Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Fishing Buddies

When the free time becomes available and the urge to go fishing comes over you, who do you call? Not just anyone, I'll wager. Chances are good you have one or more special friends whose company you enjoy on the water. Folks you know and get along with. The guy who knows that you prefer to fish upstream and who says the moment you arrive at the stream: "I'll go down...", and doesn't mind a bit. Just as you don't mind when he just has to try that same cove on the local lake just one more time. You know the one. You have tried it every time you have fished the lake together and never had a hit. But he thinks there has to be some fish there. So, you always indulge him, and you don't mind. After all, what are fishing buddies for?

To the outsider, the non-angler, the special compatibility that makes good fishing buddies is something not easily grasped. After all, this is just fishing, right? Nope.. It's whole lot more than that. Finding the right fishing partner can be serious business. There is some sort of sixth sense involved, and just as often, a shared sense of the nature of the sport. Good fishing buddies know when the other has had enough for the day without being told. They are drawn towards the same destinations, and they like the same kinds of water.. Good fishing buddies know their partner cannot abide tuna salad. They may love it themselves, but they always pack peanut butter or ham and cheese instead when it's their turn to bring lunch.

As a long time member of a major conservation group where folks meet and talk fishing, I have watched the fishing buddy selection process unfold a hundred times. It bears more than a passing resemblance to the courtship ritual in some ways. For a several month period, you will hear that so and so are fishing together. Then, something will happen, and well... they just aren't seeing each other anymore. In the wreckage, you will hear things like "He wouldn't tell me what fly he was using", or... "He never offered to drive", or "He got mustard all over my car seat" or worst of all.."He casts to all the good places first".
When you find a good fishing buddy, it is often for life. That's how serious all this can be. A number of years ago, I worked in a factory as a scheduling supervisor. There was a foreman and a machine operator who while on the job would barely give each other the time of day. The foreman would growl and snarl when the machinist would not complete a part in the allotted time. The machinist would get angry and throw stuff. You would have thought that they would have been pleased to see each other's homes burn down. Yet, every summer Saturday in the warm months found them together somewhere on the water, fishing. They could barely manage eight hours in the same building together, but eight hours in a boat a mile from dry ground was easy. That is often the way it goes. All the rules are different with fishing buddies.

We all have different measurements of what makes a good fishing buddy. I need someone for who the notion of exploration is only slightly secondary to the actual act of fishing. Somebody who will peer over the top of the map at me and say: "You know..I've never been to such and such a place, and it's only another 110 miles down the road. What do you think?" I'm almost always game..

Others are drawn together because they share the belief that the little lake just a few miles down the road is all they need. It is where their on the water friendship was born and has grown over the years. It is their place. They fish there together, and they always have. They became fishing buddies because they both saw it this way.

Over the years, I have been blessed with good fishing buddies. None was more important than my Dad. He was the gateway. He took the time to introduce me to the sport, and to teach me the ways of the fish. In later years, we went on to fish for different things. He liked to ply the little lakes of northwest Pennsylvania for crappie and perch. I liked getting lost up a falling ribbon of trout water a mile or more from the nearest road. But in every tough trout I fool and bring to hand is a piece of the experience and learning I picked up at his side many years ago. He gave freely of his time and knowledge, the way all good fishing buddies do.
There have been many other good fishing buddies over the years. My somber boyhood pal, Jim, who seldom said more than a couple dozen words per outing. We didn't talk much, but we both loved the same creek. We fished it together, and learned it well. My brother, who would get into the car complaining about how far we were driving to fish, but who put up with my wanderlust all the same. I always just figured that complaining was part of his nature and kept on driving. We have fished a hundred streams together, me driving, him complaining. I wouldn't want it any other way. My good friend Eric, who didn't care where we went, as long as the trout were wild and we saw some new water. My good friend Dan, who regales me with detailed analyses of economic and social theory and the minutia of fly tying and insect identification, roars at all my jokes, fishes with me from stagger out of bed in the morning to fall back in at night and is always just about the best company a guy could ask for as we drive along the back roads of Southwest Wisconsin in search of more trout. I have been fortunate when it comes to fishing buddies. I've had the best that anyone could ask for, and I cherish them all. You should too. After all, the joy of friendship and the joy of angling are two distinctly different things, each powerful and wonderful in it's own right. When they come together with the right fishing buddy on the right piece of water, they bring us one of life's greatest pleasures. Here's to good fishing and good friends to share it with always.

(This essay originally appeared in modified form in Pennsylvania Angler and Boater magazine.)

Muskrat By Mail

From time to time in my online travels, I stop in on a thriving community dedicated to discussing and sharing information on fly fishing in Pennsylvania. Now and then, I’ll run across an old buddy or associate from my PA days and that’s always nice. Other times, I’ll see that a relative beginner in the sport is posting questions about where to fish, what gear to buy to get started or simply wants to tell everybody he finally caught a trout on a fly and he’s now hooked for a lifetime. Every once in a while, I’ll log in under my user name and answer a question or two or congratulate the newly successful fly fisher. For the most part though, I just read what the guys have to say without commenting. There are more than enough knowledgeable anglers hanging around to field most of the beginner’s questions and there are more than enough young guys with a few years experience under their belts who race each other to answer every question in order to, I would imagine, make sure everybody is aware of how much they know about the sport. Having been a young guy myself at one time, I understand this. Young males, whether they are roosters, grouse or accountants from Scranton often have a need to display their plumage. So, I mostly just read and let the other guys do the strutting.

A couple weeks ago though, I responded to an inquiry on this forum that led to a delightful little episode at the local post office. A fellow posted that he was in the market for a muskrat skin for fly tying purposes and if anybody had an extra one around they were willing to part with, he’d pay the postage to send it to him. I happened to have a spare muskrat hide that was given to me by my brother-in-law who is an avid trapper and usually has a few skins every year that he cannot sell. Now, a standard size muskrat hide has enough fur on it to last the average fly tier the better part, if not the entirety of a lifetime. I’m still trying to use up a muskrat skin I got in 1977 and I tie a lot of flies. Its slow work, but I’m gaining on it.

Anyway, I responded to the inquiry on the web community and sent the guy a private message letting him know I had a hide that could be in the mail the next day after he gave me the address where I should send it. Which he did in relatively short order. He wanted to assure me that he would reimburse me for the postage. I wrote him back and told him not to bother and just “Pay it Forward”, that is, do something nice for another angler. I could take credit for magnanimosity and generosity, but the truth is I didn’t want to ask him for a check for $4.71. It seemed sort of petty somehow.

So, I bagged the hide up in a standard-issue plastic grocery sack and drove on down to the post office to mail it. There was a long line for the counter, so I opted to use the self-serve kiosk where you answer a bunch of questions on a touch screen, plug in a debit card and then it spits out your pre-printed, paid postage. I had the hide sealed up in a large Priority Mail envelope. My brother in law treated or cured the hide with a salt or borax method that does an excellent job, but makes the skin pretty rigid. As a result, I had to fold Mr. Muskrat over at a point about two inches behind his (former) eye holes, in order to get the hide into the envelope.

So, here I am at the self-serve kiosk with a bent muskrat hide that is making big lumps in the shape of the Priority Mail envelope. An odd looking package to say the least. I hit the touch screen and start answering the questions. Zip code, check. Regulation size USPS envelope, check. “Does your package contain any flammable, explosive, perishable materials or materials of plant or animal origin?”. Well, yes. I’m trying to mail a muskrat hide. I decided I’d better go to the counter after all..

After a few minutes wait in line, it was my turn and I placed my lumpy envelope down on the counter in front of a nice young lady in a USPS uniform. I said, “I need to mail this muskrat hide to Maryland, but when I tried to use the self-serve kiosk and the question about materials of animal origin came up, I decided I’d better come to the counter to be sure I’m in compliance with all the USPS regulations. She nodded and said: “What’s a Muskrat?” It occurred to me that if I were back in Waterford (PA), I might not have to field this complex question, but I live in one of the northern suburbs of Chicago and I shouldn’t be surprised that nobody knew what a muskrat was. “Well, it’s a small aquatic animal that lives along the shorelines of lakes and streams. About yeah long (forming a gap of roughly 20 inches between my palms) and very furry with a long tail. Its fur is very good for tying fishing flies”. She wrinkled her nose and said, “Yuck”. Then she asked me how long it had been dead. “About three years”, I told her. She wrinkled her nose some more. Then I followed up: “Look, if it’s any help, its sort of like mailing a mink hat. It’s a part of an animal, but it isn’t going to stink or anything like that. It’s been dead a long time.” Then she touched the lump in the envelope where I had been forced to put a crease in Mr. Muskrat in order to make him fit inside. She asked, “Is this his head?” I said, “Well, his head is actually long gone, but that’s about where his eye holes are, umm, were, well, you know.” She nodded, did some more nose wrinkling and announced, “I’ll be right back”. I told her I’d hang on to the muskrat and wait. She did some more nose wrinkling and disappeared around the corner.

Momentarily, she reappeared with the Postmaster himself in tow. So, I explained it to him. I don’t think he knew what a muskrat was either, but he didn’t let on one way or the other. He just nodded a few times and then turned to the clerk and said, “OK”. And he was gone back to his office, maybe to watch for terrorists or check out the new commemorative issue of stamps featuring great Maine lighthouses.

Back at the counter, the clerk ran the postage and affixed it to the envelope just a little to the left of Mr. Muskrat’s right rear paw, or so I approximated. Then out of nowhere, she started talking to me about fishing and her Grandmother in Alabama and how the old woman had loved to sit and fish for catfish and the talks they had and how much she missed her. She grew animated in her descriptions and her eyes seemed to be seeing beyond the confines of the Post Office to another place, another time. Moonlight and lantern glow shimmering on the surface of the river. The deep bass rumble of the bullfrogs all around them. The tap, tap, tap of the rod tip as a catfish picked up the bait. Simple times and simple joys. I smiled, thanked her for her help and I told her that fishing was all that and a whole lot more. Because it is..