Closer to the Ground

by Dylan Tomine

  Not long ago, Seattle school kids restored a local urban stream for their class project. When the work was done, they planted juvenile coho salmon and waited patiently for them to return from the sea. When the first autumn rains fell two years later, the students came back to welcome their fish home. They watched in horror as wave after wave of fish entered the stream, immediately went into convulsions, and died. Water tests later showed that a combination of lawn chemicals and toxic metals from automotive brake dust had poisoned the water.

  What can we do? I really don’t know. On an individual level, we can try to make as little impact as possible, and this kind of consciousness seems to be spreading. More people are growing and eating organic food, driving less, letting lawns go natural, composting their waste, saying no to consumerism as a way of life. The question is, will that be enough? Salmon are a totem to all the cultures of the Pacific Northwest, and as such, they hold special importance for most of us who live here. I hope this status can somehow help our elected officials, corporations, and individual citizens make the sacrifices necessary for long-term salmon survival. I realize, of course, that those sacrifices might include giving up the fishery that means so much to our family, but we can accept that if we know it’s making a difference. I sure would miss it, though.

  The uncertainty about how many more seasons we might have ahead of us makes each one all the more precious. And here at the tail end of another good one, even on a fishless day, I’m happy to be on the water, fishing for kings with my kids. The sun has dropped below the high, fir-covered ridge that rises up behind the point, and I’m relieved. The kids won’t be hammered with UV anymore. It’s not evening yet, but long shadows are already stretching out over the water. I can almost feel the earth starting its seasonal tilt, pulling us farther away from the sun.

  “One more pass,” I tell the kids, “then we have to go or we’ll be late for dinner.” We troll out along the deep trough that runs parallel to the beach, and head east toward a set of old, decaying pilings that mark the best water. We pass the pilings without a bite and continue out past the point, beyond where I’ve ever caught a fish. It’s so calm, we might as well keep the gear fishing while we clean up the boat and get ready to head in. I’m dumping the last of our flounder bait over the side when Skyla yells, “Dad! Dad! Fish!” Thinking she’s seen a silver jumping somewhere, I look up and scan the horizon for rings on the water. “No! No! On the rod!” she shouts.

  The portside rod is bucking in the holder and line is streaming off the reel. I pick it up, set the hook, and feel a powerful headshake at the other end. The line rises through the water and 100 feet out a king salmon leaps into the air, shattering the glassy surface. I hand the rod to Skyla, kneeling next to her to help, and she cranks the reel handle while I hold the upper cork grip for support. I look at the other rod and realize I don’t have a free hand to clear the line. “Weston!” I say, trying to sound calm, “reel up the other line. Just keep it in the holder and reel.” Then, leaving the motor in gear to avoid tangles, I start the boat turning in a wide arc.

  The fish makes another run and jumps, then dives for the bottom, tiring. Skyla is tired now too. “Okay, Skyla,” I say, “Let’s give Weston a turn. You get the net.” I hold the rod and Weston grabs the reel handle with both hands. He can barely make any progress, but slowly the fish turns and comes toward us. I want this fish for the kids so badly, my stomach churns with adrenaline. Now, the tricky part. I brace the rod with one hand, tell Weston to keep cranking no matter what, and kick the boat into neutral. Skyla has the net handle, which is half again as long as she is, balanced over the gunwale with the hoop in the water. As the boat glides to a stop, Weston and I lean back and guide the exhausted fish toward the net. When it’s within reach, I let go of the rod, grab the net ahead of Skyla’s hands and together we lift a gorgeous, big, bright king into the boat. Unbelievable. Skyla throws both arms into the air and shouts, “YES!”

  After the fish is bled and iced and all the gear is sorted out, I take my salmon tag (which the state uses to calculate harvest) and sit down to record our catch. My hands are still shaking. “See, Dad,” Skyla says, “We just had to put our time in. Now we’re going to catch a bunch.”

  I reset the gear and we turn back to fish over the submerged point where we hooked our king. Normally, I’d run upcurrent at full speed and then troll back through the spot with the tide, but time is short and it seems doubtful that there would be more than a single fish here. One more quick pass. And three minutes into it, the other rod pounds down. This fish runs straight out to the side, then comes to the top thrashing before I can get the rod out of the holder, and when I come tight to it, the hook slips from its mouth. Instead of diving into the depths, the fish veers back toward the boat about a foot beneath the surface and zooms right under us. We are all speechless. Finally, Weston breaks the silence. “Wow,” he says, “that was awesome!”

  I look at my watch. It’s 6:30. I’m torn between trying another pass and doing the right thing, which involves making it home in time for dinner, baths, and a decent bedtime. Fish or go? Fish or go? A long moment passes while I weigh the options.

  “Okay,” I say, “I think we’ve had enough, you guys. We’ve hooked two kings and we have a great fish in the boat to take home. Let’s pack it in.”

  “But Dad,” Skyla says, “they just started biting. One more pass. Please? I would be so stoked if we had two. Please?”

  “Yeah,” Weston adds, “stoked.”

  Who could argue with that? It’s still officially summer, after all. And we have months of decent bedtimes ahead of us. I turn the boat back toward the point, put our gear in the water, and reach for my phone to call Stacy. We’re going to be late.

  AUTUMN

  SOMETHING BRIGHT AND SHINY

  Despite our concerted effort to limit the children’s exposure to the global media-merchandising complex, Skyla’s sense of style leans heavily toward the Disney princess look. Which is to say, glittery, shiny, and pink. Or what she calls fancy. Of the hundreds of anglers fishing the Sound on any given day, it’s a good bet that I’m the only one whose partner is sporting a rhinestone tiara, polka-dot pouf skirt, and pink leggings, along with her rubber fishing boots and life jacket.

  And, of course, what princess wants to be seen with a shabbily dressed peasant? “Here, Daddy,” she says as we’re packing lunch, “I made you a lucky fishing necklace like mine.” It’s a sparkling string of neon-pink fishing lures, each designed to attract fish by spinning on iridescent Mylar wings. These, though, have attracted a six-year-old girl. I found them in a box of gear left over from my guiding days in Alaska and gave them to Skyla last year. Now the gaudy lures belong to me once more. She slips the necklace over my head, adjusts it so that the biggest and shiniest lures hang in front, and smiles with satisfaction.

  Feeling a little self-conscious, I zip up my fleece sweater to cover the new jewelry, but Skyla insists, “No, Dad, it has to be on the outside or it won’t work.”

  Fishing has been lousy. The kings have come and gone, and the usual wave of migratory silver salmon has not yet appeared in the Sound. It’s difficult to say whether they’re late, or not coming. They should be here by now. Typically, our silvers show up in early September on their way from the open ocean to spawning streams. As they move through the Sound, they feed aggressively and provide a bountiful fishery.

  Some years, though, the silvers remain in the ocean until they’re ready to spawn and then race through our inland sea without biting. One day the ocean fishing is red hot, and then the fish disappear for a week or so, only to magically reappear in the rivers without ever having shown themselves in the Sound. This is generally blamed on lack of rain, but we’ve had plenty. Nobody knows what’s going on this year. Most of my fishing friends have either given up or headed to the coastal bays for the bigger and more abundant silvers out there. And I’ve been busy trying to catch up on house chores, wood stacking, and writing work, all of which are s
till suffering the neglect of king season. I haven’t been on the water much lately.

  But today, Skyla and I are going fishing. Just the two of us. Her school is closed for teacher conferences, a perfect excuse for me to take the day off as well. The gorgeous weather we’ve had the last few days renews my hope for Indian summer. Maybe the wood I left out will dry after all. The vine maples on the hillsides have already turned their luminous red, and a few pale alder leaves flutter to the ground each day, but everything else is holding on to deep, summer-green foliage. It hardly feels like fall.

  With no one around on a weekday to protest, I decide to poach the neighborhood boat ramp. We put the boat in the water and cruise out into open water, puttering along to avoid rocking the moored boats with our wake. To the west, there’s bustling activity on the Suquamish waterfront, a reservation town brought back to economic life, as so many are, by a flourishing casino. Clearly, the Great Recession has not put a damper on gambling. If anything, business at the casino has grown, and any time you happen to drive by, day or night, the six-story parking structure is full.

  The Suquamish tribe still faces plenty of the same old challenges plaguing reservations everywhere, but it’s now the third-largest employer in the county, and tribe members who once left to find work are returning home. Flexing newfound economic muscle, the tribe is actively expanding its business holdings and, in keeping with a timeless tradition of generosity, supporting a wide range of nonprofit organizations throughout the region. The architectural beauty of their towering new cultural center, perched on a bluff above the water, bears witness to a new kind of pride and prosperity.

  Just six miles south of here, in 1792, Captain Vancouver and Peter Puget dropped anchor and made the first contact between Europeans and Northwestern Native Americans. It seems doubtful that anyone standing on the beach that day could have imagined what this brief encounter would mean for their descendants. By 1855, with a tidal wave of white settlers and missionaries surging toward the West Coast, and fearing a war his people could not win, the great Suquamish leader, Chief Se‘ahl (after whom the city of Seattle, at least in an Anglicized spelling, was named) signed the Treaty of Point Elliott, giving up most of the tribe’s land in exchange for the security of promised health care, education, and fishing and hunting rights.

  It’s hard to fish these waters and not think about history. There is a thrill to closing my eyes and imagining the hillsides and beaches without houses, the water before 100 years of abuse. A time when the only manmade structures were the shed-roofed cedar long houses of Chief Se‘ahl’s people, and the sea held an abundance we cannot even begin to imagine today. Poet and novelist Jim Harrison writes that when missionaries headed west to save Native American souls, it was “the reverse of what it should have been.” Amen.

  Are we, the descendants of foreign invaders, a human version of the English ivy, European bindweed, and Himalaya blackberries that are now displacing native plants and taking over the landscape? Noxious weeds, the state calls them. Invasive species. In my case, I suppose, the plant would be Japanese knotweed.

  But a six-year-old girl need not be concerned with such things. Our mission today is to find a silver for Skyla somewhere in the vast, apparently fishless Sound. Wait. Check that. The goal is to have fun, and if we catch a fish, we’ll consider it a bonus. That’s it.

  To enhance our chances for said bonus, we’ll fish bait today. Sky-la reaches into the cooler and hands me a couple of six-inch herring that I brined overnight to toughen them up. I draw a sharp knife at a 45-degree angle behind their heads, creating a beveled leading edge so the bait will spin in the water like a drill bit.

  There’s a light breeze out of the southwest, just enough to feather the water’s surface and remind me that somewhere out there, weather’s brewing. If Indian summer’s coming, it won’t be anytime soon. We’ll have rain by tomorrow. For now, we’ll fish in our shirtsleeves and enjoy the sun on our arms. But I have to remember to tarp the firewood stacks tonight.

  Whenever we get in the boat, Skyla eats like we might run out of food any minute. Today is no exception. We eat salty, oily strips of smoked king; small, tart apples from our tree; extra-sharp cheddar; crackers; chocolate chip cookies. Long after I’m full, Skyla continues to dip into our lunch box, chattering away while building elaborate creations on crackers, which she consumes with relish. She licks her fingers and wipes them on her polka-dot skirt. Maybe she’s just tired from adjusting to her new school routines, but her usual predator instinct is muted today. Or maybe it’s me. After king season ends, if it’s been a good one and the freezer’s full, I tend to fish with much less focus and intensity. We are a pair of kick-back fishermen today, just taking it easy.

  “Hey,” she says, pointing to the west, “that’s where we saw the porpoises, isn’t it?” I’m amazed at her memory and awareness of place. She scans the water hopefully for a repeat performance, and seeing nothing, tips her head back and stares up into the sky, a faint smile on her face. She spends a long time leaning over the gunwale, creasing the water’s surface with her index finger, lost in her own private daydreams, hopes, and fears. What does she think about in these quiet moments?

  Ever since she was a toddler, Skyla has always been helpful and hardworking. She seems to have an innate sense of responsibility, which grew more intense with the birth of her little brother. She has also developed a personal code of conduct that involves trying to maintain a stiff upper lip, complaining very little, and keeping her own counsel. She doesn’t like anyone to see her cry. Where does this come from? I worry sometimes that the burden of responsibility – of being grown up at such an early age – might be too much weight for her slender shoulders. Though I am comforted by her day-to-day joy and enthusiasm, I often wonder what goes on in her mind. “What’s up, bud?” I ask. “Nothing, Daddy,” she replies in a dreamy voice. “I’m just looking for jellyfish.”

  She spots something way off in the distance and we slowly troll our way toward it to investigate. A young harbor seal has hauled out on a floating log. I expect it to dive when we approach, but the seal stays put, holding its head and tail high above the water and following us with its eyes. We circle around even closer. I think: If we hook a fish now, the seal will grab it before we can do anything. I have to fight my natural inclination to head the other way immediately.

  “Dad, did you bring the camera?” Skyla asks. “It’s in the box there,” I say, “but the seal’s going to take off before we get close enough for a picture.” There I go, managing expectations again. I should know better. She opens the box, digs around, and finds our little point-and-shoot. We’re going to have to get a lot closer for a decent picture. I circle back around again, the seal swiveling its head to follow our progress, and pull the boat in tighter. The seal does not take off. Skyla snaps photos as we turn, taking seal portraits at pointblank range. I could almost reach out and pet it. Finally, we decide to leave the seal undisturbed and go back to our fishing. “I can’t wait to show these pictures to Mom and Weston,” she says. “They won’t believe how close we got.” I can’t believe how close we got.

  With the excitement over, Skyla dozes in her seat. I put fresh bait on the hooks and troll in a wandering zigzag toward a row of houses built so low they appear to be rising out of the water. When we reach the sand spit, I turn to run along the shore just outside the mooring buoys. This is one of Smarty’s favorite spots, and I can almost hear him saying Fish those buoys on an outgoing. It feels good to have a plan. When we reach the last buoy, I turn out to avoid the shoal, and Skyla’s rod jerks down, bending deep into its cork handle.

  “Skyla!” I shout, “Wake up. You have a fish on!” She jumps up, startled and bleary-eyed, but regains her senses quickly. I hand her the rod and there’s a bright flash of silver way out behind the boat.

  “Dad,” she says, “you have to help me!” But I can see that she’s managing on her own. I stop myself from taking the rod and instead place one hand above hers for supp
ort, then let her go. “Okay,” I say, “are you alright?” “Yeah,” she answers through clenched teeth, “I think so.” The fish leaps high in the air, throwing a spray of water drops sparkling into the sunlight, and then suddenly reverses direction. The line goes slack.

  “He’s gone, Dad,” she says, “I lost him.” Her shoulders collapse. The loose belly of line shoots off to the right. “Reel fast,” I say, “keep reeling.”

  Somehow, when she catches up with all the slack, her fish is still there. And Skyla is in full control of the situation now, pulling back and reeling down to gain line. I cut the motor, bring the other line in, and we’re clear. The fish circles the boat, teetering a bit but still strong. I take the net in one hand and reach back to help Skyla lift the rod tip with the other, skidding the fish across the surface and into the net.

  “Dad, it’s my first salmon!” she says with a little victory jump.

  “We’ve caught lots of other salmon,” I say.“

  Not by myself.”

  She has a point. This bright, shiny, six-pound silver does mean more than even the big kings we’ve fought together. I’ve learned something new about Skyla today, and caught a brief glimpse into her wholly self-sufficient future. Even more important, I think she has, too.

  Skyla rinses the net and puts it away, sets her rod back in the holder and gets the bait. She watches carefully while I make the beveled cuts and rig the herring. Then we lower our lines, and we’re fishing again. “Just think, sweetie,” I say, half joking, “pretty soon you’ll be able to come out and run the boat and fish all by yourself.” She thinks about this for a while, then says, “Yeah, but I would still want you to come with me to keep me company.” I hope she’s right.

  We fish through most of the falling tide without a bite. As we troll along, Skyla keeps getting up, going to the bow, and lifting the lid of the fish box to peer in at her catch. I remember doing the exact same thing as a kid, the thrill of having that fish in there, never tiring of looking at it. We cut back along the buoys, pulling our baits through the spot where we hooked our fish, but it seems empty now. If we fish any longer, the low tide will leave the ramp high and dry, and we won’t be able to get the boat on the trailer. It’s time to go.