Growing Gills

by David Joy

  A fish slapped the surface in the shady flow of water, Zac ripped the rod back across his chest, and the trout was hooked. What had seemed impossible at first became a reality as he pulled the stout native beneath the tangled limbs. I had no doubt that I was in the presence of greatness.

  *****

  In fly fishing, there are few things more important than the cast. With trout being as jittery as a backwoods moonshiner crossing state borders, the delicacy of a fisherman’s presentation makes or breaks an opportunity. If the fly lands too hard, the impact will unnerve the fish. If the line comes too close, the fish will jet upstream. If the shadow of the fisherman, rod, or cast becomes visible, the trout will disappear beneath stone ledges. The fact is, the cast is most often the difference between fish and no fish, and mastering a technique for every situation is an art form.

  In other forms of fishing, pros master similar techniques. Bass fishermen learn to flip, pitch, swing, and skip lures into tight corners where largemouths hide. Truth be told, if you want to catch fish, then you have to be able to cast into hairy spots. If somebody tells you they’ve never thrown into trees, snagged stumps, or bounced lures across docks, then the odds are they aren’t casting.

  *****

  In high school, I used to fish with a buddy named Grady who was born, raised, and lived in a cove of the Catawba River. Some mornings I’d pile rods and tackle into my mother’s minivan and then, once at school, I would put them into the bed of Grady’s Z-71 pickup. When the dismissal bell rang, we would race to his truck, hop in, I’d pack a dip of snuff, he’d take a wad of chaw, and we’d head toward the river.

  On the way we usually discussed where we would go, what we’d fish with, and how many we’d catch. With the whizzing of a buzzbait Grady held out the window of the speeding Chevy (he said it made the lure spin better on the water) and the smell of Redman chewing tobacco in the cab, we’d head back to his river house and jump in the sixteen-foot Boston Whaler.

  For the rest of the day (and often into the night), we’d cover lots of water in an attempt to catch bass. After sunset, he’d motor up the river to River View Inn where my mom would meet us at the dock. We caught hundreds of fish together on that river, but Grady’s one memorable cast separates him from other people with whom I’ve spent time on the water—a cast that made him an artist.

  *****

  We’d spent that afternoon pinpointing big bass that were holding on spawning beds in the heat of early summer. When we found them, we offered white or chartreuse floating worms and shad-colored slug baits to the aggressive fish guarding the fry. It didn’t take much. If the bait came anywhere near the sandy bed where the fish held, the bass exploded on sight. The largemouths were in the heyday of the spawn, and anything that came close was a threat. In other words, we were casting to a group of overprotective mamas and papas.

  Grady and I had caught our fair share of fish that day, but as we trolled around the final cove we both continued to scan for beds. Peachleaf willows and river birches stretched out over the water. A single house was planted in the cove, and the owners had constructed a sand beach for lying out beside a covered dock. I spotted a dark circle beneath the floating pontoon boat tied off to their dock. I pointed to the spot beneath the boat, and Grady saw the bed fifteen feet back from the edge of the pontoon’s outboard. It was definitely a bass bed, but I certainly didn’t have a cast in my repertoire that could land the worm under that floating pontoon.

  “Wish I could ease a cast back in there,” I muttered to Grady, my words sloshing as the Copenhagen juice came onto my tongue.

  “I can get it back there,” Grady claimed, before spitting chew off the side of the Boston Whaler, a string of brown saliva running down his chin. His country accent was full of pride as he scratched his bare back, the smell of suntan oil floating to the rear of the boat.

  “How you going to manage to do that?” I asked.

  “Skip cast.”

  “What the hell’s a skip cast?”

  “Well, hold on a minute and I’ll show you.” The spit still stuck to his chin and dried in the May sun. A pale tan line (from where his glasses usually sat) ran around his green eyes and back into his blonde hair.

  Grady maneuvered the trolling motor, directing the boat toward the dock, and we slowly drifted along in front of the pontoon. With a long spinning rod in his hand, he swung the rod low across the water, his arm sweeping parallel to the surface. The chartreuse worm hit water about one foot back beneath the edge of the pontoon and then began skipping farther like a well-thrown river stone. The skips came close together as the lure went out, finally skittering to a stop a few feet past the bed. I was in awe.

  With a few jerks, Grady wagged the worm across the surface and as it moved above the darkened circle of sediment, a bass erupted on the bait. He pulled the fish away from the dock pilings and managed to ease the bass from beneath the pontoon boat, his rod pushed into the water to keep pressure.

  After a short battle, Grady pulled the six-pound largemouth into the boat. The fish’s fattened belly was full of eggs, and the dark green lateral line separated olive from white on the bass’s flanks. Grady’s fist fit easily into the fish’s mouth to retrieve the swallowed lure. He stood there smiling proudly, his hand clutching the giant bottom lip, the massive gill plate protruding along the back of his hand.

  I was stunned by how effortlessly Grady had skipped the worm under that boat. The cast would have been impossible for me to make at the time, but he shot the lure into the watery realm without thinking twice. It was the cast, not the amazing catch that mattered. It wasn’t like Grady had invented the cast (he’d probably picked it up from his Bass Pro neighbor who was on “the tour”), but the fact that he could use it so effectively inspired me. Having tricks up your sleeve for the right situation separates the average fisherman from the master, and in that sense Grady was an artist on the water.

  *****

  Some fishermen see casting as a competitive sport where the winner is the one who can chuck his rig the farthest. I always got a kick out of listening to Granny tell stories about her husband Popper casting “plumb across the ocean,” but I knew casting was not all about distance. Sure, there are times when hurling shrimp a bit farther past the breakers or spey casting a few feet longer to running steelhead might catch more fish. Generally speaking, a fisherman’s ability to get a cast into the right spot, at the right moment, and to keep it there, earns him the strike.

  *****

  I’ve read about fly-casting competitions, consisting of different types of challenges from accuracy to distance, where winners might cast a fly more than a hundred feet. All I could think was why? Sure, it’s amazing that a person can heave a weight forward line a hundred feet when I can only manage to shoot out sixty or seventy before the line becomes a limp noodle, but I’ve never once encountered a situation on the water where a hundred-foot cast would have gotten me a bite.

  These competitions would make more sense on the stream, in real situations, where yardsticks don’t matter, and with competitors facing on-the-water scenarios such as these: There are crosscurrents everywhere, and one tiny pocket of still water is holding a fish; keep the fly steady for twenty seconds. You’re in a tunnel of thick cover, and one tiny hole in the laurel is your only chance to hit the seam; make the cast.

  To me this would be the way to separate strong-armed yuppies from true artists. There’s plenty of talent and rhythm involved in making that hundred-foot cast, but true artisans are made on the water. They are made in places where smart approaches—and a skill-set of twenty-foot presentations—are the difference between taut and loose lines. Fishermen with a cast for any situation are rare, with most folks still throwing lasso loops toward stocked trout. The ones that do exist are artisans, and most of the time I’m envious.

  *****

  A few years ago, I set off during the peak of fall to tempt spawning trout to take my flies. The water on the Tuckasegee River was low, exposing a long stretc
h of the stone bottom, the rocks colored tan with dried clay. I walked along the dried rocks, the fires of fall burning on every hillside, and made my way upstream toward the section where water unsettled into ripples.

  I began the motion of throwing tight loops of floating line toward the head of the pool. As the final curl rolled out across the surface and the fly made its way toward the head, I twitched my wrist back, sending one last curl toward the Kaufman’s Stonefly, tucking the imitation under the remaining line at the last second. The tuck cast was a trick I’d learned in a Joe Humphreys essay on nymph fishing; it was one he’d learned from George Harvey to allow the nymph time to get down deep before the line, caught in the current, brought the weighted fly toward the surface.

  The stonefly sank and I began throwing upstream mends to keep the fly moving naturally through the run. The mends kept the racing line from speeding up the drift as the stonefly bounced along the freestone bottom. I watched for sudden twitches in the leader, a slight stop by the line or an invisible bump by a sluggish trout. I played it perfectly, textbook nymphing with a slow natural drift, but a trout never took.

  As the stonefly edged toward the end of the run, I lifted the rod with the line coming toward me and then going slack, and roll cast back toward the head of the pool. The cast unfolded across the water, droplets spraying from the lifting line, and the fly dropped quietly beneath the stirring ripples. Then the process began again: upstream mends, keep the line off the water, rod high, watch for takes, lift, roll cast. Over and over, I tried to tempt the trout that I knew was there. Nothing bit, but nonetheless I was satisfied.

  I was satisfied because of the cast, because of the ability to keep my fly doing exactly what I wanted beneath the surface, because the stonefly danced calypso along the bottom, because I had made it do so. A smile sank deep on my face as I headed upstream, and despite the fact my hands lacked the sweet perfume of held trout, I was happy.

  *****

  The sun’s last rays made the mountains look like exploding fireworks as the yellows, oranges, and reds blended into one continuous flame. I’d caught a few trout as the day progressed, but now I stood sweeping a Prince Nymph beneath the bows of a red maple in its prime. The line just missed the leaves and limbs as the cast curled across the river. The Prince dropped into the current along the cut bank, and I fished the run out beneath the tree.

  I had few fish to speak of that day (and now I can’t even remember what I caught), but what remains vivid are the casts. My line wrote cursive in the sky, solidified my boundaries, and confirmed the existence of open spaces. In a way, those casts made everything else real by making me focus on the barriers. I stared at trees because the cast had to miss them. I read the current because I had to sustain the drift. I saw the sunset because my eyes focused on the tail of my backcast.

  For once, I’d played every scenario perfectly, a rare event in my life as a fly fisherman. I encountered obstacles and drew correctly from my bag of casts to get the fly to the fish. No situation arose that I didn’t have an answer for. I experienced one of those short-lived moments when I too became an artist on the water. Now, when I’m untangling my fly from flexible dogwood limbs, I try to dismiss the frustration, remember days like that one, and know that the cast is there. When I find it, oftentimes the trout, the brutal critic of my art, will rise to the offering.

  Feed ’em Feathers

  Bellied up to a dorm room desk covered in ratty wood-grain laminate, I first learned to tie flies on a Renzetti Presentation, a vise far too fine for my fumbling fingers. Zac had invited me to sip cold beer and watch him tie a couple of patterns. Being the fishing nut that I am, I jumped at the opportunity to learn the art of fly tying. Creating a fly that would bring a finicky trout off the sandy bottom of a mountain creek seemed mystical to me. I was determined to learn so I could experience what it was like to fool a fish with my own design.

  Zac opened the solid oak door, and we walked into his hot dorm room at Western Carolina University. The smell of settled weed smoke and stew beef simmering in a crockpot filled the room. Poor circulation made the air thick and sticky, and sweat immediately beaded on my forehead as I entered. Zac walked around the bed, which had books piled high on the rumpled comforter and sheets draping onto the floor, and pulled up the aluminum-framed window. He propped a box fan outward between the windowsill and window to suck the air from the room. I moved the books off the edge of the bed and took a seat on the mattress.

  Zac’s Burke County blood had toughened him into a man; evidence lay in the thick scar running down his throat from a knife fight. His bony fingers, slender as my own, reached for a half-smoked blunt roach that had been mashed out on the windowsill. He lit the spliff, sat back in his chair, and reached for a banjo propped on a stand in a corner of the room. Zac exhaled clouds of yellow smoke, which were instantly sucked from the room by the fan. He strummed resonating twangs on the tight strings of the banjo.

  “You know my daddy played a gig on Hee Haw long time ago,” Zac muttered. The syllables were pushed through a nearly closed mouth as the burning roach dangled from his lips, his head tilted back to keep smoke out of his eyes.

  “Huh?”

  “I swear to you. He knew Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Hell, he’s still building banjos. Says he’s gonna make me one for graduation.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I got him on tape, if you want to hear him.”

  I nodded.

  “You want a beer?” Zac put the roach out on the windowsill, blew out the last bit of smoke, and headed toward the kitchen. Zac was a good bit older than I and lived in a married dorm that was equipped with mediocre kitchens, something we single students weren’t lucky enough to have. He lifted the glass lid off the crockpot, and moisture rolled down the sweaty glass and back into the broth and hot steam bellowed out. He plopped the lid back on, side-stepped to the fridge, and pulled out a German-style growler full of a coffee-colored stout brewed in downtown Sylva by a local man named Dieter. Zac unlatched the top of the container, grabbed a blue-tinted glass from the counter, and poured me a beer. The thick stout, named Black Forest by the German brewer, sat heavy in the faceted glass, a nice caramel-colored head foaming atop the beer.

  “I don’t ever like to tie flies till I get my head right,” Zac said, nodding to ask my agreement as he handed me the glass of beer.

  “I got you. Ain’t nothing wrong with a little inspiration.”

  I had stopped smoking pot a year prior, forced by an overload of hallucinogens, but I had no problem partaking in a full-bodied brew. I turned up the glass and took a long hard swig of the cool mountain beer. It tasted slightly like coffee but was thick as syrup. Zac headed toward a little nook, a segue between the main room and bathroom. “Come on in here and let’s tie a couple,” Zac called from the nook.

  *****

  Tying flies is an art form that takes the fisherman one step closer to the fish he seeks. Most fishermen simply buy flies, dig worms, or chuck molded plastic plugs; but the fly tier has the opportunity to create something that will truly fool the fish. More than that, the ability to create an artistic rendering of a mayfly spinner that can be cast into the morning fog creates a connection to place unfelt by most anglers. Besides the flies, the materials used attach the fly tier to the natural world. Walk into any fly shop, sort through the rows of hanging materials, and there will be no way to deny the inherent beauty of the wild. While animal rights activists may tremble at the sight of tanned chickens, rabbits, turkeys, pheasants, squirrels, and jungle cocks, I’ve gained a respect for animals that I could never get that close to otherwise.

  My appreciation for animals’ beauty has only increased by staring into the tanned hides of the birds and small mammals I use for fly tying. I’ve found details in their skins that I never would have noticed: the iridescent bars on the tan feathers of a pheasant’s breast, the thick underfur holding tight to the skin beneath the coarse hairs along an elk’s flank, the shifting colors of peacock
plumage turning shades like black opal, the long guard hairs shooting from the cheeks of a hare’s mask. Details become much more vivid when they are close enough to touch.

  Yet, I understand the danger of using animals for my own private practice. The yellow flicker, a small species of woodpecker that used to flourish in the Southern Appalachians, was hunted to endangerment by fly tiers who wanted their spiny yellow feathers to tie an effective pattern known as the Yaller Hammer. I’ve read of cocks being bred specifically for longer, fuller cape feathers, just so fly tiers can get more flies from a single bird. Again, I’m caught as I wonder about the human impact on the wild. What right do we have to muck with nature just for our own selfish pleasure?

  Still, the more I tie, the more my world is shaped by the art. I watched and studied the body structure and habits of velvet ants as they stood up like dragsters and quickly scattered along red clay beneath bent blades of grass. I’ve read books about stream entomology and emergence patterns of insects. I stare at the way a caddisfly’s wings are wet down as the bug steers too close to water, is sucked into the current, and floats by while I wade through the river.

  On the other hand, I see products in drugstores and think, “Damn, that looks like the tail of a trico,” or “Man, that’s just like the segmented body of a stonefly.” I’ve used fake fingernails to mimic the hard abdominal shells of beetles, I’ve tied in fake eyelashes to make different colored tails on mayflies, and I’ve singed panty hose to shape the transparent wings of stoneflies. Using fake fingernails, synthetic eyelashes, and pantyhose as materials, I often look more like a crossdresser when leaving a store than a fly fisherman.

  *****

  I walked around the square dining room table toward the tiny room were Zac sat. I peered over his shoulder as he knelt beneath a desk pressed against the wall and searched through a Rubbermaid tub. He looked up, his hands still rummaging through the container, and pointed toward the kitchen. “Go grab you a chair.”