What can I say, that hasn’t been said by scores?
Jimmy Buffett
As the sun sank behind the large maple at the end of our driveway, the last day morphed into the last night and I sorted through the last photos. Another trout season had served up its magic, and I wanted to tell the story.
But what could I say about this topic that hadn’t been said before? I searched the internet for “the last day of trout season” and, as I suspected, this theme had been well-flogged by fly fishing writers. Then I glanced at my bookshelf and remembered that this topic had been masterfully covered by two of my favorite writers. “The Last Day” is the last of John Voelker’s essays in Trout Madness, and “Last Day” is the last of Jerry Dennis’s essays in The River Home. Two magnificent writers with two splendid essays. What would I try next? Maybe a book about an old marlin fisherman, and I would begin with “He was an old man who fished alone.”
No, I would not write an essay about The Last Day. But I would reread the essays by Voelker and Dennis, and I would fantasize about sitting along the shores of Frenchman’s Pond or some other Place on the Water listening to these two fishermen reflect on the end of another trout season.
Perhaps we would make a few half-hearted casts. Perhaps we would take a few whole-hearted sips of bourbon. And perhaps, with a little coaxing between casts and sips, the enduring lines from their essays would flow from their lips with all the beauty and grace that flows from the pages of their books. And that would be all that needed to be said.
Tim: Where did the time go? The cold and fish-less days of late April and early May. The inconsistent but often spectacular days of late May. The glorious insect hatches of June. The dog days of July and August, when, dare I say, we sometimes target bass. The cool and colorful days of September. It all happens too fast.
John: Each year it is the same: this time, we tell ourselves, the doze and stitch and murmur of summer can never end; this season time will surely stand still in its tracks. Yet the hazy and glorious days glide by on golden wings, and presently here and there the leaves grow tinted by subtle fairy paintbrushes and flash their red warnings of impending fall.
Jerry: It’s like youth. You think it will never end, but it does. One day you wake up and it’s October.
Tim: It’s a bittersweet time for me. I am overcome by both a sense of sadness and a feeling of fulfillment.
John: To this fisherman, at least, with all of its sadness and nostalgia the end of fishing is not unmixed with a sense of relief and release.
Jerry: The last day should be taken slowly, like a last meal, so you can absorb enough sights, sounds, and scents to last through the winter. It is a day to spend sitting in a warm spot on the bank thinking of the season that is ending and the seasons yet to come.
Tim: What about the fishing? Is the last day a day to fish, or is it all about the ritual?
Jerry: While it lasts, that autumn fishing can be very good. The rivers are usually in good shape, the water clear, the bottom vivid with colored stones and fine, emerald algae. On the surface the water glints blue and gold and khaki, each riffle tipped with glittering bits of mirror. But you rarely see big fish feeding during bright September days. You learn to lower your expectations.
John: The fisherman’s last-day funeral litany is a foggily beautiful and self-deceiving thing and runs something like this: the fishing is no longer sporting; the fisherman himself is dog-tired; the rise can no longer be depended on; the spawn-laden trout are far too easy to catch; and to take them now is to bite off one’s nose. Amen.
Tim: Some of our rivers are open throughout the year, but many are open only during the traditional season. Would it be good to have more rivers open throughout the year, or do you like it that we close down the season on many of the rivers and lakes?
Jerry: I like it that way. It gives the trout a rest, permits them to spawn without being disturbed, and allows the imagination time to incubate. Like fields left fallow, those waters are better for being unfished most of the year. I think we benefit from such closure. Some things are worth waiting for, are better for having an opening and a closing and being sometimes unattainable.
John: Yes, and with a little luck perhaps diplomatic relations can even be restored with those strange but vaguely familiar ladies with whom we have been oh so absently sharing our bedrooms all summer long.
Tim: So you think it is good to have a Last Day every year?
Jerry: The first day and the last day of the season are more important than all of the other days put together.
John: Yes, on the last day we fisherman can try as we may to incant ourselves into hilarity and acceptance, but our hearts are chilled and our minds are numb. For what we fishermen really want is to go fishing, fishing, fishing, yes, fishing forever into the great far blue beyond . . .
I don’t know what else there is to say.
0 Comments