Yale Arglers'Journal

An Undergraduate publication

Volume X Number 1
Twelve Dollars

Baker Conk Copley

Hunter Lee Lehnhof ^McFarland
Ripatrazone Sanchez Teague
Trammel Von Essen
 Yale Anglers' ]ournal
Volume X Number 1

Essays and Poetry

Pump House
]ohn Lee 1l
Wild RideWith Ganesh Carl vonEssen 2L

The Knot Read Trammell 29

Abel's Offering KentR. Lehnhof 33

Cadgets, Gizmos, and Enlightenment David Sanchez 39

The Oxbow Nicholas Ripatrazone 47

Time Flyz
|ack Teague 53

The Fisherman and His Wife as l)ncanny

Motif
Dianne Hunter 62

ligging For Snappers George Conk 83

On the Other End of the Line

Beyond Reach Ron McFarland 87

Angler's Study
Catfish on the Fly Rhodes Baker 89

Hook, Line and Sinker

Father's Day
John Copley 97
Time Flyz
Jack Teague

O" their descent from the high bluff above, ]osh and
Cody paused to absorb the Zen visual of the lone figure below,
thigh deep, parting the gurgling Yellowstone. In the mauve,
shadowy half-light of the canyory the metronome motion of the
four-weight fly rod rhythmically and perfectly loaded the fly
line with few false casts. During the interlude of their pause on
the narrow, rutted path, the rod tip bowed five times with a
splendid wild rainbow transfixed to the end of the line each
time. After a few aerobatics and some down-current surges,
three of the critters came to net to be briefly admired and then
released back to their watery haunts. Josh and Cody exchanged
glances and smiled. It was a picture they'd seen from the time
of their earliest memory, their father, in the river, practicing his
poetry. He had shared his magic with them. As children, they
only enjoyed it for the momenf ihe opportunity for sibling con-
test, the deception and conquest of beast. Only later, when the
demands of adult life would take this alchemy from them for
long stretches of time, would they begin to comprehend its pre-
ciousness.
As they resumed their trek, Cody, the younger of the
two observed, "You know, nothing changes. He fishes so old.
He's still a helluva fisherman but his technique is so old. Me,
I'm gonna'be all up and down the river throwing at anything
that rises but he just never moves." ]osh looked at his brother
for a moment and decided the remark was rhetorical, not neces-
sitating response. In facf Cody was focused on the river below
and enraptured with the anticipation of wading in. Josh also
realized the comment was made with genuine deference, not
derision. But, he thought, Cody was partially mistaken. Some

lackTeague 53
things do change and now, living a few hundred miles away,
Cody was insulated from some harsh realities. josh only hoped
that the memory trove of the figure below them, though under
attack by a cursed thief, yet held some of the jewels of their
lives through the years. He had seen musty baubles emerge
from his father's memoryi events of forty and fifty years pas-
sage, yet clear and shining as if of yesterday. And simultane-
ously, been saddened at its' inability to retain for five minutes
the answer to a contemporary question.
They reached a sandy wash at the foot of the bluff and
Cody trudged into the river toward their father. He was so
eager to fish that he'd worn his waders all the way from their
cabin on the bluff above, willing to endure discomfort on the
hike down for the benefit of instantaneous gratification when
they reached the river. ]osh sat on a large driftwood that
would've fascinated Ansel Adams, unrolled his waders and
began taking off his boots to slip them on. He'd not tied on a
fly, deciding to wait and see if there were any hatches going off.
Out in the rive1, he watched Cody tuck his fly rod beneath his
arm and accept a fly proffered by their father. ]osh wanted to
fish a dry fly if the trout would rise on them, perhaps an elk
hair caddis, or a sixteen or eighteen Adams. Cody had finished
tying on the fly their father gave him, sloshed away and disap-
peared from sight up stream. That was okay, ]osh thought,
characteristically he'd always gone his own way and three of
them in the same area was a bit of a traffic jam. |osh would not
seek his father's advice on choice of fly. It was one of his few
expressions of independence.
]osh stood and slipped into his waders, fastened the
suspender straps to the bib and sat back down on the driftwood
to put his wading boots back on. Freedom from the boots felt
good to his feet so he wiggled his toes inside the wader stock-
ing feet and decided to relish their release from confinement for
a bit. He'd considered wet wading today. Long past
snowmelt, the water was warm enough. Once, long ago, he'd
tried wade fishing in his bare feet in the warm, late summer
river. The memory of bobbing and weaving to knee depth over
the mossy treachery of the smooth, rounded stones carpeting

54 YaleAnglers'lournal
the river bottom, as if comically drunk, brought a little smile to
him even today. But afterwards of that day, upon reflectiory
he'd realized his foolhardiness and vowed never again without
felt soles. He pulled a fly box from the pocket of his vest that
he'd laid across the driftwood, opened it and stared at the
assortment of hoppers, caddis, Copper |ohns, and Adams seat-
ed in the styrofoam liner. The Yellowstone murmured soporifi-
cally. He glanced toward his father, noted his continuing seren-
ity, and then savored the light breeze gently moving the limbs
of the willows and cottonwoods growing in clusters along the
banks of the river. Overhead a lone osprey plied the currents
above the canyon seeking an evening meal from the ribbon of
life below. He turned his attention back to the fly box, which
he'd owned most of his life. It showed the wear of a lifetime of
fishing and held many memories along with the tufts of fur and
feathers that were its most obvious content.

Whenever he opened the box the memories came out

and played themselves back before his eyes. Perhaps the earli-
est was when his father decided, as ]osh reached the age of
seven, it was time to learn fly casting. They had spent hours in
a pasture near their home until he gained the technique. Cody,
at five, sat watching the lesson, uncharacteristically patient and
quiet. He'd wanted to try casting too but the rod was still a bit
much for him to handle. Their father left the brothers to Josh's
practice in the field while he went to attend some chores. Upon
understanding the fly rod's mechanics, Josh had worked fer-
vently to reach the point where he could lay the fly line out
with authority and then honed the technique to gain precision.
Even today, as an adult, his face still flushed with embarrass-
ment as it had back thery when he recalled the rude interrup-
tion to his sublime obliviory some Montana wisdom shouted
from a passing pickup truck on the highway bordering the pas-
ture, "Hey kid, there ain't any fish out there." Self-conscious-
ness had flooded over him. He had felt the fatigue of the unac-
customed casting motion in the muscles of his young right
shoulder and decided he'd practiced enough for the time being.
Cody and he tracked their way back to their house, eagerly

lackTeague 55
anticipating their dad's promise of a near future trip to the
Yellowstone to test ]osh's newfound fly casting skill. His father
was fond of saying, "There's fly casting and there's fly fishing
and the two aren't necessarily the same."
It would be a 16 Adams, he decided, plucking the fly
from its' perch in the box. With no hatch in the air this evening
it was a matter of experimentation. He tied it to the tippet,
lightly hooked the fly in the cork rod handle and cranked the
reel until the line was tight alongside the rod, set it aside and
resumed lacing on his wading boots. When he finally entered,
the Yellowstone felt alive, pulsing and swirling around his legs,
as its' level crept up above his knees. He carefully felt his way
forward toward a promising seam a hundred yards from where
his father was fishing. There looked to be some Targer, under-
washed, stones just below the surface, good ambush positions
for the cuts, bows and browns. On his first cast, a whitefish
greedily gobbled the Adams. Bending the rod was fun but he
was after more glamorous cousins. Another whitefish mugged
his next cast. After its release, he pulled some floatant gel from
a vest pocket and dressed the fly so it would float again. His
next five casts brought no interest from a scaly denizen. They'd
either stopped eating or moved. He wondered if his father was
still succeeding and glanced over his shoulder to find him no
longer in the river. In fact, he was sitting on the driftwood
where Josh sat earlier, hunched forward with elbows on his
knees, hands clasped, and gaze transfixed into the Yellowstone.
His father wasn't startled when Josh splashed out of the
river but the expression on his face changed little. Josh watched
him for a moment, "What was working for you out there?"
The sound of Josh's question appeared to break his
father's trance. "A nymph. Got any?" his father replied. His
father knew Josh was a dry fly fisherman and probably knew
the answer before he asked. But there was a look on his
father's face and lack of familiarity in the tone of his answer.
Josh wasn't sure his father was answering his son or a complete
stranger. He decided to hope for the former.
"Nah, those are just a notch above bait." he replied.
His father opened his fly box and pulled out a fresh

56 Yale Anglers'lotrrnal
nymph patterry "Here, don't be so proud."
Relieved, Josh smiled, "Thanks. I'd appreciate it if you
kept this to yourself."
His father looked at him, "How much longer you gonna
fish? Not long till dark."
"Weli some of us haven't been whacking on trout all
afternoon. Might give this nymph a try. But not too long."
"Where's...where's...the other boy?"
Josh clipped off the Adams, raised the nymph and end
of his tippet above his head to gain full advantage of the last of
the rapidly failing daylight to tie on the tiny fly, "You mean
Cody?"
"Yeah, Cody. Where is he?"
"Fishing up the river somewhere. Haven't seen him in
a while."
His father chuckled, "That boy is always on the go.
Real live wire."
]osh finished tying on the nymph then looked at his
father again. "Yep, he is."
A frown knitted his father's brow, "What did you say
your name is?"
Although it had happened before, more and more fre-
quently, it gave him pause, "Josh, Dad, my name is Josh."
His father looked at him blankly for a moment then
broke into a grin and chuckled again. "Oh yeah. Josh. ]osh.
Josh." he repeated, as if repetition would shine light on the
theft and preclude it from happening again.
Josh lodged the fly in the cork butt of his fly rod han-
dle, cranked the reel a couple of turns to bring the line tight,
stepped to the driftwood, propped his fly rod against it and sat
down beside his dad. He wanted to scream, to rage against his
father's condition but he realized the futility. The only solace
was to cherish the present, carpe diem.
"How many days do you think we've spent fishing?"
his father asked.
"When? This summer?" Josh replied.
"No, from the beginning, from when you were little."
"Jeez, I don't know. Hundreds, I'd guess. Why do you

lackTeague 57
 ask?"
"Justhoping I haven,t used them all up.,,
Josh looked at his father for a moment, trying to discern
if his last comment was some synapse misfiring agali, some
amyloidal plaque constricting its tendrils. ',Wh"at io yo,,
mean?"
"Read somewhere a while back that God doesn't
sub-
tract days spent fishing from the sum of our total so I'm
hoping
my account still has a positive balance."
Iosh smiled, "If that,s the case, I,d bet you're good for a
while yet."
After a pause, as he gazed out across the yellowstone,
.
in a moment of striking lucidity, his father reflected, ,,you
know,
when existence fades, it r""*ri. the end all things;;;;" '
one and, just like this rive1, time keeps moving. ithinkihe
;i;
best
y" grl hope for is lack of regret when we loof back on it. In
the balance, i don't know thit I would change a thing
lf I could
turn time back."
Good, Brad thought, some of the words and sentiment
from family favorite Norman Maclean. It took some
off their more troubling earlier exchange. The twih;hih;; -*"'
of the edse
deepened to slate blue and it was timelo return to
t'i-re cabin
before it was pitch dark. They had trod rhe path so
before they probably could in the dark but there was-r"f
ii_",
no ;; ,;
risk a misstep. Josh leaned ove4, untied his boots,
stood ut;;l
stepped out of his waders, rolled them up, sat back
down,
pulled his boots on and laced them rp. ih"y gathered
their
g"r. u"q_:!3rted up the path toward the top"oithe btuff.
"Where's...where,s ...the other boy?',
They took a f1*
patiently answered, "Cody. -**Hissteps before Josh, in resignation,
name is Cody. And I d5n,t
know where he is. probably already back at the cabin.
But if
he's not, I'm sure he,ll find his way with no problem.,,
Ahead
of him, he could hear his father softly repeati"g
Coay,s --
between heavy breaths from the of the"hike;p ";;;1"
ih;
steep.p.at! to the top of the bluff."*"itio.,
Head dowry losh witched the
steps his father took ahead of him. They were
the steps he
would have chosen also and he wonderld how mrch'of
hi,

58 YaleAnglers'lournal
father's path might eventually be his as well. Over the blood
rush sound in his ears and his own labored breathing, Josh
thought, in the end, how much poorer all their lives would now
be, and have been, without the river, four-count rhythms and
fish that rise.

originally from Alabama, the author and his wife bf thirty years haoe liaed in Florida
since 1981, the last thirteen years on Cudjoe Key in the lower Elorida Keys, which is
about twenty miles from Key West. After retiring a twenty-three year career in
from
Enaironmental Health for the stat.e of Florida, lack obtained his captain's license,
found-
ed, and operntes full time, Finatic Charters (www.finaticcharters.com); offering both
flats and light tackle offshore angling with an emphasis on fly fshing. His articles and
photography on fishing in the Keys haae appeared in Florida Game and Fish Magazine,
Florida Wildlife Magazine, Fishing The Florida Keys, and Coastal Lioing Magazine.
As a free-lance writer he has published numerous articles on a wide array of topics since

1987. He is currently completing a book-length non-fiction work on his experiences as

a charter fishing guide in the Keys as well as a nooels and screenplays on other subject
matter.

lackTeague 59
 Unkown
Digitaly Altered Photograph

86 YaIe Anglers' lournal