I was twelve years old the summer I lost my first big fish. New Jersey’s dog days of August had set in, our hometown creek was low and clear, and the buzzsaw drone of locusts filled the air. I had been fishing down along the lower section of river for most of the morning. When I came to a sharp bend we called “Tommy’s Hole” I spotted a large fish holding in the current toward the bottom of the pool. It was a big Brown, perhaps eighteen or nineteen inches and substantially larger than anything I had ever before seen in this small creek. The far side of the pool bend formed a high bank, and I crossed upstream to the opposite side to have a better shot at the fish. I tied on almost every fly in my box, but to no avail. The trout wanted nothing to do with me, and eventually moved out of sight. For the next two weeks I haunted that bend, but he managed to stay concealed. I daydreamed of coming tight on him, and the picture my mom would take of me that I could show all my fishing bud’s.
After a rainy deluge, three weeks later, I returned to the scene of that first sighting. This time I fished from the other side of the creek, on the high bank. The river was still high and coffee-colored from the rains, and instead of the flies in my fly box, I strung on a long night crawler I had gathered from my wet front lawn the night before. I chucked the worm upstream without weight and let it drift into where I had seen the fish holding. It didn’t take long – suddenly my line was alive with the distinctive tap-tap and I was tight to the biggest trout I had ever hooked. I managed to horse him up to the cliff, and began to try to haul him up the bank. He was halfway up when the hook pulled out and I watched he and my fish picture agonizingly, slowly slide back down the bank and disappear into the rain-swollen water. It was like a blow to my solar plexus. To this day I can still viscerally remember the bitter disappointment and picture the big, brown spots that freckled his flanks. I really wanted that picture.
It is hard to believe that event happened sixty years ago, and is still so fresh in my mind. Since then, there have been some great fish pictures, and many more that big, crafty old fish relieved me from the privilege of owning.
But about a decade ago, my relationship with fish and pictures became much more complicated. Until then, pictures seemed to be an afterthought – an occasional shot of a nice fish at most. But then, suddenly, there were digital cameras, iPhones and GoPros, and poof, every fisherman was also a professional photographer. Profusions of new trout magazines are filled with “hero shots” touting the pursuit of quality, trophy fish, not only from local rivers, but more and more from exotic fisheries worldwide. Fishing had become an extreme sport. And I drank the cool aid.
Suddenly, the most important piece of equipment wasn’t my waders, boots, rod or fly box – it was my camera. Eventually, fighting a fish became a means to an end – and that end wasn’t the pure enjoyment of the moment – it was the picture. Now I am spending more time at home editing my shots and posting my pictures. If I catch no fish I am chagrinned. If I lose a good fish, I am inconsolable. A sense of greed slowly takes over. Suddenly, a beautiful 12” or 14” trout becomes simply a disappointment. My longtime Delaware River guide and friend, Ben Rinker, sighs and obligingly clicks away with my iPhone or camera, all the while wishing he can get the lovely, tired Brown I was clumsily holding back into the water as quickly as possible. At the fly shop where I work, I won’t miss a chance to whip out my iPhone and share some fish porn. And so it is.
Recently, I took a trip to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia with my wife, Debbie, to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We whale watched, hunted for fossils, walked along the stony beaches, hiked along the wooded trails in Cape Breton’s amazing National Park, and ate ourselves silly. And, since Cape Breton has some exquisite, world-class salmon rivers, of course I booked two days with a wonderful guide, Robert Chiasson, to fish the lovely Margaree River. Having had four prior Atlantic Salmon trips, all of which produced a total of one grilse, I was seriously in quest of that ultimate hero shot – me holding that huge, bright silver fish – that would give me the creds back home.
The first day was ugly. Driving rain – twenty hours of it – had swollen and colored the lower river, and we were forced to hunt the upper sections. Rain pelted us along with thirty-five mile per hour winds. My salmon fishing karma continued.
But the second day dawned calm and overcast, and the lower river had cleared enough to fish. We fished the Dollar Pool, beautiful and long enough for three fishermen to fish at a time. I was on my third pass in the lower pool when the water exploded behind my fly and the line came tight. In an instant, I had a shot at my ultimate picture. I tried not to hurry or to force the salmon, as I would gain line then lose it back to the fish. Little by little I was able to work the fish in closer, only to hear the drag buzz again as the fish bolted away. Finally, after about ten minutes, I had the fish close to the bank. As Robert waded out and reached down to tail the fish, the fish suddenly bolted. I was tight on him and in an instant, the eight-pound tippet parted. The fish was gone.
Robbed in the last second of my hero shot. The shot that, in my mind, I was already showing to the folks at the fly shop, and that would have been the icing on the cake for our vacation. Try as I might, I could not shake that moment. A thousand “what ifs” spun around and around in my mind.
Later that evening, back in the chalet room with my wife, still bitterly disappointed, I halfheartedly surfed Facebook, scrolling through the political rants, cat shots and fish pictures, I came upon this post from an old acquaintance:
“I know that some of you have been wondering where I’ve been for the past month as I have not been on Facebook. I thought I would share with you now that I have been absent due to some medical issues that we have been seeking answers for. I now have them, and it seems that the mass that the doctors initially thought was benign is not. And that the cancer has spread to my liver and pancreas. There is a procedure that can be done that will offer hope; a 10% chance of cure, but more likely an extension of life of several years. That is ok with me, and I am resolute to do whatever is possible to fight this. I will also have to undergo chemo and radiation, so we can all laugh together when my hair falls out. My wife and family are all with me and are my support mechanism. I ask for your prayers and offer my deepest thanks for your ongoing support. I’ll keep you posted as time goes on.”
Two weeks have gone by since I read that post, and I am back home in Connecticut as I write this. There is an enormity to this life that lifts us up like a ferocious ocean wave and twirls us around helpless in the undertow. Sometimes it is too big to escape, too deep to find bottom, and too strong to fight. But like the Ghost Of Christmas Future in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” it always points us to what’s really important.
Earlier today at the fly shop, I found myself telling my cohorts about my salmon encounter. The amazing fight, the congenial support from the resident pros, how the bright fish flashed copper in the peat-stained water. And that one of the Margaree regulars had an iPhone, and, unknown to me, took pictures of the fight. And looking at them now, they seem to be what I should be looking at – those delicious minutes that wild fish and I were joined by that fragile length of leader when I could feel every head-shake, thrill to every jump, and feel the brute strength of those withering rushes – the real reason we do what we do. Early in “A Christmas Carol,” the ghost of Jacob Marley tells Scrooge, “…I wear the chain I forged in life.” A chain that, perhaps, looks surprisingly like a hero shot.