John Langan - The Fisherman

In front of me, a large birch had fallen across the hillside. I half-climbed over it, and saw the remains of a campfire and a pile of empty beer cans. The aftermath of a teenage party, no doubt. The mess grated on me, as such carelessness always did, but mixed in with that sourness was a faint taste of, not relief, exactly, but reassurance. The dented and crushed aluminum, the charred sticks, meant that someone else had been here, and not that long ago, either.

As I drew nearer to the top of the ridge, the Hemlocks grew closer together, and taller, which seemed a good thing, since from the sound of it, the rain was heavier than ever. Feeling somewhat like a mouse in a maze, I picked my way through the trunks, until the ground leveled and I was at the crest of the hill. Because of the trees, there wasn’t much of a view in any direction, but in the distance across from me, I could make out the bulk of another ridge I prayed I wouldn’t have to climb. The surface of this hill already sloped down, at a steeper angle than the one I’d just ascended, but the trees continued dense enough for me to use them and their roots to help my footing. There had better be some Goddamned monster fish in this stream , I thought as I placed my foot between a pair of roots. I was sweating, and the lightweight raincoat of which I was so proud had trapped the moisture within itself, giving me my own portable sauna.

For what felt like much longer than I’m sure it was, I mountain-goated it down the ridge. Not until I was almost at its foot, and the trees were spreading out, allowing me a better view of the torrent of water below me, did I realize that roar I’d been listening to wasn’t the rain, but Dutchman’s Creek. Swollen with the past week’s downpour, the stream galloped over this stretch of rapids in a white rush. Something about the acoustics of the place — the closeness of the ridge on the other side of the creek — caught the water’s noise and amplified it. To the eye, the stream was maybe thirty feet across, not as large as many of the spots I’d fished much further into the Catskills. To the ear, however, Dutchman’s Creek was a river in flood.

At the base of the hill, earth gave way to bare rock, which shelved this side of the stream to left and right. A quick survey showed Dan off to the right, downstream. I sighed. I was straining to be patient with him. I had decided he must have had the name of the place from a woman, one with whom he’d had some measure of involvement. Their affair might have lasted no longer than a single night, but the loss of his family was recent enough for Dan to fear he’d betrayed them. Whatever comfort he’d sought, I didn’t begrudge him. His wounds cut down to the bone — through the bone, to the marrow — and any relief you can find from that kind of pain, however temporary, you take. The trick is, enduring the guilt that grabs you in its broken teeth the minute that comfort ebbs. What came across as a snit, I reminded myself, was symptom of an affliction more profound, one with which I was only too well-acquainted. So although I was tempted to turn left, upstream, in search of solitude to cast my line, I opted to go right.

Even without the addition of seven days’ worth of rain, the rapids I had emerged beside would have been serious business. For a good hundred yards, they descended in a series of drops so regular they might have been enormous steps. This entire portion of the stream was strewn with boulders, gray blocks whose edges the water appeared to have done little to soften. It was as if the side of a mountain had let go and come to rest here. There are fish that will brave such turbulent conditions, and under other, less extreme circumstances, I might have tried my luck for one. I caught a glimpse of a good-sized something sporting in the spray. My ambition, however, is tempered by my common sense, and while every fisherman understands that he’s going to sacrifice his fair share of tackle to his passion, there’s no point in throwing it away, which was what I’d be doing if I cast into this white roaring. Not to mention, between the rain and the spray, the shore was dangerously slick. I continued toward Dan.

When I caught up to him, he had his line in the water. He was standing at the opposite side of a wide pool into which the creek poured itself over a waterfall. Thirty yards across, the pool was a stone cup whose sides fell sharply into the water. Where the stream splashed into it, the pool churned and foamed, cloudy with sediment. Out towards the middle, the water cleared to the point of glass, and despite the raindrops puckering its surface, I picked out the shapes of several large-ish fish congregating there. Trout, I hoped, below whom the water darkened — the dirt and whatnot that had been flung over the waterfall billowing across the pool’s bottom. That I could tell, Dan hadn’t hooked anything, yet. He had positioned himself at the spot where the water exited the pool through a broad channel. His tacklebox was open on the rock next to him, its shelves up and extended, which I took as an indication he planned to stay here a little while. I wasn’t in a hurry to make conversation with him; as long as I could see him, that was fine with me. About halfway round the pool’s circumference, the edge dipped to a ledge that slanted into and under the water. I set down my gear at the top of the incline, bent to open my tacklebox, and in short order was raising my arm to cast.

God, but I love that first cast. You pinch the line to the rod, open the bail, lift the rod over your head, and snap your wrist, releasing the line as you do. The motion whips up the rod, taking the pink and green spinner-bait at the end of the line back and then out, out and out and out, trailing line like a jet speeding ahead of its contrail, climbing to the top of the parabola whose far end is going to put the lure right next to those fish. The reel feeds out more and more line, making a quick, whizzing sound as it spins; while the lure nears the apex of its flight and starts to slow, causing the line to bunch up right behind it. When the lure falls toward the water, it takes longer than it seems it should, so that for a moment, you wonder if it’s already hit the surface and somehow you missed it, and you’re almost to the point of searching for the spot where it went in when the spinner flashes and you look in time to see the water leap up with a plunk. You drop the bail to secure the line, counting, “One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi,” trying to let that little assembly of wood and metal you call your watermelon spinner sink to the level of those fish, watching the line that had fallen slack on the water straighten and submerge, and then it’s four-Mississippi and you start drawing in that line, and the day’s fishing is well and truly underway.

I’ve tried to find something to compare the sensation to, but the closest I’ve ever been able to come is the moment after you’ve swept your fingers down the guitar strings and sounded the opening note of your first song. Or the second after the baseball has slipped your fingertips and is turning in the air as it steaks toward the catcher’s open mitt. There’s a similar feeling of having started something whose outcome you can’t be one-hundred-percent sure of — sometimes, the percentage is significantly lower — but there isn’t the same openness that accompanies the lure’s trajectory. Sure, you think you know what’s waiting for you under the water, but believe you me, you can never be sure what’s going to take your hook.

Right away, the fish I had aimed at were interested in my lure, a couple of them breaking away from the group to dart after it. I wound the handle faster, trying to goad them into striking, but they held back until I had the lure in sight, the spinner winking as it sped through the water, when each of them shot off in a different direction. I didn’t worry about them; I had the lure in and was lifting my arm for a second attempt at the spot where I could make out a number of fish maintaining their position. This time, I let the lure descend through the water for an extra — Mississippi before drawing it in. A new fish peeled away from the school after it. I decided not to speed up my retrieve, but kept winding the handle one-two one-two one-two. Below the fish, which appeared larger than either of the first pair by a couple of inches, the murk that hung in the water churned. I wound the line in, one-two one-two. The fish was at the lure—