September's Song

Mulak Reader - September's Song

I’m not much of a fisherman, really. When we used to take fishing trips to Maine, I’d spend more time painting than trying to catch fish. But my brother Alan always did enough fishing for both of us. He wanted to write a story about the annual trip to Maine, so he put together an outline and I filled in the prose. We sold the story to Sports Afield and, since it was a joint effort written in the first person singular, it appeared under a pen name.

SEPTEMBER'S SONG

          Turning into the campsite, the déjà vu feeling of never having left always takes me by surprise—Too many things are unchanged from year to year. All the familiar faces are here, their canoes and tents and campfires occupying the same places as always. Our spot under the tall pine tree has been left vacant in expectation of our arrival. The seasons of sharing the same campsite have made friends of our neighbors, and now their handshakes are firm, their welcome sincere.
          We methodically go about the business of setting-up camp. There is a controlled haste to our actions, for no matter how often we've been here before, there is no denying the excitement of finally being at the river after having journeyed for so long. When all else is ready, the aluminum cases are taken from their safe storage rack in the truck and the rods are assembled. My father and Uncle Hank have been making this September pilgrimage to Maine for 30-odd years, yet, as we pull on waders, their eagerness rivals that of my fishing partner, Mike, who is here on his first trip. We make our way down the path that leads to the river, intent on taking advantage of the remaining daylight.
          Like something too long stored, the kinks are slow in coming out of my back cast. The line flows overhead with an awkward angularity, but it feels good just to be fishing again after having waited so long—The first cast settles easily on my mind if not on the water. My attention focuses on my bright streamer: I will it to swim fishily, but it refuses—More evidence of my lack of practice. Once, on a June fishing trip several years back, my first cast took a 3-pound buck salmon. But this is not June, and the autumn river does not yield so easily. My second cast feels better than the first, but the results are equally unproductive. The awkwardness is almost gone by the third—this will be the charm, for sure.
          But it isn't.
          And so it goes. The fishing today is more a driven compulsion than a genuine pleasure, and after a score of fruitless casts the elation that has effectively held weariness at bay for the past half-hour gives way to exhaustion. The road that connects the outside world of decisions and deadlines to the place that is wilderness Maine is 9-hours long. When I return to camp, I find that I am the last one back.
          In the dusk, the Coleman lanterns can be seen in the surrounding camps. Tradition dictates that my father and Uncle Hank tend to the cooking. Their good-natured badgering of each other is a continuing fixture in camp. Mike and I provide the firewood. The urgency of our earlier efforts is absent now, as evidenced by the tumbler of whiskey close by each elbow.
          Supper is announced. Wood smoke, the open air, and the voracious appetite one develops in the wilderness combine to make each supper an event. Leftovers are an unknown. Whenever a conversation turns to fine restaurants, my thoughts invariably return to these meals under the tarp alongside the river. The final course is a homemade apple pie from my aunt's kitchen. Careful stowage kept it undamaged on the 600-mile journey, but now, within minutes, nothing is left but a few crumbs on the empty plate.
          We clean up the pots and dishes, then get on with the immediate business of renewing old acquaintances. Ted comes by, as always in a tattered felt hat and a 6-day stubble beard. Ace retells his guide's tales of clients with buck fever and big ones that got away. The other regulars join us. The coffee pot perks and the bottle is passed, but the main course, as always on these September evenings, is the conversation of old friends. The jokes and the stories have been heard before, but the laughter is genuine.
          Purposefully, I draw my seat next to Ralph's. I once read that Jack Nicklaus returns to his boyhood teacher each year and takes instructions in the rudiments of golf just to keep from drifting too far from the basics of the game. For me, the guru I seek out is Ralph. Consistently he catches fish. He is the first to leave camp in the morning and the last to return, and couples persistence with a thorough if unspectacular mastery of the basics of fly fishing. Ralph explains his success with a few simple truisms, such as "Keep your fly in the water." His advice seems an oversimplification until I consider the amount of time I spend fishing when my fly is not in the water.
          I look around the campfire at the circle of faces and try to see myself through their eyes: 20 years ago, I was the kid my father brought along on his fishing trips. It was exciting for a boy to be in their company then, so very much larger than life seemed their abilities. I smile to myself, and realize that it is just as exciting to be accepted as one of them now.

          The dawn mists cover everything; the rods, the table, even the spent moths lying by the lantern. Against the wet and chill of morning, my sleeping bag whispers the last strains of a slumber tune. But outside, the river also sings to me. Yawning, I sit alone and undecided until the smell of frying bacon drifts through the tent. There is no denying the power of that aroma, and within minutes I am outside, fully dressed, engaged in breakfast conversation over the rim of a coffee cup.
          "Today's the day." We all assure one another.
          "Fishing's been slow, but they lowered the gate at the dam a few inches during the night," reports Ace. Indeed, the sound of the river is markedly different with its increased flow. This, everyone agrees, will improve our luck and "bring the big ones up". Optimism and coffee seem to go well together these fishing camp mornings.
          My father and Uncle Hank drive up to the dam. There is little argument that the rips below the spillway hold more salmon than any other stretch of the river. But they also attract the most fishermen.
          Today, I'll pass. Instead, I fish a place called Warden's Camp. It's a spot I've been fishing in my mind all during the previous months of waiting. The swift water is a serious challenge to any fisherman, and the place simply looks like salmon water as pictured in a fishing tackle ad, with rapids tipped with white foam against a backdrop of dark firs and hemlocks. The first time I ever fished here I ran into an old timer while I was negotiating my way around some beaver slashings. He was hunting woodcock, and with his classic-looking setter and well-worn double, he might well have stepped out of the pages of Burton Spiller. Perhaps the fact that neither of us saw a rival in the other's presence allowed us both to be more candid than usual—I split an apple from my lunch with him, and he showed me how to determine the age of the woodcock he had taken. He smiled when I confessed my envy of his experience, and joked that he'd gladly trade it for a few years of my youth. We parted with a handshake. His memory remains a part of this special place, and I find myself listening for the clear tinkle of his setter's bell whenever I fish this stretch of the river.
          After a few hard frosts the river takes on a different complexion, below the surface as well as above: The spawners are in. Such is their single-mindedness during autumn mating season that mature salmon can't be bothered with minor things like eating. The fly patterns that so effectively appeal to their appetites during the spring are ignored now. Yet, for some reason, a big and ludicrously colored streamer will occasionally provoke a vicious strike. I start at the Warden's Camp with the biggest streamer in my fly box.
          A landlocked salmon, even a small one, is an exhilarating fish to catch. But the first fish to take my streamer is not a salmon but a brook trout. In his breeding colors he is astonishingly beautiful. The season on trout is closed on Maine rivers during the fall, so even though he would fit nicely into the camp frying pan, I ease him off the hook and watch him swim away. A two-pounder like that would rate a photo on the sports page of my hometown newspaper, yet, here in the land of spawning giants he is simply a lovely incidental—a fish that isn't a salmon. Such is the stuff of devalued currency.
          Mike fishes with me today. His perfect casts run out in smooth, tight arcs. Realizing full well that bottom fishermen take more salmon with weighted streamers, Mike continues to use finesse techniques with un-weighted flies. Others may catch more fish, but few derive more pleasure from their fishing.
          I happen to glance downstream as a salmon breaks water in a short jump. I smile inwardly and return my attention to placing my fly behind a mid-stream boulder. After a moment I wonder if Mike saw the leaping fish, and when I glance toward where he is fishing I see him climbing over a deadfall, rod held high. It takes another long moment to realize the two events are connected. As I stare in astonishment the fish makes another jump and a white line speeds along Mike's rod and out into the river—He's already into his backing and scrambling to keep up with the salmon's run.
          Quickly I reel in, lay my rod aside, and, taking up the landing net, start off to help Mike. After I've gone a dozen steps, I remember to hang my hat on a sapling. It's not unusual to end up half a mile from where the fish was first hooked, and only the memory of other anxious searches for mislaid gear prompts me to mark the spot.
          Mike has moved around a bend in the river, out of my sight. I climb over the deadfall where I last saw him, moving as quickly as my cumbersome waders permit along the rocks and boulders on the river's edge. 300-yards farther downstream I catch up with him: He is standing in mid-river, over his waders, holding his rod high to clear a snag of fallen trees. Most of his backing has been regained, but Mike is in a deep-water stand-off with the salmon on the far side of the snag.
          I balance my way out along the horizontal tree trunk and take the rod my partner hands to me. Suddenly, the fish makes a run back around the snag, taking half the backing with him and jumping twice along the way. If it were my salmon, I'd be whooping with excitement, but I feel I've been entrusted with something important and hang on doggedly. I work my way back off the deadfall, and when I pass the rod back to Mike he is grinning at the worry in my face.
          The salmon makes one more short run, upriver this time, then, as if he has saved his best for last, makes one final spectacular jump that carries him 5-feet above the surface of the river in an end-over-end leap. Mike keeps a tight line, and minutes later I ease his first-ever salmon into the net.
          We measure and weigh the fish, take a souvenir photo, then admire his colors and hooked jaw as he lays in the landing net regaining his strength. Of my fishing acquaintances, only Mike shares my belief that the big trophy fish should be returned to the river. It's a practice I've often wished I could apply to my autumn bird hunting.
          The salmon swims away sullenly at first, then splashes his tail and disappears into deep water. Mike claps me on the shoulder and laughs a "Thanks!" Then we turn and start off to find a red hat hanging on a sapling somewhere upriver.
          My father and I spend a day drift fishing along a serene part of the river. We take turns with the canoe paddle. I am in mid-cast when my father whispers "Hold it!" and points to what appears to be a school of fish paralleling our course. When they break the surface I recognize them as otters. They play a game of tag under the canoe, swimming in and out of our shadow, and follow along with us for 100 yards. The speed and nimbleness they show underwater dispels any doubts I might have regarding their fish-catching abilities. Then, as suddenly as they appeared, they are gone. I reel in and take up the second paddle. We have to put this stretch of water behind us: Enjoyable as the performance was, it has ruined any fishing we might have had in the vicinity.
          My father is using a new graphite rod that seems suited to his style. With little breeze to dampen his casts, he works the boulders and deadfalls expertly. We drift by the mouth of a brooklet, and as he plies the eddies I see his rod tip jump. "There's one..." He speaks quietly, and retrieves his line with a false cast. I ease the anchor over and move forward to steady us in the current. Ahead, the water is still dimpled from the strike, and as my father's line settles I find I am holding my breath. There is a sudden, almost predictable rise of his rod tip, but for a long moment nothing happens. Then a small "V" of wake begins behind the point where the line enters the water, and moments later the drag on his reel begins it's one-note complaint. The fish goes deep across the bow of the canoe, then shows himself in a leap that leaves me dumfounded—he's huge. Three acrobatic jumps later the salmon succeeds in snapping the tippet, but he leaps twice more, trying to shake the Col. Bates streamer still visible in the corner of his mouth. For a half-minute we both sit motionless, eyes glued to the dissipating ripples of the giant salmon's last leap, hoping to see him just one more time. Ted brought in a salmon several seasons ago: its tail dragged in the gravel when he held it at his hip, and after we put it on the scale we knew what a 6-pounder looked like. My father's salmon was bigger. Yet, following the loss of the fish, there is no angry outburst or loud curses from my father. Instead, a shake of his balding head and a smile. Were our positions reversed, I'm not sure if his son could have shown as much class.

There has to be a reason that a bunch of grown men will pack-up and drive 9 straight hours in a cramped truck, then sleep outdoors and swat bugs for a week. When asked, I usually say it's all for the sake of catching a salmon. That, at least, is the simple version of the correct answer. A more complete reply would have to include, among others, the Canada jays and red squirrels that quickly make off with any unattended food in camp and the fledgling mergansers and buffleheads on the river and the porcupine that chewed out the sideboards on the outhouse. The family of otters that enchanted us that sunny afternoon would figure prominently in my answer. And the martin I once saw. Part of the answer, too, is the inky blackness of the Maine night when the nearest street lamp is 50 miles away, and the forest without Styrofoam cups and beer cans littering its floor. And the river... Of course, in every hour of the day—the river. The evenings of old stories and the genuine laughter, shared with old, genuine friends. But of all the reasons I come here, I count as paramount the opportunity to share it with the man who first showed it to me years ago.

Our last evening in camp, the northern lights put on a show in the night sky. Long after the others have returned to the tent I linger on, fascinated by the green curtains of light that dance between Andromina and the Dipper. Both the starlight and the aurora are reflected in the he quiet pool below camp. I close my eyes, wanting desperately to record the scene, but my mind is filled to capacity with images from the past week on the river. I recount them all, one by one, as I watch the display, and realize that the melody that the river plays in the background is also a part of each of them—it is September's song.

We say our farewells. There are the usual idle promises of holiday get-togethers and correspondence, but we all know we'll not see or hear from one another until we turn into the campsight at the river's edge next September. If the fishing has been less than spectacular, it matters little: I'm bringing back a full measure of what I came here for. I take a last long look around the campsight. If I pause until the others grow impatient, it is because I know that as soon as I climb behind the wheel I'll begin the long journey to next September.

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This site was last updated 09/21/06