A River Trilogy

by W. D. Wetherell

  Releasing him, I waded back out into the pool and worked my way downstream, throwing that black stonefly out toward New Hampshire, then letting it swing in the current back toward Vermont. There were three more good fish within the overlap of a dozen casts. Toward the tail of the pool, where the water thinned and quickened, the fish were smaller, brook trout, small wild browns. On my last cast, just before heading back to the island for some R & R, something hit the nymph even harder than that first rainbow, so hard that when, missing him, I stripped the line back in, I found the hook had broken at its bend.

  In its way, this first fish lost was as symbolic as the first one landed, suggesting that my future with the river would include many disappointments to go along with its many pleasures. Making the long drive north only to find the river the color of a chocolate milkshake from a thunderstorm during the night. Seasons of drought when the trout, the best ones, turned belly up and died. Days when fish were everywhere, and yet I fished badly, making them flee in aesthetic horror. Good fish gone on the strike, leaving me with that desperate feeling of loss that makes up in intensity what it lacks in duration—the feeling that if you hadn’t been so quick or so slow or so stupid, not only the fish but happiness itself would have been landed, redeeming everything that happened to be wrong with your life at the time in question. Yes, it was good to have this reminder early, find it to be a real river, not one flowing in dreams.

  It was late enough now that the Vermont side was deep in blue shadows from the bankside pines. I continued downstream through the edge of the rapids, then down through another series of riffles and pools, knowing it was a long walk back to the car, but keeping on anyway, even though I was no longer fishing. I’d found what was obviously an excellent stretch of river, caught enough trout that my first day was a success, and now I wanted to top things off with a last bit of reconnaissance, start linking the scattered stretches of river I had seen so far into a comprehensible chain.

  One aspect about this portion of the Connecticut immediately enchanted me. Over the years the current has cut deep through the surrounding clay and loam, so, wading, you can be a good twenty feet below the level of the surrounding countryside, making it feel like you’re fishing in secret within a self-contained groove of water, rock, and sky. There on the banks are vines and creepers, great clumps of hay the tractors can’t reach, trees in the muddy spots, the raspberries and sumac that help hold things together. By June these are already high enough to add to the tunnel effect, their leading tendrils curving out toward the river so the banks are doubled. Still higher, above the vegetation, above the willows, the sky seems channeled in the same narrow blueness, so the entire world, not just the river, is rolled into that flowing north-south line. Occasionally, one bank will crumble away of its own weight, giving you a glimpse over farmland toward mountains, but for the most part the outer world remains invisible, except for the smell of hay, the rumble of tractors, a distant chainsaw, the harmless rush of invisible cars. More than anything, this serene, self-contained effect is what causes the bittersweet feeling I have when climbing back out at the end of the day; it’s a narrow strip of paradise you’ve been wading through, but paradise all the same.

  Time to go? Not quite. Up in the sky the light was still yellow enough to pass as afternoon, but down on the river the shadows had already joined from both banks, so what I waded through was the last V of sunlight left on the water, my waders separating this into a smaller, darker arrowhead that stayed in close to my waist. With dusk, in that perfect June stillness, mayflies were hatching and caddis, too, enough that I had to blink as they brushed against my eyes. I’d been wading along gravel all the way down from the landing strip, but here near an enormous silver maple, in what I would learn was one of the river’s characteristic tricks, the bottom suddenly turned to mud, the water deepened, and I had a difficult time scrambling back to the bank.

  But no matter. I had spent the whole day trying to read the river by various clues, portents, indications, trendings, and now between one moment and the next, in the fullness of that hatch, the river was revealing itself to me for free. Trout were rising everywhere in the water I had immediately judged fishless—good, deep-bodied sips, the kind that make it seem like it’s not invisibly small flies the trout are sucking down, but the river itself, saucer-sized sections they take away as trophies, cast in bronze, stash who knows where. Voilà—they could have been shouting this out loud. One over by the sloppy beaver lodge; another dead center ahead of me; still another under that leaning, fungus-scarred birch.

  It’s one of the most splendid things about trout, this rising to feed visibly out in the open; the effect is what you would experience in Vegas if the blackjack cards, as you watched them in despair, ready to give up, started giving quick little flips so you could see their faces. Here we are, come and catch us; as graceful as these rises are, you can’t help but imagine them being made without a certain nah nah nah-nah-nah tone that can drive you mad.

  This tone was uncalled for, at least tonight. I wasn’t going to fish for them at all, but sit there watching on the bank, absorbing the day’s late lessons. The fish were unreachable anyway, not without a float tube or canoe. So, put that down on the list of resolutions that had been growing longer all afternoon. Come back with canoe, evening, Sulphur Duns, Olive Caddis, long leaders, 6X, stealth.

  I needed my flashlight to get back to the car. As I stumbled through the brush, one of the briars managed to strip the flashlight away, but even in the dark the grassy runway was unmistakable; a half hour later I was back at the car, taking apart my rod, gulping down the dregs of tea still left in the thermos, and with it some aspirin for my overworked back. I could hear the river now—realized that as intensely as I’d been staring at it, I hadn’t taken the time to adequately listen. It was a soft noise, surprising in a month when everything in nature has its voice turned up full blast, muted even further by all that meadow grass, so the effect was like silk being poured over velvet, poured in a tall pitcher, shaken on the rocks.

  Back next week on Tuesday if I could finish work on time? Maybe spend the night, wake up early? It was good to think in those terms, good to feel the old kind of excitement kick in. I had done what I had to—given the river the chance to work on me—and it had made of it a thorough job, so if it wasn’t love on that first intimidating sight, not love on that first chilling immersion, it was certainly love now—or how else to explain that intense and happy sorrow I took away with me home?

  The New River (2)

  Since that first afternoon on the Upper Connecticut, in the ten years since, I’ve been back well over a hundred times—a statistic that probably carries no significance for anyone but me, yet one I’m childishly pleased with as a mark of my devotion; it’s as though I’ve entered upon a marriage so perfect I renew my vows every chance I get. And—why not admit this?—I’m head over heels in love with the river still, think about it often while I’m away, pine for it, dream about it, rave about its virtues to family and friends, soberly come to terms with its imperfections (which in any case are of a kind to make me love it all the more), take solace from the memory of past assignations even as I find excitement in plotting my next. When it comes to infatuation, the Connecticut and me, it’s the heart’s whole nine yards.

  And it’s remarkable, looking back on that first introductory season, how fast the routines started to form that have served me well in the years since, with little variation. The early-morning start, often in darkness, the stars bright out the window as I go around the kitchen on tiptoes trying to bag together a lunch. Tom driving up in his pickup right on schedule, or maybe Ray in his little Volkswagen—the quick stowing of rods, vest, and waders, the brief remarks about the weather, always putting a good face on it, at least at this stage, when even snowflakes on the windshield can be given a propitious slant. The drive up the interstate, high on its ridge overlooking the valley, the two of us talking over prospects, all but rubbing our hands together and chortli
ng in anticipation of the swath well cut among these trout. The sunrise over the White Mountains to the east, the summits capped by lenticular clouds that multiply their dimensions in purple-gray swellings . . . The radio, the news, fading out in static, the last noisome whispers of the world we’re leaving behind . . . Breakfast at our favorite truck stop, the eggs and home fries and homemade toast appearing so fast on our table it’s as though the short-order chef has gotten word of our coming through CB radio, anticipated our order well in advance. . . . Leaving the interstate for slow, stately old Route 2, route of the logging truck, the school bus, the moose. The first view of the Connecticut near Lancaster, giving us a clue as to what kind of water level we’ll be fishing in—the banks sandy here, the water slow, but a reliable guide all the same. On through Guildhall, the neat, compact little village where the road cuts north. The vexing question of whether to continue up the west, forgotten side of the river or cross over to busier New Hampshire for the added speed . . . Northumberland, Groveton, North Stratford. . . . Trout water at last, the river not slow, sleepy, and deep anymore, but fast, broken, and rushing, so even through the window glass, in the eight a.m. sunshine, it gives the effect of well-shaken champagne poured down a silver-bronze chute. Fishable? Yes! A bit high, but not too high, and transparently clear from bank to bank, the boulders on the bottom doubled by their own blue shadows. . . . The talk about where to start in, not abstract and hypothetical like it was two hours ago in the darkness, but urgent now, needing a fast decision. Trophy Hole? Perfect. Slug our way up to it while we have all our energy, fish it while the sun has the stoneflies rock and rolling up a storm, then the current on our backs for the long wade back. . . . Parking, unpacking, getting dressed—stopping now and then to blow on our hands, our breath in front of us in crystal balloons that pop apart on anything but the softest syllables. Socks on, waders on, vest on, rod strung up—the ritual that is so important a part of the fly fisher’s start. . . . And then the river itself, stepping into it—hardly feeling anything at first, not even coolness, not until we’re well out into the current and sense that old familiar pressure on the back of our waders, like a reassuring pat on the rump as the river welcomes us for the 101st time.

  There are other rituals in the course of a fishing day, but it’s the river that’s setting the agenda now, with much more variation, so things never again become quite so formalized as they are when starting out. I’ve gotten to the point where I need every one of those steps along the way, feel, rightly or wrongly, that if one or two are left out then I won’t be able to catch as many fish, or at least not quite as much enjoyment—that substituting apple jelly for marmalade at breakfast will result in botched casts, missed strikes, and overall futility. In life, ritual seems to work best in small things and big things, coffee breaks or weddings, and for me, fishing the river is a mix of both—and yet the small comes first, to the point where I think a fishing day could be described not in terms of fish landed, but solely by all those small, dearly loved familiarities woven into the fabric of a fishing life. The downward, not unpleasant tug a fishing vest gives on the shoulders when you first put it on; the sharp taste of split shot as you bite it closed; the gossamer shine of tippet material blowing in the wind; the fine, almost invisible spray of wetness that comes off a fly line as it shoots forward and drops. “All this is perfectly distinct to the observant eye,” Thoreau wrote of delights just as small, “but could easily pass unnoticed by most.”

  With all this by way of introduction, starting now on the second stage of my exploration, it’s time to come forward with what is simultaneously the most extreme and yet sincere bias in my entire arsenal of fishing beliefs: that the most important factor in fly fishing for trout is not casting ability or streamcraft or entomology, but coming to appreciate and understand something of the landscape, terrain, history, and culture of the region through which your river flows.

  This is heresy of course—suggesting that anyone setting out to fish the Henry’s Fork might do better to bone up on local history than consult guidebooks to the various pools; that sitting in bars and diners listening to the locals talk weather, politics, or crop prices ultimately might be more useful than hiring a guide; that time spent loafing beside a river looking out at the distant views is in many respects even more valuable than time spent studying the water. All this not only flies counter to prevailing wisdom, but hardly makes up a corner of it at all—and yet I’m absolutely convinced it’s true.

  Why? Remember, we’re talking bias here, personal hunch and intuition, and it would be hard to isolate the direct causative factors between understanding the region and understanding the fish. Certainly, to try to come to an appreciation of the larger scape a river runs through demands of a person a certain investment of time and attention—and its exactly the ones who are willing to do this who are most likely to bring the same qualities to their fishing. Then, too, it slows a flyfisher down, looking outward like this, and in fishing, slowing down is half the battle. Too often we come to the river caught up in the fast, frantic pace of the artificial world were seeking to escape, and this man-made schedule is the first and most onerous burden we must shed. A river can’t be rushed—this is the first rule of fishing, the second, and the third—and so any time spent along its banks not fishing is a worthy investment, slowing, quite literally, the speeding hands of our inner, overwound clocks.

  Listening to the locals, trying to learn who they are, what their lives are like, pays off, too, since these are the people you will encounter along the stream, and there is simply no talking to them unless you’re willing to make some effort to share their world. Fly fishing is more art than science (though fully neither), and one of the criteria for being good at it is the ability to take into simultaneous consideration many varied threads. Local knowledge is one of the most important of these elements—and how else to tap it except by meeting it halfway?

  I could back up my theoretical arguments with a more pragmatic one, point out that the best flyfishers I know happen to be the ones who have an instinct toward the elusive “feel” of the region they fish in. I could also point out examples of flyfishers for whom none of this counts—those who are too wrapped up in their own passion to focus on anything but the fish there in front of them. Not understanding the country’s rhythms, they’re locked into the rhythm they bring from home, so there’s a clash right from the start; not catching very much understanding, they will not catch very many trout. Not catching many trout, they will hire a guide next time, or buy yet another book on fishing how-to, and, because they are mistaken in their basic assumptions, the river will always run away from them and never be grasped.

  This kind of larger understanding and empathy is even more important when the region through which the river flows is an unusual, even quirky one, not at all what it first appears. The Connecticut River, starting as a small beaver pond only a few yards from the Canadian line, flows through a series of four mountain lakes of increasing diameter before spilling through Murphy Dam and becoming a full-fledged trout river in the town of Pittsburg, New Hampshire. Little bigger than a good cast across, fast, weed-slick, and rapid, it’s not until it reaches Stewartstown and works the west out from its southwest trending that it becomes prime fishing water; from here on in, for the next 235 miles, it forms the border between Vermont and New Hampshire, though in a compromise that goes back to the former state’s admission to the union in 1791, New Hampshire law still governs the river itself. Between Pittsburg and the vicinity of Lancaster the valley remains in the same overall pattern and can be spoken of as one; this is the region, the hard, gritty, difficult region, that in the course of my fishing trips I gradually began to know.

  There’s no shorthand name for this land, or rather, there are two names, both of which testify to the fact that it’s a world apart. The Vermont side of the river, not without some irony, is called “the Northeast Kingdom”—a broad upland of granite hills and boreal forest, with a sparse, hard-working populatio
n settled in a few, well-scattered villages. Across the river in New Hampshire it’s called “the North Country”—a similar landscape, only with higher, steeper mountains and, if anything, even poorer, more nondescript towns. The river valley proper, the broad floodplain, manages to seem as pastoral and gentle as anything further south (the white farmhouses, the old ones, are the most prosperous looking, best-kept buildings in sight and have been for two hundred years); a mile from the river on either side it’s a different story. Here the upland begins, and it gives a rougher, grittier kind of feel, both in the landscape and in the habitation. Trailers covered in plastic; log cabins that are never quite finished and look horribly out of place; suburban-style ranch houses built from kits; sagging tourist cabins long since gone bust. This is as far from the familiar Currier & Ives stereotype of New England as it’s possible to be, and much closer in feel to Appalachia, or timber country out West. Many of the towns, even in summer, manage to give off the worn, tired feel of perpetual November; Colebrook, the market town in the regions center, has the wide main street and slapdash, unfinished feel of a small town in Wyoming, though its origins date back two centuries. Like the river, the money has always flowed south here and probably always will.

  An intimidating land, in the end—a region everyone agrees is “different,” though without any of them quite agreeing where exactly the difference lies. Some would point to the terrain, those mountains that aren’t as high as the Whites or as approachable as the Greens, but humpbacked and shaggy, less visited, more remote. Others might point out that, geographically speaking, this is very much a dead end—all the roads seem to end at border crossings which, for lack of traffic, always seem to be closed. There’s the prominent French influence, or rather the Quebecois; the convenience stores have names like DeBannville’s, the tackle shops Ducrets, and the churches are more apt to be cement, workaday Catholic ones than the stately Congregational churches associated with townscapes further south. Others, the wiseacres, might have fun with the moose, point out that moose-watching is the favorite (some would say the only) after-dinner activity. Sensitive observers, those who like to gauge a region in the faces of its inhabitants, might point to the people you see in diners or waiting by their trucks as they fill up with gas—their beaten mien and shabby clothes, the hill-country strength that stays hidden from strangers, yet you know must be there.