Trout Quintet

by Steve Raymond

  After watching Gadabout Gaddis, I had used some of the meager receipts from my paper route to buy the fiberglass Wonderod, which was as white as a blind man’s cane. It came with a rusty Martin reel, a well-worn fly line of uncertain size and weight, and a few scruffy-looking flies whose names I didn’t know. I bought the whole works at the Good Neighbors Thrift Store, where my mother sometimes shopped when she was sober and had money, and where she bought all my well-used clothes, if she ever bought any at all.

  I didn’t like the thrift store because it smelled nasty, but I had returned recently with her and acquired another item for my angling outfit—an old, battered fishing hat. I knew it had been used by a fisherman because I found a small dark fly stuck inside the hatband. I couldn’t tell what color the hat had been originally; long service under bright sunshine and hard rain had bleached it to a sort of nondescript gray. It also wore spots of dirt and rust, greasy fingerprints, and specks of something that might have been blood, and probably was. It was just the sort of hat I wanted, because I thought it would make me look like a veteran fisherman at the ripe old age of twelve. I paid twenty-five cents for it.

  Now I was ready to try it for the first time. I landed my imaginary plane near an imaginary river—Lofton Creek, exaggerated greatly in my mind—hefted the Wonderod, placed the hat proudly on my head, and took the trail through the woods down to the creek. Lofton Creek wasn’t very big, maybe ten or twelve feet at maximum width, but it did have a few surprisingly deep pools and some mysterious undercut banks where I always thought big trout must be hiding, although I’d never caught one longer than six or seven inches. Trout that size could hardly put a bend in the old Wonderod, but they were always nickel-bright and gloriously spotted, and every one seemed a little miracle.

  The day was warm with a high, thin overcast, no breeze, and lots of mosquitoes, but I told myself I was a tough guy and tried not to pay any attention when they bit me. The rod was still rigged with the large fly I had used last time I fished, but when I reached my favorite spot, a slow, deep pool, I suddenly remembered the little fly stuck in the hatband of my new/old hat. I removed the hat and looked at the fly; it was small and dark, barely half the size of the large, brightly colored thing on the end of my leader. On impulse, I cut off the big one and tried to tie on the fly from the hat. It wasn’t easy; the ancient leader I’d been using was so thick I could scarcely force it through the eye of the smaller fly, but I finally got it through and tied it on.

  I didn’t know how to cast, so my usual tactic was simply to strip line from the reel and let the current carry it downstream. I also didn’t know some fly lines were made to float and others to sink; it was only much later I realized my old line had probably started out as a floater but had long since lost its buoyancy. It usually sank pretty fast, probably because I always used a large fly—large being the only size I had. This time, however, I noticed the line didn’t sink so fast with the small fly on, and that inspired me to try a deep pocket partly sheltered by an overhanging bank. I’d always thought it looked fishy and had tried twice before to fish it. Both times I got hung up on underwater snags, costing two of my precious small supply of those big flies, and I’d avoided the spot ever since. Now, with the line not sinking so fast, I thought maybe I could drift the little fly through the spot without hanging up.

  I waded to a spot above the pocket—I always waded wet because I had no hip boots or waders, and the water was always very cold, but I was a tough guy, remember—and let the current carry the line downstream into the darkness of the undercut bank. Suddenly the line was ripped viciously from my hand, the old Wonderod bent nearly double, and the biggest, most enormous, colossal, incredible fish I’d ever seen burst out of the pocket and launched itself high above the stream, tumbling end-over-end like a giant silver football. It fell with a huge splash into shallow water on the far side of the stream, almost up on the bank, then took off downstream. Shocked to my very soul, I stood rooted in place while the huge trout—for that is what it was—began a wild run. The old Martin reel made rusty gasps as it yielded more line than it had ever given up before, and I felt the line’s rough surface burning through my fingers as the trout galloped out of the pool and disappeared.

  I had to follow or the fish was lost for sure. Keeping the rod high, as I’d seen Gadabout Gaddis do, I splashed downstream in pursuit. Below the pool the trout screamed through a shallow run without pause. Beyond that was a small bend in the stream and the trout went right around it, still pulling line from the reel at a furious pace. Line ripped across the surface, throwing up a little rooster tail. When I rounded the bend, I could see the line angling sharply downstream into a deep pool below. For the first time it felt slack, as if the fish were gone, and my gut was suddenly full of ice. I reeled in as fast as I could, hoping desperately the old Martin could stand the strain, and at last all the slack was out of the line and again I felt strong, heavy movements at the other end. The trout was still on.

  I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I waited for the trout to make the next move. It didn’t take long; within moments the line began moving again, down toward the end of the pool where the fish erupted out of the water a second time, shivering, shaking and twisting in mid-air, throwing spray in all directions, then crashed back through the surface and vanished again. I’d lost some line but gained it back, and for lack of a better strategy I waded into the pool and tried to get closer to the trout. Suddenly the line went slack again, and for another terrible sinking moment I was sure the fish was lost; then I realized it had turned and was running past me, headed upstream, dragging line behind in a great U-shaped bend. I reeled furiously until the line came tight again.

  Now the trout was somewhere above me, fighting the current as well as the pressure of my rod. I could feel it twisting and turning, lunging right and left, pulling the tip of the white rod all the way down to the surface as it struggled for freedom. At long last I thought it was starting to tire, for its movements didn’t seem as strong or violent as before, and I resumed cautiously trying to recover line, one turn at a time. Soon I could see the fish under water, still facing upstream, and took a step or two toward it. It responded immediately with another strong run upstream.

  I kept on as much pressure as I dared, but the trout had grown sullen; it settled toward the bottom and resisted every effort I made to recover more line. Yet its strength, which earlier had seemed limitless, was surely ebbing, and finally, slowly, inches at a time, it began to retreat downstream in my direction. When all my line was out of the water and the butt of the leader was showing, the great fish seemed near enough to touch. But then it saw me, turned swiftly, and ran again, but not so far this time.

  Several more times we went through this little dance until the trout was too weary to resist any longer. It came toward me slowly as I reeled in yet again, kept coming until it actually bumped against my leg, then slipped downstream in the current, a dead weight now that seemed far beyond the capacity of the old Wonderod to lift. I waded toward shore, towing the great fish, and when we both reached shallow water I did the only thing I could think of to do next: I plunged full-length into the water and tackled the trout like a football player. It squirmed and writhed and I almost lost my grip, but somehow I got my arms wrapped tightly around its thick middle, scrambled to my knees, crawled toward the bank, and heaved the huge trout out of the water onto the shore, right at the feet of a man I’d never seen before.

  The man was tall and powerfully built and it seemed a long way up to his face. It was like looking up at Mount Rushmore. The face was square and rugged, punctuated by a nose that looked as if someone had stepped on it. He looked down at me with stern brown eyes and for a moment I was frightened, but then saw he was smiling broadly. “That’s one helluva fine trout, son,” he said in a deep voice. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Why, keep it, of course!” What a dumb question!

  “You think your mother will cook it?”

  “No,”
I said without thinking. “My mother can’t cook.” Then I realized I didn’t know if she could or not. “At least, she doesn’t.”

  “Well, if you’re not going to eat it, then what are you going to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. Just keep it, I guess.”

  “You can’t do that. Look at the poor thing, it’s going to die if you leave it out of water another minute. If it does, it’ll just rot and start stinking and you’ll have to throw it away or bury it. What a waste that would be.”

  I looked at the trout. Its gills were opening and closing spasmodically and its body was quivering. I didn’t want it to die, but realized the stranger was right. “What do you think I should do with it?” I asked.

  “Why not let it go? Then it’ll be here when you come back. Maybe you can catch it again.”

  I liked the sound of that. And as hard as it would be to release the greatest trout I’d ever caught, the thought of maybe being able to catch it again was reassuring. I didn’t want it to be wasted, either. Still, the words came hard: “Okay, I guess.”

  “I’ll help you,” the stranger said. He squatted next to the trout, ran his fingers along the leader until he found the fly stuck in its jaw, and twisted it free. “Hmmm,” he said, holding up the fly for inspection. “That fly looks mighty familiar.” He slid his hands under the trout and lifted it. “You get in the water and I’ll hand it out to you,” he said. “Then you lower it gently into the water, facing upstream, and move it slowly back and forth.” He demonstrated as he spoke. “It’ll take some time for it to recover, but after a while you’ll feel something like a little shock run through the fish. Don’t let it go then; it’ll still need more time. Keep moving it back and forth until it starts struggling. I’ll tell you when to let go.”

  I waded out several steps, turned to take the trout from him, and began following his instructions. It did take a while, but at length, just as he’d said, I felt a sudden pulse of energy run through the trout. I kept moving it back and forth, feeling strength slowly return to it, watching as its gills returned to a regular rhythm, feeling movement within its muscled body, until suddenly it gave a strong twitch of its powerful tail. “Okay,” the stranger said. “Let it go.” I did, and the trout moved slowly out of my hands and settled to the bottom. “It’s all right,” the stranger said. “Just needs to rest a while. Then it’ll be on its way.”

  I wasn’t quite sure of that, but didn’t feel in a position to argue. Instead, I looked around for my old Wonderod, which I’d thrown into the water when I tackled the trout. Since it was white, I found it easily; maybe that’s why they made them white. I picked it up, reeled in the rest of my line on the rusty Martin, and headed to shore.

  “You must be freezing,” the stranger said, and I realized I was shivering. “Naw,” I replied, remembering I was tough. But the water was damn cold, and despite the warmth of the day—or maybe because of it—I felt half-frozen.

  The stranger smiled. “We’d better get you back to the trailer so you can warm up,” he said.

  “How do you know where I live?”

  “Well, that’s a long story. You know that hat you’re wearing?” I realized suddenly the hat was still on my head, a little wet from splashing water, but still in place. “That hat belonged to me. It was my lucky hat. I tied the fly stuck in the hat band, the one you used to hook that trout. My wife gave the hat to the Good Neighbors. She didn’t know what she was doing, but when I found out I went to their thrift store and questioned nearly everybody in the place. At last I found a woman who remembered the hat and said she’d sold it to you for twenty-five cents. She knew your mother, who I guess shops there regularly, and she remembered you. She told me where you live, and your mother told me where to find you. It was easy, because I could hear you yelling from a long way off when you hooked that trout.” I didn’t remember yelling, but guessed I had. “Now, I want to talk to you about buying back the hat,” the stranger said. He reached in his hip pocket, pulled out a wallet, and withdrew a crisp twenty-dollar bill.

  That was a lot of money, more than I’d sometimes make from my paper route, and more than I currently had to my name, but something nagged at my mind and kept me from reaching for it. Suddenly I realized why: If this guy was so willing to pay twenty dollars for his old hat, maybe if I refused he’d offer even more. After all, he’d said it was his lucky hat.

  Maybe it was lucky; it had been on my head when I hooked that super trout.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  By then we were walking side-by-side through the deep grass on the way back to the single-wide, and I was still shivering. I could see by the way he compressed his lips that the stranger didn’t like my answer. We took several more steps before he reached again for his wallet, pulled out a five-dollar bill, added it to the twenty dollars, and held both out to me. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said. “Final offer.”

  Again I was tempted, but thought he still might go higher. “No thanks,” I said.

  He didn’t look happy. He took out his wallet again, but this time he put the money back. “You’d better talk to your mother about this,” he said. “I bet she’ll tell you that when somebody offers you a hundred times more for something than you paid for it, you’d be foolish to turn it down.”

  When we were nearly to the door of the single-wide he stopped, turned and held out his hand. “My name is Harry Briggs,” he said. “Talk to your mother. I’ll come back in a couple of days and we’ll see how you feel about it then.” I think it was the first time any man had offered to shake my hand. It felt warm and strong. “My name is Tim,” I told him.

  “I know,” he said. “The lady at the thrift store told me. I’ll be seeing you again.” He dropped my hand and got into a station wagon parked in front of the single-wide.

  He came again that weekend, while I was inside watching The Flying Fisherman. Mom had gone off with Lyle, leaving me alone with Adrian, as she seemed to be doing more and more often. He had finally screamed himself into exhaustion and was asleep on the ratty, stained sofa when Harry Briggs knocked on the door. I thought it was thoughtless of him to come while The Flying Fisherman was on, and it made me a little mad. Nevertheless, I answered the door and let him in. He made a quick look around, took a couple of whiffs of the atmosphere, and suggested we talk outside on the steps. That made me even more unhappy; if we’d sat inside, at least I would have been able to watch Gadabout Gaddis with the sound turned down.

  We settled ourselves on the top step. “Well, what did your mother say about my offer?” Briggs asked. I just shrugged, and he looked at me sharply. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

  I shook my head. “She wouldn’t understand.”

  Briggs looked disgusted. “Well,” he said finally, “What about you? Are you ready to take twenty-five dollars for that old hat?” I might have said yes if he hadn’t interrupted my favorite program. Instead, I said “Uh-uh. I think I want to keep it.”

  Briggs gave a deep sigh. He sat still for a moment, then got up. “Come here,” he said, “I want to show you something.” I followed him to the road where his station wagon was parked and he opened the back, reached inside and pulled out a long aluminum tube. He unscrewed the cap from one end and pulled out a flannel bag. He loosened the ties on the bag, reached in, took out a brown, two-section fiberglass rod, joined the two sections together, and handed it to me. “This is a Fenwick seven-and-a half-foot rod for a five-weight line,” he said. Next he opened a small box and took out a black fly reel. “This is a Pflueger Medalist reel, loaded with a double-taper five-weight floating line to match the rod. It has a brand-new leader on the end.” He reached again into the rear of the station wagon, took out a small cigar box, and opened it. “There are more new leaders in here, plus a couple of spools of tippet material,” he said.

  “What’s a tippet?”

  “That’s the last section of your leader, before you tie on the fly. It’s the part you have to keep cutting back when you ch
ange flies; that’s why you always need more tippet material. And then there’s this.” He plucked a small plastic container from the box and popped open the lid. Inside were dozens of small flies. “I tied all these,” he said. “They’re all yours, along with the rod, reel, line and leader stuff, plus the twenty-five bucks, if you give me that hat.”

  Well, my eyes must have been the size of a couple of fried eggs. I’d have given almost anything just for the flies alone. The other stuff I could see was used, maybe except for the line, but it was all in good shape. I could scarcely imagine the fun I’d have with an outfit like that.

  But something wasn’t quite right here. Why was he willing to give so much for that old, beat-up hat? What was so special about it? I was on the verge of saying he had a deal, but instead I said, “Let me think about it.”

  Briggs got tight-lipped again. Without another word he took down the rod, put it back in the cloth bag, inserted it into the tube and replaced the cap. He put the reel back in its box and closed the cigar box lid on top of the leaders and the plastic container full of flies. Then he turned on me, his eyes snapping sparks, and said “You do that.” He reached in his shirt pocket, pulled out a business card and handed it to me. “Here’s my phone number. Call me when you get some sense in that thick head of yours.” He started to get into the car.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “I have some questions.”

  Briggs stopped. “What questions?”

  “Let’s go back and sit on the steps and talk there.” I led the way and he followed, reluctantly, and we sat down. “If you want me to sell you that hat so bad, at least I have a right to know why,” I told him. “I want to know the story of that hat.”

  Briggs ran a hand through his hair. It seemed to calm him down a little. “Well,” he said at last, “it’s a long story.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I got that hat nearly ten years ago. I was staying at a place called Jericho Springs Ranch over in Montana. They had a couple of private lakes with big rainbow and brown trout. But when I got there, I discovered I’d left my hat at home. You’d think if there was any place in the world that would have extra hats, it would be a ranch, but nobody offered. I think they had extras, all right; they just weren’t willing to loan me one.