2008 Award-winner
Second Place
Association for Conservation Information "Fisheries Magazine Article"
"A Mountain Journey," by Rory Aikens
The sound of an energetic brook rushing down the narrow meadow on the steep flanks of Mount Baldy was the rhythmic music accompanying young hopes of catching a wily Apache trout or possibly a reclusive brown.
The warning slap of a beaver’s tail resounded across the small pond at the bottom of the slope and made us jump while cutting alder poles with our compact Sierra saw. With an ever-useful multi-purpose tool in hand, we cut notches near the end of the thin staffs. Upon those tiny notches, our hopes and our lines would rest.
We tied thread-like fishing lines in place upon the notched poles, then firmly affixed our “angle,” or hook (as it were), to the line’s end. The line itself was slightly longer than the pole, but no longer than it would take to reach the ground if the supple stick was raised sky-high by a small, excited boy.
The essence of fishing is simplicity.
With small nets in hand, we began our vigilant hunt in the lush mountain meadow for grasshoppers or other edible creatures that might be on the trout’s seasonal fast-food menu. Worms dug fresh from the garden waited in a knapsack pocket not inhabited by lunch. Each valuable hopper was placed in a plastic bottle topped with what my 6-year-old boy, Joshua, calls a “religious lid” (his take on the word “holey”). In a way, we were indeed practicing a type of religion; an ancient one, at that.
A hook, a line and a pole: The basics of fishing date back to our distant ancestors. Fish hooks made of bone found in Eastern Europe are about 20,000 years old. The technique of catching fish with rod and line likely began with the Egyptians around 2000 B.C.
The ancient Greeks, including Aristotle and Plato, were among the first to write about this activity. Fishing appears in accounts from many other early civilizations, including the Chinese, Assyrian, Roman, Jewish and Japanese. It is mentioned quite often in the Old Testament and figures prominently in the New Testament. In the first century A.D., Chinese Emperor Wu was said to go fishing using a white silk line and golden fish as bait.
But the dialectical treatises of Plato and the emperor’s silk line are not easily pondered when grasshoppers, fish and little boys await and the clear mountain air is full of pending adventure. Sufficiently armed with jumping and squirming offerings, we began to reconnoiter the tiny stream, looking for a rowdy run emptying into a quiet pool replete with cover where trout could hide their secrets.
“S-s-shushhh. Keep your voice in a whisper. Sound travels across water and fish can feel vibrations,” I whispered in the emphatic tones of a conspirator. “Keep low. You have to stalk these wild mountain trout. Don’t let your shadow fall on the water — you’ll spook them and we’ll be tasting humble pie for dinner instead of fresh-caught trout.”
To show he understood, Josh crouched low, looked back and held one finger across his lips in the universal sign of “be quiet.” We smiled at the shared understanding. As if walking in the footprints left by legions of fathers and sons during preceding eons, we made our methodical approach to the stream’s edge and gingerly tossed the first wiggling inducement into the riffles above the sparkling pool.
With a flash of gold, a hungry Apache trout darted from a deep shadow beneath a water-worn boulder. Josh whipped the hand-fashioned alder pole back just as the golden blur was trying to gobble the worm. In his excitement at seeing the ambushing fish, Josh set the hook too quickly. One hit, one miss, one error. The brook-savvy trout flashed back to cover quicker than a young boy’s disappointed sigh.
The subtle art of fishing for wild mountain trout is a creed often acquired through a series of small lessons learned and applied over time. Mountains and trout have much to teach both young and old.
Easing back under a quaking aspen, we sat upon a shaded boulder to let the pool and our nerves settle down. Joshua was crestfallen, but not for long. His eager young mind was quickly captivated by flashes of sky-blue energy flitting about creation as a flock of bluebirds sought breakfast. “Dad, what are those? They’re pretty!”
Like the bluebirds, Josh quickly flew to the next possibility and he delicately picked up an inch-worm, then allowed it to do its accordion imitation down his outstretched finger while we listened to the distinctive clucking of Merriam’s turkeys somewhere on the ridge above us. We laughed as a red squirrel perched well above our own rocky throne and let loose a loud staccato chatter at our uninvited invasion of his evergreen domain.
Sitting there absorbing the morning overture on the mountainside while Josh munched a fresh-picked autumn apple, it seemed fitting to ruminate on a passage from a famous old English text in the second boke (book) of St. Albans, “The Treatyse of Fishing With an Angle.” Published in 1496, it is attributed to Dame Juliana Berners, the abbess of Sopwell.
Even if the angler does not catch a fish, Dame Juliana wisely penned, “At the very least, he has his wholesome and pleasant walk at his ease, and a sweet breath of the fragrant smell of the meadow flowers, to make him hungry. He hears the melodious harmony of birds. He sees the young swans, herons, ducks, coots, and many other birds with their broods.”
With puffball white clouds floating across that strikingly blue mountain sky while butterflies and hummingbirds zig-zagged from flower to flower, indeed we were experiencing the philosophical point she made so long ago. My reverie was interrupted by an incessant tug at my arm. “Dad, can we fish again? P-l-e-a-s-e!”
There’s a time to ponder the philosophy of fishing, and a time to employ it.
Easing above the shaded pool, we selected a rambunctious grasshopper as our next golden enticement. With a gleam of pure excitement in his eyes, Josh used the long limb to lightly drop the frenzied hopper into the rushing stream. It quickly cascaded down into the pool, thrashing as it glided across the surface. An Apache trout waiting in ambush gobbled up the hopper quicker than the last morsel of popcorn at a Saturday movie matinee.
“And if the angler catches fish, surely then there is no happier man,” says the Treatyse from long ago. Maybe it should have said, “No happier man or boy!”
After an exciting day of catching mountain memories, and mostly releasing our fish, we sat by the campfire that night and ate our fresh-caught trout liberally spiced with the day’s sweet success.
Luxuriating in the glow of a well-spent day, I turned up the hissing gas lantern hanging from a limb and pulled out a well-thumbed copy of the “Compleat Angler” by Izaak Walton (1653). As a devout angler, I often feel validated by the fact that Walton’s classic book on the art of fishing is one of the three most-published books in English history (the Bible and the “Complete Works of William Shakespeare” being one and two).
While the campfire roared and an owl hooted in the dark forest night for accompaniment as the firelight danced merrily in our eyes, this simple poem from the “Compleat Angler” was especially poignant after our mountain adventures.
“Here by these crystal streams you may
Preserve a conscience clear as they;
And when by sullen thoughts you find
Your harassed, not busied, mind
In sable melancholy clad,
Distemper’d, serious, turning sad;
Hence fetch your cure, cast in your bait,
All anxious thoughts and cares will straight
Fly with such speed, they’ll seem to be
Possest with the hydrophobie.
The water’s calmness in your breast,
And smoothness on your brow shall rest.
Then on these banks let me sit down,
Free from the toilsome sword and gown;
And pity those that do affect
To conquer nations and protect.
My reed affords such true content,
Delights so sweet and innocent,
As seldom fall unto the lot
Of scepters, though they’re justly got.”
Words from the past drifting easily into the chilly night, we watched sparks from the fire mix with shooting stars streaking across Ursa Major as it plowed the moon-dark sky. At such times, the true philosophy of fishing might be found hidden in the smile of a young boy lulled asleep by a crackling fire as dreams of dancing trout cause a drowsy laugh to issue forth unbidden.
This article was published in the July-August 2007
issue of Arizona Wildlife Views magazine. To subscribe or give a gift, order online or call (800) 777-0015.
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