There’s a stage in the life of a man, when in the middle of a fall afternoon, likely a Friday, he’s in his yard raking leaves maybe, or getting the mail. He’s not wearing a stretched-out cardigan, one with those little pills on the elbow but he might as well be. A school bus goes by, and he thinks back decades when he might have had the rare pleasure of waiting for it to let out a few of its contents who would run to him screaming, “You’re home early!”
If he had a wish at that moment it would be that he could have had more of those days.
Instead, he felt like Mister Wilson from the old Dennis the Menace show. He’d ceased lining the driveway with his carved Jack O’ Lanterns. He only bought a single bag of candy nowadays because the kids never came to his house; their parents took them to the neighborhood that blocked off cars and handed enough handfuls to put a diabetic into cardiac arrest. He didn’t know if that was even possible but his cardiologist said dark chocolate was okay so our Mister Wilson indulged in a small bag of, hmm, Ghiradelli 92% Cacao Dark Chocolate Squares. He assumed, rightly, that he’d be left holding the bag. The bag would last a couple of months.
Mister Wilson had stopped waving to the children long ago. He would wave back if the passing joggers or moms with strollers waved but the joggers had on their earbuds and the strollers would yak away about something like not having dinner plans. The nannies would smile, though. That was something.
Yeah, the neighborhood had changed.
But Mister Wilson refused to move along. That meant despite the realtor notes in his mailbox boasting of a seller’s market, periodic knocks on the door asking if he’d like an estimate of his home’s value – “You’ll be pleasantly surprised. Your home is very desirable.” — and the rare inquiry from a neighbor who never introduced himself but hintied he’d pay cash so he could knock Wilson’s house down and build a pool, Wilson planned to leave feet first. “There’s the town pool, you know?” he’d say. “Just over the river.”
The river was the reason Mister Wilson refused to move along. The river was why he moved to the town in the first place. It was a gem, a cold-water trout hatchery. A place that in some years was more like an aquarium. And the beauty was that between yoga and tennis, skiing and pilates, away games and shopping, golf and Zumba, and that fact that fishing didn’t offer much in the way of competitive bragging rights, it was his sanctuary. His and his alone, if you could ignore the rare handful of other fly casters who, similarly, respected distance, respected nature, and picked up their own trash.
It was on a bright October day. The sun was out, the temperature reached into the 60s, and bugs promised to launch from under the river’s rocks, through the current, into the film and their rest until rising into the air to mate before spinning back into the river…dead and easy prey for the evening feast. To the layman, that means little. To the fly fisher, it meant a hatch, likely a big hatch, that would provoke the trout to gorge in their instinctive drive to fatten up for the winter. For Wilson, it was those brief moments of the flies floating on the surface tempting the trout below to jump and grab them that got him off the lawn, out of anything resembling a cardigan, into waders, and onto his river.
They call it a blanket hatch. It’s when so many bugs are coming out of the water it looks like a snowstorm. It drives the fish mad with desire. The angler as well. Wilson had to cross a bridge over the river to get to his spot to park and as he looked down he saw, and heard, nature’s closest aping of a Jiffy Pop commercial. The trout were popping all over the river jumping to the myriad of flies, returning to the water with a splash, then going at it again. And again. Wilson had fished this river for years, decades, and he’d never seen it like this. He never imagined there were so many trout in there, but that’s the sobering part of being a fisherman. You never know as much as you think you know. While a fish’s brain is about the size of a pea, 1/1000 the size of its body compared to 1/40th for our Mister Wilson, they never-the-less outsmart, confound, frustrate, and inspire anglers because humans are supposed to be the smarter of the species. Yeah, right. Tell that to an angler when he’s changed his fly twenty times, adjusted his cast for the perfect drift, and done everything right only to get skunked or, as so often happens, fall into a river trying to get closer to an elusive feeder.
This day promised something else entirely.
Wilson was unable to park into his usual spot, the Two-Car Hole. It was so named because two cars could just about fit into a wide spot on the road if they weren’t too big and the anglers were considerate enough. The hole part came because 250 yards from the parking spot was a hole, a deepish pool fed by a riffle at whose head and tail trout would crowd for the smorgasbord of bugs caught in the oxygenated current. The pool’s depth held fish hiding from the local demons; the bold osprey who would plunge within a few feet of the frustrated angler to grab in its claws the very fish he was casting to; the stalking heron which at least was more delicate in its successful fishing; and the minks, the otters, the raccoons, all in competition with the two-legged longshot. There the fish waited until the bugs aroused them from their cold sanctuary.
The car taking up two spaces wasn’t especially large. The driver could easily have pulled up a yard or two to allow for the tradition of the eponym Two-Car Hole to come to fruition. But the driver had not, hogging the space and forcing Wilson to a less desirable spot and longer walk on a private street down from which he’d been towed once, ticketed three times, and doused with shaving cream one Halloween afternoon.
What bugged him wasn’t just the ill use of the spot, but the car itself. It was a Bentley, a Bentley SUV. What type of person went fishing in a Bentley? What sort of person took up both spots? And wouldn’t you just figure, there was a cigar, still lit, waiting for a breeze to help it ignite the crisp autumn leaves. Wilson jabbed his wading stick into it for a closer look; the ring had Winston Churchill’s profile on it. It read “Davidoff The Late Hour.” Curiosity took over. He looked it up on his smartphone and saw the cigar sold for $100 a pop. Who bought a $100 cigar and left most of it smoldering, and on dry leaves to boot? The same clown who’d drive a Bentley, Wilson determined. Undoubtedly it would be a guy because for all the gains by women in his lifetime fishing remained a sport dominated by men and expensive cigars a smoke reserved for big swinging…fly fishermen.
Wilson would have a word with him.
There were several paths into the woods, and Wilson always took the one less traveled in homage to both Robert Frost and the fact the less traveled one didn’t require scrambling over rocks where Wilson was sure he once encountered a rattlesnake. That day, though, he was sure the rattlesnake he intended to encounter would have a malodorous cigar stench clinging to his shiny new Barbour raincoat, clean waders, and never-used rod and reel. The parking, the Bentley, and the Davidoff told Wilson all he cared to know.
Though on a mission he couldn’t suspend a lifetime of study. He left his trail, stomping heavily in the underbrush to scare away any snakes, to look at his river. Yep, the bugs were out there, and with alluring frequency a widening set of rings surrounding one that had just been slurped from below by a hungry trout. It was early still, with a bit of cloud cover periodically blocking the sun. This was a good thing, he noted. It meant that even at high noon the fish would be at it and he at them. Once he dealt with Bentley Davidoff the Third or whatever his name was.
There was no one else on the river. Bentley’s bad parking job, had, at least, kept another car at bay.
He smelled his prey before he saw him. It was the odor of a cigar, a very fine cigar, and identical to the one left smoldering by the Bentley. That’s two hundred dollars up in smoke. Through a break in the trees, saw a man attempting to jerk off a fly caught in a nearby tree.
Flies get caught in trees all the time. It’s something even the most experienced fly fisherman gets used to and is one of the main reasons people are constantly buying, or tying, flies. What differentiates the newbies from the old hands is that the old hands will gently remove the fly or, worst case, snip the line. The arriviste however will shake their $1000 fly rod left and right, up and down, back and forth, in the hope that such aggression will free the fly as well as punish it for its miscreant audacity to get caught in a tree in the first place. That’s why good rod makers offer a warranty that doesn’t exclude stupidity. Still, a rod broken – say from trying to force a fly from a tree – will leave the fisherman without until said rod is sent away, repaired, and returned…next season.
Wilson couldn’t help himself. “Hey, stop that!”
The man turned to see a late middle-aged man by Wilson’s definition, or early old age man by any other standard, charge through the woods, fall a couple of times, and approach him. He stared for a while as the net Wilson had attached to a coil kept getting caught on a bush until it sprung loose hitting him solidly in the back of his patched waders.
“Don’t move,” he commanded. Wilson went to the tree, grabbed hold of an overhead branch, and delicately unhooked the fly carrying it back to its rightful place. On the way, he noted the hook had a barb in it. From his stained vest, he took out the forceps used to extract hooks from a fish’s mouth and clamped the barb down. “Here,” he said. “This is a barbless section.”
“Oh, is it?” said the man. He looked around as if to smell the roses, dropping the rod and spreading his arms in a manner reserved for ministers concluding a sermon. “I see no such signs…”
“STOP,” said Wilson. The man froze.
Wilson went to the rod lying on the ground. It was bamboo, handmade from rare Tonkin cane with a cork grip that still had its plastic amniotic sac of protection on it. The rod had never been used.
He recognized the maker’s name on one edge. Thousand-dollar rod? This was more like $4000. He lifted it with care, envious but respectful. “You want to take care of that,” he said. “It’s a work of art. It deserves respect.” He lifted it with two hands to present to its owner.
“It’s best if a fisherman keeps a cigar in his mouth and flies out of trees,” said Wilson
“Huh?” said the man.
“There was a lit stogie in dry leaves by a Bentley SUV. Didn’t even know they made those. I assume it’s your car. If those leaves had caught fire, I don’t need to tell you.”
A sneer indicated he wasn’t phased. He said, “I wondered where that went.”
Wilson was going to say “bush league” but merely grumbled.
“I assume you know a little about this sport,” said the man.
It was his opening. Wilson explained he’d been fishing this river, this very section, for decades; he’d help take down the upstream dam to improve the water, cleaned up garbage left by inconsiderate fishermen, was the guy who got the state to mandate it was a fly-fishing only river, and reported on the occasional prick who dared to use lures or, God forbid, worms, and put out fires started by rogue cigars left smoldering in the duff. That work kept the river clean, the trout smart, and him happy.
“TMI. And anyway, I’m fishing here,” said the man emitting smoke and ash like an erupting volcano.
Experienced fly fishers would typically be in the water claiming a spot, not standing far off the margin with a guy leaning on a delicate cane rod. Even so, Wilson would have merely moved ahead, ignoring him entirely, and fooled trout into his net far from the offending element. Would, in this case, was hypothetical; this Bentley deserved a school the fish couldn’t provide.
“Word is your news to this,” said Wilson picking up the cane rod and eyeing the fly poorly tied to the tippet. It was a good fly, a great fly, and not cheap as flies go. He could tell that by the small price tag attached to it. “Let me offer you some neighborly advice.”
“Listen pal, I took a class, in Vermont, two days’ worth, so I’m not exactly a novice,” said the man. “Need I tell you the program?”
Wilson lifted his chin and eyebrows in a gesture the young man confused with respect. He knew the school, it was famous. It was famous for offering up the allure of fly fishing, an intro into the ill-hyped elitism of the sport, waxed cotton coats, and spanking equipment too often left collecting dust in an attic, mold in some basement, or written off as a donation for an auction at a local trout club if the wife had anything to say about it.
The sport required patience, dedication, and focus, offering its own Zen. The famous school’s emphasis was elsewhere.
Wilson was tempted to mention that he’d been flyfishing for well over fifty years but didn’t want to engage in one-upmanship with someone who drove a Bentley, owned a never- used bamboo work of art too nice for fishing, and was lighting another $100 cigar, tossing the wrapper to ground, and not offering one to him.
“Get you out a lot on rivers, did they?” asked Wilson knowing better.
The man coughed and turned to look at the stream. “Well, a lot was about, you know, the science, fish itemology, knots, rod types for different stretches, hatches. We got a lot of casting practice in their pond. I caught a 24-inch brown on….” — he stumbled trying to recall – “A stonefly! A stonefly. CDC stonefly. Man, I love that fly.” He looked down his at Wilson pleased that he could remember one of the most ubiquitous flies on a fisherman’s vest.
“That so,” said Wilson, “What size?
“I told you,” said the man. “24 inches and fat.”
“I meant the fly.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, it was, you know, mid-size.”
“Ah, those are the best,” said Wilson, knowing the size of flies ran from those so small you needed magnifying glasses to tie on and to others that intimidated the action of a drowning mouse. “I’d stick with those. That’s what you got on your line now.”
Yes, the large fly, too large for the line, was indeed a stonefly now improved with the barb clamped down. It was a fly to love for sure, loved by fish and fisherman alike in the early part of the season when they hatched. They were, however, very much out of season. Apparently, the lecture on insect “itemology” didn’t include much on entomology, which is the proper term for the study of insects. Maybe Bentley was busy dropping his ashes on the ground when they went over the single most important factor in flyfishing, i.e. knowing what the fish were eating.
“Are you fishing too?” asked the man, apparently not aware that the waders, vest, net, and the long thin thing in his hand with a reel at one end were strong hints to his intent.
“Plan to,” said Wilson. “Plan to.” He nodded downstream. “Won’t be in your way at all.”
“You have enough CDC stoneflies?” asked the younger man.
“No thanks,” replied Wilson to this display of generosity. Maybe Bentley wasn’t such a jerk after all.
“I wasn’t offering,” he replied. “I only have a dozen.”
Or maybe he was such a jerk.
“That’s good. A lot of trees around here,“ said Wilson. “I’ll be using a Rusty Spinner. Nothing exotic, but after the morning hatch, well…you know.” Wilson was ready, too, a Rusty Spinner already tied on. These fall afternoons, after a grand mayfly hatch, after mating, the bugs would circle in their final death throes, wings spread out, and helicopter down into the water more vulnerable than ever. The trout would be in a feeding frenzy.
“Rusty spinners?” asked Bentley. “Seriously?” He then started to laugh waving his lovely rod back and forth with effeminate flicks of his wrist, exactly the way you wouldn’t cast a rod let alone a handmade beauty. “I believe you bragged that you were the guy who got this to be a fly-fishing-only stretch.” His nose was in the air, not unlike a Labrador trying to pick up a scent, his nostrils open to a fly, it looked like a Griffith’s gnat, that entered the left one. Before he realized that he said, “I’m a purist. I wouldn’t be caught dead with spinners let alone rusty ones.” He bent over, dropping much of his gear as he tried to sneeze out the Griffith’s gnat – looked like a size 20 to Wilson – stepping on what had once been a very fine cane rod.
Wilson shrugged his shoulders and moved down the river but not before picking a freshly lit Davidoff Late Hour off the ground. His Rusty Spinners, hand-tied that very morning, caught a half dozen within the hour leaving him ample time to put the ticket left on his window under the wiper blade of the Bentley hogging his Two-Car Hole.