On The North Ram
The unfurling lime green float-line whirred past his ear and uncoiled in a straight line on the surface of the water. Twelve feet ahead of it, the familiar plop of the heavy, gold beaded hare's ear gave the sublime sensation that came with a good cast. He was fishing a pool at a bend in the river, where some large boulders created a back eddy before the water washed against a high rock wall and shifted course sharply to the east. The river was glacial and fed by abundant cold springs that gushed from the banks in clear streams of ice; the cold of the water made his feet ache for a few moments before they went numb.
The reel clicked its nic-nic-nic sound as he fed line into the current and watched the fly float freely past the boulders into the eddy. If there was a trout, she'd be in there, resting in the quiet pillow of back-curling current along the boulders. A moment’s hesitation let the fly sink and rise in the swirling eddy, just enough to let her notice it, then he began stripping line, pulling it in a stuttering rhythm through the forefinger of his rod hand and watching as the fly darted forward teasingly a few inches in the pool and again, and again, until it was riding the surface of the fast water in a white wake. Green line floated by in a lasso at his legs. Nothing. He would cast again.
A small twist of his torso and smaller motion of his arm lifted the line free of the pull of the river and sent it curling back into the air behind him, and again, forward this time, to race green and light back towards the river. Mid-flight, it stopped and fell limp into the current, tracing a long U shape in the water. The fly was hung up. He turned to see it spinning around the tip of a black spruce, leaning out over the bank behind him. Goddamnit. He doubted he could retrieve it. Winding in the slack, he pulled on the floating line and watched the tree sway and spring back again. He yanked hard and snapped the line. New fly and tippet, he thought, glancing at the bare leader drifting past him. He waded back out of the river.
The cold morning was giving way to the heat of the bare sun. Sometime in the night the storm that came in over the mountains had cleared and the temperature dropped. There wasn't a cloud anywhere when he woke. The air had pinched his skin when he unzipped his sleeping bag and the first coffee at breakfast billowed clouds of steam as he breathed over it and watched the sun melt away the mist that hung over the riverbed. Now, out of the water and sitting among the dry tufts of grass on the bank he was growing uncomfortably hot. There was little shade at the rivers edge. Scrub willow and grass in scattered patches over sand and gravel was all there was to be had. He gave up tying the tippet to the leader and tore his shirt off. It wasn't much cooler but it was better to feel the sun and the air on his skin. It felt honest. Like wading in shoes and jeans and feeling the cold of the water all day. Except he knew that he only did that because he didn't have the money for waders. It's easy to be honest when you're poor, he thought.
Then he remembered the girl. His chest hurt when he thought of her so he was trying not to think of her. She was there in his thoughts when he woke in the cold of the morning, only the feeling of her was dull and careless then and not sharp like it was now. It had been sharp like that in the nighttime when the storm was still rolling over the mountains. He couldn't sleep so he'd stayed out by the fire, stirring the dying coals and watching the flash and peal of thunderheads in the distance. She looked older than she was, he'd told himself. Certainly she was young but he hadn't guessed nineteen and by the time he knew it was too late and he had already let her come to live in his daydreams. Except that wasn't really true - he hadn't let her do anything - she had just walked across the camp with her hair all-a-frizz and the sun in the colour of her skin, just walked and looked how she looked with her eyes flashing dark and moody, her face small and perfect and kissed with beauty marks and he'd fallen in love with her and now he was fool.
An old fool. Yes.
He wondered if it would have mattered, knowing her age. Wondered if he could have stopped it earlier, when he had felt young and strong with his blood coursing all hot through his veins whenever she passed near enough that her scent filled him or their eyes met or she spoke out loud. He wondered and knew the answer was no. He could not. It was just one of those things that happen to everyone and everything and there was nothing to be done. He only wished it could have been more than that and now where he had felt strong and young and drunk with her he only felt old and weak and a damn fool. Just a moment before, the one way and then the other. It seemed cruel and his mind had been circling the cruelty of it since she'd said what she'd said. Though her words were not cruel, for which he was thankful. He had lived long enough to know all women can be cruel in ways a man cannot. She was gentle and honest when she'd told him he was simply too old for her.
Too damn old. When? When had that happened? He felt a chill run down his back along with the sweat from the heat. It had all seemed like a game. That's what it was, a game but the stakes were higher than you knew, could ever possibly know. Especially as a young man. It was like in poker when you overplay your hand and the guy across from you turns up his cards and he's got you and your stomach feels like a stone has just dropped into it. Only with this it was that goddamn cold spider crawling up his spine. Time. Time was the spider he had played against and now he was coming up short. The difference was there was no shuffling of cards and no new deal. You just won or lost and the trouble was he’d realized he was losing.
He saw her again, this time splitting the wood he had cut for her, the bandana wrapped around her head losing its battle with the brown wisps of hair that floated on the hot summer air, the skin of her shoulders bronze-red and sweaty in the full sun. It had stopped him in his tracks when he saw her like that. All woman and all still the girl, and all at once in full expression. God, she was beautiful. She didn't know it either and that made it even worse. She was like the storm the night before - beautiful and terrifying and powerful and unaware of itself. He shook his head. Enough.
He started in with tying the tippet to his line again but before he could pick out a fly for the end of it she was back, this time coming down from a ride in the mountains and tying her horse to the hitching post he'd tied between the two big pines beside the corral. There was blood on her hand and a small white wad of tissue stuffed in her nostril, a nosebleed from the dry air and elevation. She shrugged when he mentioned it as if it was already half-forgotten and unslung the tangle of leather tack from her arm back onto its rack. She was close to him and he noticed the spider in her hair and he almost reached out to brush it away before he caught himself and his heart reeled in his chest at the closeness and tenderness of the gesture he held within himself. In the end he just told her about the spider and she casually brushed it away and left him standing there.
Goddamnit. He looked at his fly-case and was angry to see he had no more hare's ears and just picked a dry fly at random, tied it hastily and splashed his way back into the river. His mood was foul and he tore line carelessly from the reel and started whipping the air in harsh, jerking motions. The fly reached further and further out before him with each pass. Twelve, fifteen, twenty feet it whirred by until he let it lay down in the current to sweep past the boulders into the eddy. The fly skated over the current into the churning gurgle of the slower water, hovered a moment and then was swallowed by the pool. He hesitated. Now.
He'd barely begun stripping line when the trout slammed into the fly, shattering the hypnotic whirling of the surface. It was a great, beautiful fish. Her back, brown and speckled and the red belly flashing through the white burst of water as she dove back into the clearness of the pool. A cutthroat - a full twenty inches or more. All this he saw and knew before he pulled the line and scribed a wild arc in the air with the end of his rod and felt the weight of her for the first time as the hook sank into her jaw.
The cold water had her strong and wild and his rod bent double as she tossed and shook herself against the line at the bottom of the eddy. A hell of a fish. He let himself think that - just that - while he held her there, his forefinger pinching the line against the cork handle and letting his arm and rod absorb her fury as he reeled in the slack in a near panic. He had to get her on the reel and fighting his drag. If she got into the downstream current with this much fire in her he was sure the line would break. Sure enough, he just got all the line in when she dove into the current and made her run. He released his finger and let her take the line, the reel hissing and spraying mist as the wet float-line was ripped back out of it at a terrific speed.
The fight lasted ten full minutes before he was able to work the trout over to his side of the river. She laid over on her side as she reached the shallow water and slid smoothly above the stones on the river-bottom and he knew the fight was out of her. He noticed the sunlight glinting off her side and how the colours shone lovely and neon against the dull amber of the stones in the river and his heart swelled into his throat with the loveliness of her. He marvelled at how different it always seemed when they were very close; how you never saw them hiding among the boulders but then when you had them very close you wondered how they could be so colourful and hidden at the same time - like your eyes just slid over their backs with the water.
He tilted the rod behind his back as he crouched down and drew the trout across the front of him, cursing her gently when she curved her great, speckled side against the angle of the line and drew an arc in the water to avoid his reach. He tipped the rod the other way to draw her across the front of him again but there was a moment when the line went slack and her momentum continued towards the bank and she slid up onto the rocks. This shocked her into a new fit and she began thrashing against the pebbles as he panicked and rushed for her before she could escape or hurt herself. When she felt his hand slide under her belly she thrashed again and the fly came free and he watched as she shuddered her way in a froth back to the current and was gone. Gone. A great, beautiful fish. He was sure he’d had her.
He swore harshly and with no gentleness and cursed himself and the fish and thought of the girl and again the damned, beautiful fish and how it was better not to have seen them when it went this way.
I hope you enjoyed the read. These small stories, blogs - whatever they are - come from my heart; I share them out of a passion to create and see others inspired to make their own connection with the Wilderness. If you found value in your time here, and are inclined to do so, you can help keep me writing by buying me a coffee!
About The Author
A bounty of fish from a solo canoe trip down the Makobe River, Temagami.
For Clint Zold, the pursuit of authentic Wilderness experiences has led him across landscapes both far and wide. Whether paddling the ancient Nastawgan of mystic Temagami, hiking the lonely mountains of the West, or snowshoeing the hunting grounds of his trapping territory in the Arctic Watershed of Northern Ontario - Clint is truly at home in the wild.
Living off-grid on the banks of the Mattagami River; the canoe, axe and snowshoe have become his daily companions in a semi-subsistence lifestyle where food, warmth and water come from the land around him. His passion for Wilderness is only equaled by his desire to share it with others