strong strip-strike, just like he'd been told to do.

  

The fish ran and the reel sang. I was relieved for him and excited, too. After a good fight, there was a seven pound Redfish in the boat. Congratulations and celebration commenced and we went on to have a great day with several fish landed, all between six and eight pounds.

Four months earlier, my boy had come home from Iraq. He then took leave in January and got married. He's been passing all kinds of milestones in his young life and he's no longer the nine year-old I still see in my mind's eye when I think of him.  Instead, he's off living his life, 2,600 miles away from mom and dad.  So, I'm glad that I got a few days with him and that we were able to make a memory or two together, passing a less important milestone, catching our first Redfish together...

Near Savannah?  Call Capt. David Edens, Fly Cast Charters (912-289-1061)