Sunday, October 5, 2008

There's fishing and there's Fishing

Today I loaded up three different rods and drove south to the Cowlitz. I went to the barrier dam and watched a line of folks throw corkies and yarn through the main channel. I saw three fished hooked, all of them foul, in the back, tail or side. There were probably 30 people standing elbow to elbow. I drove to the Blue Creek boat launch hoping to fly fish for cutthroat and ran into a dozen gear fishermen standing still looking for coho. No room to step, cast, step through the run properly. I took a leak and weighed my options.

I hop on the freeway back north and grab a fritter and a mocha. I pull into the Tumwater Valley golf course and don my waders. Mikayala and I rig up with a glo bug again and I hike down to the run across from the railroad cars. I step carefully into the river, watching for salmon redds and see one across the river. A small deep slot, no more than eight feet long lies behind it. I toss my glo bug to the top of the redd. I can see the orange fly clearly even as it sinks and rolls across the red. It drifts into slot.

Have you ever watched fish in a fish tank. It's said that this is stress relieving. They seem to float around effortlessly, happy and perfect in their environment, poetry in motion and a study in effortless movement. Fish in a tank no longer fascinate me and what happens next is why.

Out from under the edge of the slot, where he sat perfectly hidden a cutthroat levitates up, watches the glo bug go past, turnes with a flip of his tail, takes it into his mouth and turns back down for his lie. In the trouts world they hide for there are many birds and bests looking to eat them. The river has it's own tribulations, high water, low water, heat and cold. They are tough and they will race each other to food. They will try to swallow crayfish or sculpin whole. Their life is caution and calories. They are predator and prey and like all predators who know what it is to be hunted, and I do believe they know, their hunting is swift and cold, without remorse. Their grace is the same grace of a cougar hunting or a deer in flight.

I lift Makayla and the line comes tight. The cutthroat runs and uses the current to fight. I lift him out of the water and remove the hook. Butter yellow and spots, not unlike the mature Chinook whose eggs he is stealing. Perfectly streamlined I know he's dispatched countless baitfish, bugs, crawdads and who knows what else. I let him go.

Seven fish come to hand that day. At least two of them large for this river. They leap out of the water and work in the current. They all have my respect and I catch myself hoping that Karma sends me back someday with scales and spots born into a river.