Fishing - dark and gloomy, a trip report

Well, I got the reply but not the original masterpiece . . .

Reposted from John's .doc file:
We all have fears, demons if you will. Some are bigger than others.

And as I drove north on highway 18 out of Lenoir, North Carolina after
a fine two days of fishing with Mark, I was sorry to leave. I also
sincerely hoped that Mark had not gone deer hunting because I had to
poop. Real bad.

Mark and I had both made use of his porcelain that morning to the point
of taking turns and we had jointly decided it was either the wings or
the pizza that we had eaten the night before; I had made up my mind that
I was taking the next turn be it a road or house or whatever because I
had to pull over.

As fate would have it, my next available opportunity happened to be a
gas station. Not only were the restrooms clean but there were flushable
paper towels and a sink within easy reach. It was a truly appropriate
finale to a great weekend of fishing.

I was headed for I-77 North even though I wished to return via I-75. I
had planned to visit father’s grave in Fort Campbell but could not. It
is a place that I once found great comfort in. Those tired old soldiers
of the World Wars, those Civil War veterans, used to hold me close and
give me comfort. I was protected, but the fear found me there, and now
it lies in wait. I was not only avoiding my father’s grave, I was
avoiding the whole damned state of Kentucky.

Most people have no idea what fear is. Some think of my fear of bears.
I’m not afraid of bears, it’s just that that is not how I want to die .
.. . being eaten before I am dead.

It was a long time before I would let those here know that I am a
firefighter. One thing I did not want to hear is the patriotic, civil
servant do-gooder crap about my job and that is all it is - a job. It’s
what I do.

Panic is an unreasoning, uncontrollable fear. Panic will kill you.
Panic is sweet. You can feel panic coming and grab it by the horns. You
hold it and relish it. Kind of like George Clooney in ‘O Brother Where
art Thou’ when they are up in the barn and he says, “Damn, we’re in a
tight spot now.” You then fall back on your training and do what you are
supposed to do. It’s sad in a way.

I remember when my father died and I made sure he was clean, called the
coroner – I had already spoken to him earlier – and went in to tell the
family, “It is done.” Sometimes what you deal with in your every day
life denies you tears when you need them most.

So I drove on up the highway, fighting the darkness close behind and
thought of my weekend. Mark, was super. My first night in, I had not
eaten in about fourteen hours and we went out to eat. Mark graciously
offered to be the designated driver so I started pounding down the
beers. I can drink beer. I can drink anything. In fact, I would not even
be here writing this now but in the process of cleaning out my van after
the trip I found a half-pint of gin. So I drank it. Wouldn’t you?

Alcohol hides the fear. Well, not completely, but it dulls and blurs
the edges and colors it to gray making it fuzzy, indistinct, easier to
ignore.

Fishing hides it even better. When you don your waders you are girding
your loins. When you put on your vest, you put on armor. Your rod is
your weapon, and you can face what comes. Not conquer, but stoically
hold your own.

Now when you go fishing with someone else it is different. You actually
ride on that person, entering their reality. And Mark carried me very well.

The first day we tried one of his favorite streams, Upper Creek.
Fishing was slow and Mark suggested we hit another stream before we
wasted the short daylight hours left at this time of the year.

So we went to the second little stream by the funny name of Crockett’s
Spoon. As we approached the stream, Mark stated that along the deep
bank, under the over-hanging branches there were usually big fish to be
found. Acquiescing to his hospitality I took the first casts.

This year I have been paying a little more attention to caddis flies. I
have not deliberately fished them sunken, or swimming or as a streamer
but, at the end of a cast if the fly sinks I try to fish it out with a
rising motion. I have been pleasantly pleased with my success in this
and was again rewarded with the hook up of a nice fish.

I felt the tug and set the hook and watched this fish; I could see him
swimming upstream to his lair. He was definitely a big fish, but slowly,
inexorably my rod tip was going downstream. I said to myself, “Oh my
God,” as I realized that the fish I saw was not the fish I hooked. This
was something larger, by orders of magnitude.

As I shifted my attention this thing, this leviathan, it came up out of
the water. I was on the bank and his nose crested above my waist, his
tail not a foot from the water. Too large to shake his head his (or her)
body writhed in the big letter ‘C’ once, twice, three times and as it
fell back into the water with a mighty splash it was gone. My line was
cut cleaner than I could have cut it with my nippers.

At the last Penn’s Clave I bought a net from Jonas. It hangs on my back
by a magnet. As I stood there speechless, no doubt with my mouth open,
Mark opined, “You know John, I was going to tell you, you wouldn’t need
your net on this creek.”

It was the biggest living trout I have ever seen.

We continued to fish, having a pleasant afternoon.

The following morning we proceeded once again into the mountains and
hiked down to a stream. It was there I caught the two browns that I
posted pictures of. I would not have caught them if Mark had been even a
marginally better angler.

A more inept, clumsy fool I have never seen. Every time we would come
across a particularly good looking hole Mark would be changing flies, or
hung up in a tree or changing his leader and he would just sigh and say,
“Go ahead and fish it John, I’m going to be a while.”

Thanks Mark for your gracious southern hospitality.

Well, we fished this stream for quite some time and it became obvious to
both of us that the stream we had ended up on was not the one we had
intended to fish. We were not lost but knew it was going to be a bit
more of a hike than we intended so we stopped fishing altogether and
just busted up the stream.

We made it out before dark and made it back to the van thanks to two
hunters giving us a lift. It was a good day by any means.

The following morning was when I left, a Monday. Mark going hunting and
I going home. And the darkness came. Darkness without light. Fear
without the sweet taste of panic. A place without hope.

So I just rolled on down the highway letting Patty Loveless roll the
tears down my cheeks knowing that one-day soon, I’d go fishing again.

--
Frank Reid
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