“God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.” – Genesis 1:25
It had been a good day on the Salmon River. I had spent it well, casting to steelhead on their fall migration – leaving the dark depths of Lake Ontario to the bright shallows of a swift river. They fought hard when hooked, launching like gleaming chrome missiles into the air, then landing with a crash, fighting and flashing in the clear water. They held in the runs and in the riffles. We sight fished to them, their long dark shadows cast on the river’s bedrock, as old as time.
Jimmy Kirtland, my able guide, led me up the steep trail to the parking area of the private access water we had just fished. The sun was bright on the day, lighting up the fall colors around us. Above us was a canopy of robin’s egg blue with wisps of cloud that foreshadowed the coming rains so needed.
We soon reached our trucks and unloaded our gear. I was good tired – we’d been up at it before sunrise, and I knew I’d need a large coffee for the 2-hour drive home.
Adjacent to the parking area was a lodge, a rustic pine sided house perched atop the crest we had just climbed. It looked out to the river, the long tumbling run, and the riffles and pools of churning water that are the home of the steelhead.
The beautiful run at Whiskey River Lodge in Pulaski, NY. Pic courtesy of Whiskey River Lodge.
I sat on the tailgate of the truck, peeling my waders off. Out the door of the lodge emerged two older women who had been cleaning the place before the next check-in, followed closely by a large red lab. I was immediately struck by the dog’s appearance. It trotted out with waving tail, head held high, sniffing the autumn air. Jimmy greeted it, corralling it in his arms as he knelt down. “Come here, you” he said as he embraced the big tail-wagging dog.
I watched it all and quietly held in the emotion that was building inside me. A year ago, almost to the day, we had put our Maddie down. In her last years she suffered with arthritis. She declined in health rapidly in the month I moved with her to our new home on Lake Ontario. It was as if she was holding out so we were settled before she left us. She had gradually lost the use of her hind legs, her once muscular hind quarters now withered, leaving her unable to stand. When we tried to pick her up, she’d nip in protest. Maddie would never bite any of her humans, so we knew the pain was bad.
I’ve written here previously when we first brought Maddie into our lives. She and her three brothers were rescued from a high kill shelter in Darlington, South Carolina. They were brought north to a rescue in Greene, NY and it was there that we found Maddie. As a family, we had gone without a dog for years. It wasn’t time, my wife said, there was too much going on. And then Ellen saw an ad with Maddie’s puppy picture, and it was all over. Suddenly, we had to have a dog.
Those eyes…
The two women were loading their truck with cleaning supplies, while the red fox lab milled about, anxious to jump into the truck. I watched this beautiful dog, all the time thinking of Maddie because there was so much likeness, and then my cell phone buzzed with a text. Dressed down from fishing, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to read the text. Jade, Peak’s Stone in Love (JH), had given birth. In the text below the comments were two pictures – one, a pile of black and chocolate puppies, just hours old – the other of Jade, lying exhausted as her litter of 10 happily nursed.
A pile of puppies. The two chocolate males have a brown and dark green collar. One of those will be our Finn…
Jade, nursing her litter of ten
In early spring of the year, I had gotten a serious itch to start looking for another dog. The void that Maddie left was just too big. For months I’d come home to an empty house, expecting her greeting. I missed the soft summer evenings when I’d relax with a cigar on our deck while Maddie snoozed on an adjacent deck couch. In the cool evenings of early autumn, Maddie loved the backyard fires we had. She could be a dog of boundless energy with her wild antics, but she was also a champion of chill.
Lady serendipity looked down on me that day. Like the steelhead migrating up the Salmon River, Finn came as Maddie’s parting gift. The river teaches that every return is also a beginning, and so it is with the dogs we love. Maddie’s spirit will live on in Finn, a reminder that love never leaves—it transforms.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.
Oscar Wilde
On a daily walk in my new environs – Lake Ontario, its tributaries, ponds and wetlands – I stopped to watch a man as he fished the shoreline of Long Pond. He was fishing with a micro spinning rod; it’s length a bit more than the micro spinning rods used for ice fishing. On his second cast and retrieve, his little rod bent over with the pull of a nice fish. After a brief but vigorous tussle, he brought to hand a substantive white perch – thick and stout in body. Subsequent casts produced a few more of similar size. After witnessing his success, I felt compelled to talk to him about his unique fishing method.
Long Pond looking south from Edgemere Drive. Photo credits: Dick Halsey.
His name was Andrew, and his heavy accent hinted at Eastern European origins (he later revealed that he was from Belarus). He was of medium stature, fit, slightly balding, and he stood with an interesting stance as he fished, a fencer with his spinning rod extended like a foil.
A large white perch. Picture courtesy of wired2fish.com
I watched intently as he cast his tiny rig and then worked his bait to shore. His casts were 20 to 30 feet and ended with an open bail and upward lift of the rod to put more slack in the line. Then he’d stand in that fencing pose, rod held straight out to the side as he slowly retrieved his rig. The retrieve started with a series of rapid jigs of the rod tip, followed by a very slow retrieve and a pause. He repeated this all the way to the shoreline, then cast again at a completely different angle.
An example of the type of micro spinning rod used by Andrew.
Closer inspection of his lure revealed that it was nothing more than a small split shot above a size 6 – 8 hook, on which was threaded a ruby-colored, segmented, and very thin, soft plastic worm. The little worm seemed to imitate a bloodworm.
A soft plastic bait similar to what Andrew used.
I continued to talk to Andrew as he fished. It was not that he wasn’t forthcoming with answers to my questions, but he struggled with each sentence, bearing down with a grimace that looked like he just drank a very strong shot of whiskey, followed by stuttering and then finally the words that he wanted to speak. It was painful to watch, and I almost regretted asking him anything for the effort it required to respond, but he was enthusiastic and it was obvious he loved angling as much as he wanted to share his secrets from “his country”.
Among Andrew’s many “laws” on fishing were the following:
Fish when the wind is out of north or calm – this was purely to facilitate casting his ultralight rig. The line he was using was likely 2 lb. test and if casting from the shore of Long Pond, a south wind would have made it near impossible.
He claimed the fishing was “never good in summer”. I think this was more of a statement on the types of fish he was after, primarily perch. Yellow and white perch come into Long Pond to spawn each spring via an outlet that joins the pond with Lake Ontario.
Keep moving and cast in various angles – Andrew could not understand anglers who “camp” in one spot and fish that spot all day long. He emphasized that he would thoroughly cast the half mile shoreline up and down many times in the course of each outing.
Have confidence in your rig and method and perfect it like fine art. Andrew claimed he was a professional angler back in Belarus. I’m assuming this meant he competed in tournaments and based on what I witnessed, he was very effective at his craft.
Andrew showed me pictures of some of the fish he had been taken in the course of a week. Among the many big perch were truly sizeable walleye and sheepshead (freshwater drum).
I finally left Andrew to his fishing, not wanting to delay him from enjoying his morning trip. As I continued my walk, I reflected on my infancy with the long rod and the hubris I developed regarding what I considered “lower” means of fishing. But over time, I changed my perspective, realizing there was a lot I could learn by watching conventional anglers, like Andrew. Their tactics clued me in on better ways to fish the fly, fly choice to imitate their own baits, color or action choice, and the amount of weight to use to fish the water column effectively. Even when I could not exactly match their tactics, watching them gave me better insight into the bite and made me a better fisherman. Indeed, these days I find myself often watching anglers around me as much as the water, the hatch, or signs of fish feeding. Andrew was just another good chapter in the book of imitation. And after watching him, I was soon envisioning adapting his technique with a one or two-weight fly rod, fine light leader and 6X tippet, and a fly all of my own to imitate a bloodworm…
In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.
Norman Maclean
Every once in a while, fly fishing connects with the universe in strange but meaningful ways. For me, the term “universe” is another way of referring to my faith. I am Catholic and as such, believe in heaven. Certainly not all fly fishermen have the same view, but I think, religious or not, we all tend to believe in some form of the hereafter. Such was what I read from comments on Facebook when I was shocked to learn that Ithaca-based fly fisher, Michael Lenetsky, had passed unexpectedly on September 19.
Josh said it best – Michael collected people, and it was overwhelming to see all the people that he befriended come together. Michael cast a wide, diverse net and it was on display today.
This sucks. I’m finding we are all like the Mayflies, here but for a brief, fleeting moment. Tight lines, brother. See you on the water my friend.
Unforgettable. Until we meet again my friend, but for now he’s gone fishing.
I knew Michael as an excellent angler with a great sense of humor. I didn’t know him well enough to call him a friend, but he was certainly a good acquaintance. If I lived in the Ithaca area, I’m sure I’d bump into him enough on the local waters to develop a deep friendship. I’d listened to a few of his informative presentations on fly fishing the Cayuga Lake tribs and had lunch with him once when I worked in Ithaca.
I was down in Vestal for a charity event with family on September 20th, unaware of Mike’s passing and remained in Vestal, “off grid” for the next few days, having decided to get in some early fall fly fishing on my beloved warmwater rivers. Each night before sleep leading up to my trip, I rehearsed the places I’d fish with anticipation that there would be some big smallmouth in the mix. Instead, the fishing was good in a different way, including a 15″ black crappie, a real unicorn in a river, and a very hot and repeatable channel catfish bite.
I fished the Tioughnioga on Sunday, September 21st, in a spot where there were always big carp mudding and channel catfish in a backwater hole, but caught neither, instead getting into a bunch of rat bass and fallfish, a respectable walleye and the aforementioned slab of a crappie.
Certainly a river unicorn…
On Monday, September 22nd, I floated the Susquehanna below the Apalachin access on the hunt for the large smallmouth that can be caught there. I landed a dandy 19″ bass almost immediately and a big channel catfish a while later but then decided to venture further downriver where I knew of some other bassy lairs. After a few hours of nothing, I returned to the first area I had fished that morning and working several deep runs, got into 2 more channel cats and lost a third.
19″ of river bronze…
I waded the river on my final morning and returned to the area where the catfish bite had been so good, hoping to prove that the bite was not a fluke. And it wasn’t. As was the case the day before, I fished several deep runs, working a size 2 wooly bugger on the swing, interspersed with staccato strips. The takes were hard, shy of ripping the rod out of my hand. The fight of a channel cat is a wonderful mix of a bulldogging smallmouth, and the powerful drag-pulling runs of a carp. I landed 3 channel cats and lost a fourth, all the while thinking of Michael.
The fish Michael was meant to catch…
I’d posted pictures of channel catfish in the past and Michael had commented that he wanted to learn how to fish for them. We had discussed this a few times on Facebook messenger but, regrettably, never made it happen. Now, as I fished, I felt a deep need to get in touch with him when I got home if only to let him know he needed to get down to the river as soon as possible to get in on the bite.
Returning home that afternoon, I got on Facebook to message Michael, and there it was in a post by Eric Mastroberti – the news of Michael’s passing. It hit me hard. It left me reeling with questions. I chatted with Eric Mastroberti on messenger about it, mentioning how strong my desire was to reach out to Michael after such good luck with the channel cats. Later, I’d find a Facebook post by another fellow angler, Kirk Klingensmith:
Sharing photos from the river in honor of my friend Michael Lenetsky, who passed away 9/19/25. I still have not processed his passing – but in retrospect, I am overwhelmed how the last week has connected to Michael, some incredible fish (Was Michael channeling??), and the circle of fly fishing community friends. On the day of Michael’s passing, I was floating the same section of river that Michael & Tony Ingraffea floated a few years back. It was Tony that gave us the news that day when we got off the water.
I’m not sure what Michael thought of heaven or where we go when our time on this good earth ends, but fishing that weekend in a river as old as time, feeling the surge of life on the end of my line, thinking of Michael only to come home and hear he had left us, well, that’s just too much to be nothing but a coincidence.
Part 1 of this post covered the first four days of my Bighorn River fly fishing trip in mid-September of 2017. My brother-in-law and I fished those days on our own and did pretty well. With some initial successes under our belts, we couldn’t wait to spend some time with guides provided by Eastslope Outfitters.
The Old Hookers Guesthouse – a true fly fisher’s home away from home…
We checked in to the Old Hookers Guesthouse on Tuesday afternoon. We each had our own well-appointed bedroom and bathroom and the run of the house. The house is a very roomy split level – the basement floor had a convenient walk-in to a rod/wader room and utility room, perfect for stringing and storing your fly rod, donning your wading gear, and grabbing a few for the road from the “beer fridge”. Adjacent to the utility room were two of the five bedrooms in the house and a very comfy family room. The conveniences provided at the guesthouse impressed me – cleaning supplies of all types, a stack of cloth patches for line cleaning, and even spare waders and boots, if needed. Upstairs was another family room with fireplace, large kitchen, and dining room, as well as 3 more bedrooms with private baths.
Kent, Jeff’s co-worker and part of the original “10 year group”, had joined us on Sunday afternoon and fished with us on Monday. Kent arrived minus a prized fly rod, lost somewhere in the luggage on the flight to Billings. He was able to replace it with a brand new Sage, on sale at the Billings Cabelas. On Tuesday, the rest of the group trickled in – this included Dave, another of Jeff’s coworkers, and Jace and his daughter. The group represented a diverse mix of angling experience, from beginner to advanced angler. Fortunately, Jim and Joyce’s team of guides handled the mix of experience exceptionally well.
After everyone settled in, our cook prepared hors d’oeuvres and the beer and wine began to flow. This was a nightly ritual. Jeff and I had considered fishing that first evening, but we knew we’d be up early, so we decided to relax with the rest of the group, enjoy dinner, clean our lines, and get to bed early. It was customary for Jim and Joyce to stop by every evening around “happy hour” and check in with guests – a very nice touch. Besides getting to know their guests, they also used that time to make arrangements for the next day, including pairing anglers with guides.
Wednesday started early with coffee and a light breakfast and it wasn’t long before the guides pulled up, drift boats in tow. For my first day, Jeff encouraged me to fish with Jim, aka “Stretch”, while Jeff went with guide Jason and fellow angler Dave. Kent accompanied me for the day. Jace and his daughter went with Tyson. The two wanted to fish together and Tyson ended up being a perfect match for the mix of their fly fishing abilities.
Looking downriver at daybreak from Jim’s drift boat.
Jim does double-duty as Eastslope co-owner and guide. I was eager to fish with him: Jeff had nothing but raving reviews from previous years and claimed Jim could see fish where none seemed to exist. We launched that first morning from the 3-mile access and were soon drifting downriver while Jim talked about the plan for the morning.
Jim, left, rigs Kent up with a tandem trico dry fly set-up.
Jim talked about the trico hatch and the area of the river we’d fish. He rowed us downriver past cattle, grazing on the aquatic grass, and white pelicans getting set for their own fishing. After a 30 minute drift, we anchored along the river bank and got out to wade and sight fish. Jim set Kent and I up with tandem trico dry flies. He preferred to fish the dropper on 6X tippet. In his opinion, this removed doubt as to whether 5X was too much and putting the fish off. He also used desiccant on the flies pretty regularly so they would float well. He started me fishing and then walked with Kent upriver to get him situated.
Looking upriver on the Bighorn, with Kent fishing along the weed edges. Big pods of browns cruised upriver feeding in much the same way Jeff and I had observed on our first days on the river.
Eventually, Jim waded back down to me. He scanned the river for fish, his height and slightly stooped posture making him look like a big blue heron on the stalk. It wasn’t long before he sighted some browns slurping the steady downstream drift of trico spinners. He had me quietly move into position below them, then instructed me to put the flies just 6″ ahead of the fish at the tail of the pod. It was maddening seeing these fish feed with reckless abandon and at times almost bump my fly as they took the real thing. But both the odds and fishing Gods were in our favor: I watched my point fly disappear in a rise. “Set” was the word Jim loved to use to tell you when to set the hook on a take. And following his timing cue was a sure way to stick a brown.
Kent points to a mat of spent trico spinners pooled up in the river edge weeds.
I landed two nice browns under Jim’s guidance and though I was pleased as punch at the early success, he wasn’t satisfied with the number of shots I was getting. The pods were very sporadic in his opinion, popping up, going for a few minutes and then vanishing, reappearing elsewhere. He told me to continue to look for rising fish while he headed downriver to scout out another area. I managed another hook-up before he called me from the high riverbank to tell me to follow him downriver. He led me to a nice run below the broad tail-out where we’d previously fished. As we waded back upriver, I could see a large pod of fish – at least a dozen or two – gulping tricos along the weed edges. Jim had me work the lower fish first. The tandem rig did its job and we picked away at the pod, yielding many quality browns in the 16″ – 18″+ range. Partway through the morning, Jim had me change to a glass bead sunken spinner. This fly would sink and the lead trico emerger would act as an indicator when a trout picked up the sunken fly. It worked like a charm and I enjoyed a little dry fly indicator fishing.
Jim gives my new Orvis Helios 2 6 weight fly rod a test cast. He loved it…
The hatch began to dwindle as morning faded. The pods of voracious browns were gone except for an occasional and sporadic riser. Jim suggested we move on down the river.
We strung up our streamer rods and began casting. Jim pointed out one area where a fellow guide had a client hook into an 8 pound brown – the biggest of the year it turned out – that they fought quite a ways down the river. But this big fish went to a “hacker” – a client with little fly fishing skill. Jim’s guide friend had wished it on someone like Kent or I. Beginner’s luck is apparently alive and well even on the Bighorn River!
Kent and I didn’t move a fish with streamers. We stopped bankside for lunch and enjoyed a delicious venison meatloaf sandwich, salad, chips – a gourmet river meal if there ever was one (word was Jim makes the lunches). After stuffing ourselves, we pushed off and drifted downriver, ready to give nymphing a shot.
Jim anchored his boat tight to a high bank and along a fast and deep run. He rigged Kent and I up for nymphing with an interesting sliding weight, similar to a steelhead slinky but much smaller and made with lead putty. The nymph rig was “tractor trailer” under an indicator. Initially Jim had planned on using scud patterns, but Kent wanted to try the split case PMD that had performed so well for me when I was fishing on my own.
The split case PMD – a very effective Bighorn pattern…
I wondered whether the split case PMD would work wonders like it had originally for me. It didn’t take long before Kent was hooked up, validating the nymph’s effectiveness. I started hooking up as well, including a really nice rainbow lost at the net.
Kent, seen here, is nymphing the deep and fast run just downstream from where we anchored for lunch.
We ended the day fishing streamers to the takeout. Once again, the streamer bite was not there, but after a lot of fish in the net, it was nice to just cast away and enjoy a beautiful river. Jim proved to be a great guide – knowledgeable, wise in the ways of trout, patient, and fun. His forte is dry fly fishing, so if the hatches are on, he’s the guide you want for at least one day on the Bighorn.
An abandoned farmhouse on the Bighorn River…
Jeff had fished with Jason that first day. Relatively new to the Eastslope stable of guides, Jason was also knowledgeable, professional, and very capable. Jeff had good fishing with Jason and my second day of guided fishing would certainly validate that.
Jason picked us up bright and early on Thursday and discussed his plan of attack as we drove to the river. We would fish the same red bluff area that he’d taken Jeff to the previous morning. The hatch had been good there and the fish were willing. After that we’d fish streamers.
We reached the red bluffs and anchored up. Jason sent Jeff upriver to a spot that had some fish already working. He then climbed the steep bank with me in tow. We walked a trail downriver to a spot where the feeding was on. We descended below these fish and carefully waded up river towards them.
Jason rigged me up a little differently than Jim had. In Jason’s world of dry fly fishing the Bighorn, there was no need to use less than 5X tippet and in some cases he preferred 4X or even 3X. An interesting aspect of fishing with multiple guides is that one gets exposure to a variety of fly fishing methods, techniques, and tactics. Some differ significantly in their approach and views, but all of that is good for the angler who will listen.
Jason used his own flies and I could immediately tell he was a skilled fly tier. We fished a tandem rig of trico spinners and emergers. He had me work the pod from the tail but once again, the fish I hooked did not seem to spook the other risers. Jeff and I fished the hatch well, netting numerous good fish, losing some as well. Jason taught me to pick up the slack after every cast and to stay relatively tight to the fly to ensure a good and quick hook-set. It turned out to be a stellar morning.
As the morning hatch petered out, we set out downriver and switched over to streamer fishing.
Jeff hangs out in our drift boat while we break for a shoreside lunch.
Jason set me up with a sparkle minnow streamer (his own tie) as the lead fly.
The Sparkle Minnow had amazing movement and flash.
He then tied off the first streamer an 18″ section of tippet to which he tied a smaller streamer called, of all things, “the grinch”…
The Grinch – a streamer that might not steal Christmas but certainly will steal some trout…
Together, these two flies seemed like a perfect one-two punch; the sparkle minnow moving the fish and the grinch giving any hot trout a second chance if they missed the lead fly. Most fish were caught on the grinch but a few couldn’t resist the sparkle minnow streamer.
Jason was an excellent streamer guide, calling out where and how we should fish the river as we drifted. He’d say, “I want you to fish left here, give it a 5 second count”, “be ready to cast to the bank”, or “pick your flies up while we drift through this shallow riffle.” We fished the deep parts of the river using a sink-tip line, letting the flies sink up to a 10 second count depending on river depths. Jason also had us pounding the banks on a relatively short and fast cast. The visual of watching a nice brown peel off the bank to chase down a streamer made the repeated casting well worth it, even if they didn’t always take. Jason explained that when fishing the bank, you want to cast slightly behind the boat (upstream) so the fish has time to intercept the fly naturally and turn with the current rather than making the fish chase upstream. He also corrected my long strips, instructing me to work the fly in very very short staccato strips that better imitated baitfish movement. He explained the rationale very simply: how many baitfish can out-swim a big brown? By the end of our float, Jeff and I had done reasonably well but Jason felt the bite was off.
Thursday evening was windy with big gusts firing off the mountains and roaring across the river valley. Dust was blowing everywhere – a sure sign a front was coming through. Sure enough, as forecast, Friday dawned very cold and rainy – highs dropped from the 90’s to the low 40’s in just 2 days! Jim and Joyce’s advice to pack and be ready for almost any kind of weather was spot on.
Jason picked Jeff and I up early Friday morning at the lodge. As we drove out of Fort Smith he discussed his plan. He was concerned that the heavy overnight rains might begin to cloud up the water and that it would only get worse the farther downriver we fished, so rather than start at the 3 mile launch, he wanted to launch at the Yellowtail dam access, drift and strip streamers, then pull out at 3 mile and do another loop.
The after-dam access. This is the highest up the river you can launch on the Bighorn.
We were fine with the plan. Once we launched we were immediately hit head-on with a stiff cold wind that came right up the river. Though Jeff and I had foul weather gear on and had layered up under our waders and rain gear, the rain wet any exposed skin and the cold winds soon numbed fingers and faces. Neck gaiters and wool hats helped, as did the heavier work of casting and stripping tandem streamer rigs on sink tip lines.
Jeff cinches down while guide Jason re-ties a streamer. Jeff, from Northern Cal, was not so used to this type of fishing weather. For me, a north-easterner, it was not so bad. As the saying goes, “there’s no bad weather, just bad clothing“…
Despite the weather, I enjoyed the streamer fishing. Jason set me up once again with the sparkle minnow streamer as the lead fly and the grinch riding tail gun.
We picked up some fish, mainly browns in the deep pools, and then came to a river braid that Jason felt might hold some good fish. This braid was often overlooked apparently. We anchored at the end of the island and wade-fished the braid. I could see some fish periodically rising to something very small but nymphing this stretch was not moving any fish. After a while I asked Jason if I could try throwing a streamer. He was all for it so I pulled out my Helios2 6 weight and gave it a shot.
I walked up to the top of the braid and made casts across and up, letting my streamer sink and swing down. Occasionally I short-stripped across, and sometimes I did this on the swing. Just below the head of the braid was a large log-jam and perfect cover for trout. I worked my streamer through this area and had a solid splashy take.
The first of 6 trout from Jason’s river braid…
Repeated swings down the length of the braid and below where the water cut into a red clay bank brought many strikes – some short and some solid – for a total of 5 browns and 1 rainbow.
This rainbow smashed the sparkle minnow on the swing.
We continued our drift, throwing streamers, and hit the 3 mile pull-out at noon. We were pretty wet and cold and per Jason’s suggestion, drove back to the lodge to eat our lunch in the comfort of the dry and heated rod and wader room.
Jeff was done with fishing at that point. His rain jacket had been not much more than a wearable sieve to keep the big raindrops out; he was soaked through from the driving rain. I was pretty dry and wanted to give the fishing another round.
And so we went – just Jason and I – back out into the gray cold rainy afternoon. It was the same drill; casting, stripping, casting again, but oh how good it was to get out one more time. I caught some nice browns and lost a really good rainbow that I considered a final “thanks” offering to the river.
We all left the lodge the next day for home. I was the only one heading eastbound – the rest traveled westbound by plane or car. By 2 o’clock that afternoon, I was wing-borne and climbing high over Montana. From my window seat I got one last look at the khaki high desert landscape marked by little veins of green and gold. Then we were in the clouds and the last good country was gone. But, like Hemingway’s own northern Michigan woods, I now realized that one never really loses such a place.
Ernest Hemingway posing with a nice trout caught from the East Branch of the Fox River. This river was the river portrayed in his classic short story, “Big Two-Hearted River.” And it was the very definition of Hemingway’s “last good country.”
Credit: “Ernest Hemingway Collection. Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston”
My thoughts turned to fly fishing the Bighorn: the pods of rising browns, the trico hatches so thick they looked like rising smoke over the river, the sight of an indicator plunging down in fast water, the savage strike of a big trout intercepting a streamer on the swing, the company of friends, good food, a cigar and bourbon on the deck, the sun setting ablaze on high desert mountains, the good tired feeling after fishing hard all day, a worn-out casting arm, and the unfailing work of great guides. And I decided then, I’d return as long as I could to refresh my fly-fishing soul in my last good country.
It’s great northern air. Absolutely the best trout fishing in the country. No exaggeration. Fine country. Good color, good northern atmosphere, absolute freedom, no summer resort stuff and lots of paintable stuff. —Ernest Hemingway to his friend Jim Gamble, 1919
I recently got a chance to escape the rat race and spend a glorious week on the Bighorn River in Montana. It’s the second time I’ve gone, and once again I am already missing it: the broad khaki river valley marked by clusters of green and gold cottonwood, the high desert mountains, and the red cliffs that bound the river. Of course there are many rivers in Montana and great trout fishing, but the Bighorn has found a place in my fly fishing soul; a soul that needs rekindling with future visits – hopefully lots of them.
This blog post is in two parts – Part 1 covering the first 4 days of the trip and Part 2 covering the remainder. The first part of the trip was unguided – the second part was done with a great outfitter and each day’s fishing was with a guide, fishing from a drift boat.
My brother-in-law Jeff hanging in our drift boat after a stop for shore lunch.
As I have been drawn to the Bighorn, so was Ernest Hemingway to the woods, lakes, and rivers of Northern Michigan. His family purchased a cottage on Walloon Lake and summered there every year from the time of his birth. The place made an indelible impression on Hemingway: one that shaped him as a man and provided a well-spring for his work as a Nobel prize-winning writer. Hemingway referred to Walloon Lake and the surrounding area as “the last good country”; a place he held near to him even later in life as he spread his wings and set up shop in more distant locales like Key West, Bimini, Kenya, Idaho, and Cuba. One of Hemingway’s great short stories, “Big Two-Hearted River” takes place in Northern Michigan, and it is one all anglers should read.
I first fished the Bighorn back in 2007 with my brother-in-law, Jeff. On that trip, the two of us fished for 3 days with the same guide (who still guides there – Ryan Stefek), and we experienced incredible fishing, mainly through nymphing. I was somewhat new to the game of nymphing, armed only with the basics. I knew how to mend and at least attempt a drag-free drift. I learned a lot of skills from our guide, among them how to keep flies clean, how to set on any hesitation of the indicator, and how to do the reach cast. As I recall we caught 20+ good quality browns and rainbows a day, with double hook-ups on the drift a somewhat regular occurrence. I landed a few big rainbows too, some in excess of 20″.
As good as the fishing was, I had not returned since, but Jeff had, fishing with a regular group of anglers over the next 10 years. These anglers found Eastslope Outfitters, a husband-wife fishing and hunting business catering to anglers and hunters in the Bighorn valley. Jeff had invited me along several times, but I declined for myriad reasons. That was a mistake.
I finally accepted yet another invitation way back in January of 2017. Reservations were made for the mid-September trip that at the time seemed so distant. Time passed: the month of August was consumed with preparation – prepping new lines, assembling leaders, and lining up my rods. I brought with me a favorite nymphing rod – my 10’6″, 4 weight, Cortland Competition Nymph rod with a double taper 3 weight line. Added to the mix would be my Scott A2 9-foot 4-piece 5 weight for dry fly duty – this was the “veteran” rod that had served nymphing duty and a little dry fly duty on my previous trip. But suddenly I was confronted with a streamer rod void.
I own several great streamer rods but they are all 2 piece 7 weights. I needed a 4 piece 7 weight so I could pack all my rods in a duffel bag. I considered building a 4 piece 7 weight, but time just ran out on me. I looked over alternatives and read an interesting post on the Bighorn Angler website about their favorite gear. Tucked within the words of wisdom in the post was a blurb about the 9 foot 4 piece 6 weight Helios 2 being a really great streamer rod and a good back-up nymph rod. This rod is built for saltwater use as well and has a fighting butt. That made it even more appealing – a very light fast action (tip-flex) rod I could fish streamers with and use double duty for light saltwater use (a great rod for ladyfish, redfish, sea trout, and pompano). And so, I purchased one…
Trip preps were made in January but August came quickly. I began to get my gear in order in the weeks ahead of my flight. Lines were checked and cleaned, leaders were replaced, and a book on Bighorn River fly fishing was purchased and then read and studied. The book, Fly Fishing the Bighorn River, by Steve Galletta, proved an excellent guide to fishing the river. Jeff and I would be fishing the first 4 days on our own, and while Jeff was very knowledgeable of the dry fly game, I wanted to be ready to do some nymph and streamer fishing as well.
Steve Galletta’s book on fly fishing the Bighorn proved well worth the read. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to fish this terrific fishery.
We arrived in Billings on Saturday and I was immediately surprised with two things – the high heat and the haze in the air as a result of forest fires. Our outfitter had warned to be prepared for anything, from high heat, to freezing and snowy conditions, and everything in between, and that advice would prove right on.
After picking up our rental car and stocking up on beer and liquor (Fort Smith is dry!), we drove the 1.5 hours to Fort Smith where Jeff had set up at a nice motel room. We checked in, picked up some dry flies at one of the fly shops, and headed out in hopes of cashing in on the evening black caddis hatch. We fished from the 3 mile pullout and while the black caddis seemed to be hatching just fine, the trout were either busy subsurface or not interested in this epic hatch. It would turn out that the black caddis dry fly action never really turned on. Locals, including guides and fly shop staff had no explanation for the lack of surface feed on this prolific hatch.
We returned to our motel room, drank beer, and readied for the trico hatch, an early morning hatch that could involve millions of these tiny mayflies and lots of trout hungry for them.
Brother-in-law Jeff, relaxing on a hot evening after setting up for the morning trico hatch.
That first morning of fishing was every bit as good as I could have hoped it would be. Jeff and I arrived at the access point a little late compared to what we’d do the next few days, and combined with being a Sunday, the parking lot was already pretty busy for 6:30 am. We fished our 5 weight dry fly rods with a 9 foot 5X leader. Attached on the business end was a size 20 spent-wing trico followed by 12″ – 18″ of 5X tippet and a trico CD emerger.
A spent trico spinner
The tandem rig worked well but visibility was difficult in the early morning darkness. We would later fish a dark trico CD emerger followed by a white winged trico emerger. The dark / black lead fly was often easier to see. Regardless, fishing a tandem rig increased the odds of watching the drift and obviously increased the odds of an eat.
A CDC trico emerger
Jeff with a nice “trico” brown. That fly rod is one I built for Jeff.
Jeff was off to the races the very second we were rigged up at the car and and it wasn’t long before we were huffing down a dusty trail that wound along the river. It was already on the warm side – in the 70’s – and we had decided to wet wade. We came around a bend in a river braid where the river had gouged out a nice deep bend pool. We were a good 6 feet above the water and looking down I could hardly believe my eyes.
A nice male Bighorn brown caught on a #20 trico dry…
From my perch on the elevated bank, I could almost touch a pod of nice browns with my fly rod as they gorged on the spent tricos drifting down the river. We quickly and carefully descended on the feast and I hooked up but then lost a solid fish as it fought in the heavy current below. We moved upriver and began to cast to steady risers. The action lasted 2 hours, waning in the last 30 minutes. The sun climbed and the morning heat began to press down on us.
Looking upriver at a tailout where browns and rainbows feasted on the early morning trico hatch. Note the big mats of aquatic grass – signs of the water’s fertility.
We enjoyed a late breakfast at “Trico’s”, appropriately named, and then wandered the fly shops in “downtown” Fort Smith. I stocked up on some nymphs I had read about in Steve Galletta’s great book, namely the poodle sniffer and the split case PMD. Both nymphs would turn out to be outstanding patterns and helped me dredge up quite a few browns and rainbows in the hot afternoons. Both flies featured triggers – namely the green wire on the poodle sniffer and the bright yellow spot on the PMD.
The poodle sniffer…
The split case PMD…
Fished in a tandem rig below a few split shot and an indicator, these nymphs seemed to outfish the standard scud and sowbug patterns more typical of Bighorn nymphing. Black caddis were certainly around in the evenings, so I figured a pupa pattern would definitely be about in the afternoons, and PMD’s (pale morning duns) could be seen hatching in the afternoons.
On successive hot afternoons I had some beautiful sections of the river around the access all to myself, save a few drift boats passing through. I found a nice run on a river braid that featured fast water entering into a deep hole with an undercut bank. This too was heavy water but not as fast as the main river section it fed.
The upper end of the run. Farther upstream was very fast water.
The lower end of the run where it rejoins the main river channel. Note the weedy frog water in the foreground.
Rigged with a split case PMD as my anchor fly and a poodle sniffer on the trailer, I worked my nymph rig through the fast water at the head of the run. I adjusted my indicator for the depth, and it wasn’t long before the indicator plunged forward, and a nice rainbow launched out of the water. As fast as it was on, it was off. What followed was steady action. I worked the run from head to toe and there was no shortage of affection from browns (the majority), rainbows, and one stocky whitefish…
Bighorn brown
This rainbow could not resist a split case PMD
The only “whitey” of my trip. On my first trip on the Bighorn, my first fish was a whitefish. I remember our guide lamenting – a curse on the trip. In both cases, whitefish actually seemed to bring good luck for me, anyhow. And so I welcomed this one…
My first day of nymphing proved excellent – my second day was even better, with 15 trout landed and quite a few lost.
The dry fly fishing also got better. On the following mornings, Jeff and I were up earlier, walking to the river in the dark with the moon high above. Being prepared the night before and rising earlier meant choice fishing locations. Wading wet was delightful, and easier, but the first hour or so was pretty chilly. Most anglers who dressed in waders enjoyed the morning coolness but wilted as the sun climbed high in the morning sky. Daytime highs were hitting the upper 90’s!
Jeff casting to early morning upstream risers. He loved the rod I built for his 60th and it showed in his tight-looped casting.
We had the dry fly fishing dialed in nicely by the second morning. Sometimes the trout would school up in big pods and just wander back and forth across the river, slowly pushing up river, snouts up. It was an amazing sight that made one’s hands shake and fumble with excitement when tying on a fly…
Another beautifully marked Bighorn brown…
The fish were not spooky when in “full feast mode”. With just a little stealth, one could easily approach behind a working pod. Most times, even hooking up did not put the pod down.
Can you see the brown?
Jeff and I fished the river on our own until Tuesday – we then moved from our hotel room to the Eastslope Outfitters lodge. The last time I had fished the Bighorn with Jeff, we started off with guided fishing and ended up with a day or two fishing on our own. I felt good about our first few days of fishing success and now looked forward to fishing under the tutelage of Bighorn River experts.
I went fly fishing on Father’s Day, as I normally do, but this year I fished a new stretch of river with another fly-fishing father and, befitting the day, learned to appreciate on an entirely new level, what dads bring to this world.
Father river – a pretty stretch of the lower Otselic River
Father’s Day honors fathers and for us fly-fishing fathers, it’s a day to fish without that nagging guilt that the lawn needs mowing, the front door needs painting, or the honey-do list needs some attention. Us father fly-fishers should recognize on “our” day that there are other fathers among us – fathers of the fishy kind. Some are not known for their fatherly qualities, while others are role models for all species, the humankind included.
If you’ve fished any of the warmwater rivers of the Southern Tier or even some of our coldwater rivers and streams – the Salmon River included – you might have noticed large piles of stones of the same size that stood high and possibly even dry above low summer flows.
A fallfish nest this size means there’s a big daddy fallfish around
You also may have wondered how these stones came to be piled in one spot. The answer is as old as the Native Americans of the Hudson Bay region who called this interesting fish, “Awadosi” or “stone carriers.”
These fish are often called chubs or suckers by anglers not familiar with them. But upon hook-up, this feisty member of the minnow family puts on a show reminiscent of a nice brown trout or smallmouth bass. Black-backed, silver-sided, and streamlined, these flowing water dwellers put a good bend in a fly rod and can be taken on streamers, wet flies, nymphs, and even dry flies. They can attain sizes of over 18″. In fact, the former New York state record is a 19-inch fish that weighed over 3 lbs., and was caught in the Susquehanna River near Apalachin, NY. This record was recently broken by a 20-inch, 4 lb., fallfish caught by an angler jigging for walleye and northern pike on the St. Lawrence River.
Yours truly with a very nice sized fallfish
Besides the piss and vinegar the fallfish displays on the line, this species has a unique fatherly devotion to its offspring.
A dandy of a fallfish that hit a streamer on the swing
Every spring, fallfish feel cupid’s arrow, and spawn. Water temperatures and seasonal light patterns provoke changes to mature males. Their heads turn a beautiful bronze to claret color and develop small breeding tubercles, also called “horns”. These horns actually shed after the spring spawn. The horns possibly play a role in nest defense and stimulation of mates.
The fallfish spawning ritual consists of the male moving over a pit or trough he has excavated and by trembling in place, sending sexual signals to the female. The female swims to the side of the male and deposits her eggs, releasing between 1,000 to 12,000 eggs. Timing is critical because fertilization occurs externally in flowing water. But it’s after spawning that the male fallfish truly comes to the fore of fatherhood.
When spawning is complete, the male selects and totes stones with his mouth and stacks the stones back into the pit over a two- to four-day period. The mound created may contain thousands of similar-sized stones. Big fallfish move larger stones and make huge mounds. The somewhat-circular mound of a large fallfish can measure up to six feet in diameter and three feet in height. The male covers the pit and eggs with stones presumably to prevent predation of eggs and suffocation of the eggs by silt.
Sometimes you’ll find a series of these nests spaced apart in a row in line with the current flow. During my trip to the Otselic River, I saw several areas with 3 – 5 nests in a row. It’s a pretty amazing sight to see, particularly in regard to the size of the larger nests, remembering they are built one stone at a time by a minnow that must swim in current while doing it.
A father’s work
Fathers are part of the whole of the human dimension: dads wouldn’t exist without moms and vice versa. In the fish world, there are fathers that simply broadcast, others that help, but the fallfish, like a truly good father, builds and protects. Next time you’re out on one of our local streams or rivers, look for that pile of stones. And if it’s a big pile, be sure to work a nymph or streamer through the faster water, runs, and pools. One never knows where the next state record might be. But be gentle. That big fallfish has many more stones to move and progeny to protect…
On the mainland of America, the Wampanoags of Massasoit and King Philip had vanished, along with the Chesapeakes, the Chickahominys, and the Potomacs of the great Powhatan confederacy (only Pocahontas was remembered). Scattered or reduced to remnants were the Pequots, Montauks, Nanticokes. Machapungas, Catawbas, Cheraws, Miamis, Hurons, Eries, Mohawks, Senecas, and Mohegans. Their musical names remained forever fixed on the American land, but their bones were forgotten in a thousand burned villages or lost in forests fast disappearing before the axes of twenty million invaders. Already the once sweet-watered streams, most of which bore Indian names, were clouded with silt and the wastes of man; the very earth was being ravaged and squandered. To the Indians it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature – the living forests and their birds and beasts, the grassy glades, the water, the soil, and the air itself.
Dee Brown
Last month I enjoyed a two-day spate of good fly fishing for stocked brown trout in a small put-and-take fishery in northern Broome County. The weather was much un-like March with temps reaching the mid 60’s by late afternoon. With those afternoon highs came little black stoneflies, fluttering clumsily to lay eggs on the water, bouncing off the creek’s surface as if suspended by silly string from above.
I’ve fished Nanticoke Creek in early spring for years as a general tune-up for spring, summer, and fall fishing to follow, just as I have it’s bigger and better brother to its west, Owego Creek. It’s stocked in late March with one- and two-year-old browns, the 8″ to 10″ one-year olds far outnumbering the 12″ to 15″ two-year olds.
A typical 2-year-old brown from Nanticoke Creek
Nanticoke Creek runs from its headwaters near Nanticoke Lake some 22 meandering miles to where it empties into the Susquehanna River. It averages 20 feet in width and has a gravel and rubble bottom, though lower reaches can tend to silt up. It flows through forests of hardwoods and majestic hemlocks above the junction where the East Branch joins the Main Branch. Below this stretch, its environs are more typically abandoned farmland and residential areas.
Nanticoke Creek is stocked at three points along its 22-mile length. The lower stocked reach consists of half a mile of mostly featureless water from the confluence with the Susquehanna River upstream to the Route 26 bridge. This section is stocked annually with around 840 year-old brown trout and 90 two year-old brown trout. The second stocked reach runs from Pollard Hill Road upstream to Cross Road and is stocked with around 1,780 year-old and 190 two year-old brown trout. The last of the three stocked sections is the East Branch of Nanticoke Creek, from the confluence with Nanticoke Creek upstream roughly a half a mile. This reach is stocked with 170 year-old and 20 two year-old brown trout.
Nanticoke Creek is considered decent trout water above Maine, NY: the farther downstream one fishes, the warmer it gets once Spring matures. I’ve been told by conventional fishermen that the mouth at the Susquehanna can be a great place to catch large muskies, that apparently lay in wait for hatchery candy to foolishly foray into the river.
Looking upstream towards the junction pool on a snowy winter day.
J. Michael Kelly, in his excellent book, Trout Streams of Central New York, rates Nanticoke Creek a 3 out of 5 in terms of its trout fishing appeal, noting that the creek is fished hard in Spring by Broome County residents but adding that “it’s reassuring, in this age, to encounter a decent trout stream that has so few KEEP OUT signs.” Indeed, according to the DEC, there are 1.3 miles of public fishing rights (PFR) along Nanticoke Creek and three official PFR parking areas.
Looking downstream on the Nanticoke towards the Ames Road bridge. This stretch is characteristic of the upper Nanticoke, which is a pretty little stream, in places flanked by deep hemlock groves that no doubt preserves snowpack and casts shade, keeping its water temps more suitable for trout.
By late spring the creek is largely forgotten by anglers, the stockies having been hammered for weeks, their destiny often a well-buttered skillet. Given the annual stocking Nanticoke Creek gets, there is always the possibility of a holdover. I remember one such fish reported at a TU meeting at well over 18″, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
Despite is piscatorial mediocrity; Nanticoke Creek is still worthy of respect. It is named after the indigenous Nanticokes, who by fate, were the first native Americans to have contact with Captain John Smith in 1608. While exploring Chesapeake Bay, Smith and his crew had sailed up the Kuskarawaok River. The Kuskarawaoks, later known as the Nanticokes, cautiously watched Smith’s ship from the shore, climbing into the trees for a better look. When Smith approached the shore in a boat, the Nanticoke answered with arrows. Smith prudently anchored for the night in the middle of the river.
Several Nanticokes agreed to serve as guides for Smith to continue his exploration of the Kuskarawaok, now known as the Nanticoke River. Smith described the Nanticoke as “the best merchants of all.” In Algonquian, the common Indian language of Northeastern tribes, the word Nanticoke is translated from the original Nantaquak meaning the tidewater people or people of the tidewaters.
Over time, of course, the Powhatan Tribes faced conflicts with European settlers. Some of the Nanticoke, tired and disgusted, chose to accept an offer from the Six Nations of the Iroquois in New York, Pennsylvania, and Canada. Though they were once enemies, the Iroquois promised the Nanticoke both land and protection. Starting in 1744, some individual families left in dugout canoes and traveled north up the Susquehanna River, settling near Wyoming Pennsylvania and along the Juniata River while others migrated slightly north into New York, where they established a settlement in what became the town of Nanticoke.
Someday I hope to bring my grandson to Nanticoke Creek so that he may feel the tug of a feisty brown on a fly on the swing. There we’ll spend the better part of a day in the quiet of the woods, where I’ll tell him about the indigenous people who once walked these same paths, hunting, fishing, and harvesting, far from their tidewater home. And maybe, if we listen carefully to the wind song of the hemlocks, we’ll hear them speak for themselves about the great beauty and provision that is Mother Nature, and so worthy of a future much like they enjoyed.
Years after my mother’s passing, I opened a favorite book and found a laminated recipe, handwritten in my mother’s perfect script, titled Fluke in Chablis Sauce, and, as with all things her, beautifully positive, ending with Bon Appetit! Reading it brought me back to the day we followed it.
That day dawned bright pink around the edges of the horizon. I was out fly-fishing Double Creek, a place where the tidal flood and ebb of Barnegat Bay etch deep channels in its soft shifting sands. I was fishing the back side of the dike, a man-made spit of land and a place of bayberry snags, sod banks, and with the west wind, horrendous swarms of biting greenhead flies.
An aerial view of Barnegat Bay. To the right is the inlet and at center pointing north (up) is the dike. To the left of the dike is Double Creek, the haunts of big fluke that hold below the channel edges, feeding up during summer.
Fluke, known as summer flounder in the south, are a favorite species of anglers there. They are a staple of summer fishing on Long Beach Island, NJ, a place of memories that still brings me back. Fluke enter the saltwater bays of the mid-Atlantic in early summer. They are drawn by the warming of the water and return to the home of their rearing with the turning of the season to summer. There they take up haunts, hiding in the bay bottom, perfectly camouflaged, ambushing prey. They are there for the plenty of the season, becoming larger and highly predatory as they grow into their 12 – 14 years on this good earth.
Some fluke caught party boat fishing – my nephew Jake in the middle and my father to the right.
These were the early days of my mother’s shining light dimming. She stood beside me as we followed the steps of the recipe, adorning two large fluke fillets from my morning trip with the recipe’s contents, a work of art to be delightfully enjoyed and not forgotten. At this stage in her disease, my mother was still “with it” as one might say. You could forgive her repeating or forgetting things, but you could not forgive where it would go.
We worked together, my mother executing the small tasks I gave her with her usual precision, as she had once done the larger tasks of life, graduating high school valedictorian, marrying and bringing three children into this world, cooking, cleaning, editing papers, reviewing homework, running a sales office, and all else that makes a life.
We placed the dish in the oven, set at 400 degrees, and in 40 minutes, the baking was done. I retrieved and placed the platter at the center of the table, the Chablis sauce still bubbling, the ivory fillets simmering. I then ladled the Chablis cream sauce over the fillets, thin slices of lemon atop them. Mom was seated and seemed well-pleased with the meal. Garden-fresh asparagus was served alongside the plated fluke, with a spring greens salad. We all toasted the meal with chilled martinis.
I’ll selfishly admit it was a delicious dinner. The fluke was velvety mild, the Chablis sauce like butter with a touch of fruity nose from the Chablis. We sat and quietly enjoyed the meal – my father characteristically silent as he inhaled large portions of it – meaning it was very good. My mother ate at her piece, eliciting compliments all the while but never truly cleaning her plate.
Years after she passed, my sister and I shared such a meal during a visit. “You know”, she said, “Mom never liked fish”. I was dumbfounded – never had I heard or thought such a thing. She always raved, even when I prepared the strong-flavored bluefish we’d catch through summer and fall. But that was Mom – never self-indulgent, ever selfless. Always the focus was on you.
We had more meals of the bounty of the sea in the following years as my mother’s candle dimmed, and they were all good, but unbeknownst to me still then, not to her liking.
Stephen Covey, esteemed author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” once wrote about the social-emotional connection that is the foundation of so much of life. One father he knew, sensing his son’s distance, wanted to more deeply connect with his young son, who was a baseball addict. This father decided that he and his son would attend a game in every city in which his son’s favorite team played across the country for a year, an obviously huge commitment in time and money. Upon hearing the plan, Covey commented to the father, “you must really like baseball to do such a thing”, to which the father replied. “No, I don’t like baseball, but I love my son.”
And so it was with my mother to the last of her days, that she loved me far beyond her own likes, favoring my own, including the very fish I caught…
“From this day to the ending of the world, we in it shall be remembered. We, lucky few, we band of brothers. For he who today sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother.”
Henry the Fifth
The Doris Mae left the dock promptly at 7 that morning with a good mix of New Jersey’s and Pennsylvania’s best aboard. We shoved off with high hopes that big bluefish would be boiling in the chum slick.
F/V Doris Mae IV
The party boat passed Barnegat Inlet lighthouse close to starboard and her captain, Ron Eble, pointed the bow into the flood tide ripping through the channel. Eble throttled up Doris Mae’s triple turbocharged diesels to a roar, power you could feel through the deck. The horizon to the east was alight in a blaze of red, orange, and yellow. Fishermen huddled aft of the boat’s superstructure shielding themselves from the early morning chill, some smoking, some gazing seaward, others chatting enthusiastically about the fishing reports from earlier in the week.
I dressed in my slicker bottoms and boots. Fishing for blues when chumming is always a messy venture – there’s blood, bait and chum from bow to stern when the fishing is good, the mates ladling a a soupy mash of ground fish chunks and guts over the side and gaffing each hooked fish any way they can to haul them over the rail.
Blues…
We cleared the inlet and steered northeast to the Mud Hole, a big depression in the seabed known to congregate fish. It would be a long ride out, but past reports buzzed that it was the place to be.
After dressing, I went back aft and came upon three men seated around the top of a big cooler where a game of dominoes was in play. They joked and laughed with each other as men are apt to do when playing board or card games. I approached and engaged the apparent senior of the three in conversation. He was wearing a dark blue ball cap, with “US Navy WWII Veteran” embroidered on it. Thanking him for his service, I asked in a joking way what he had in his “water bottle”, the color of the liquid being the rich brown of bourbon. The old greying veteran let out a deep belly laugh in response. After talking about his service, the conversation turned to my own. “You see” he said to his two veteran friends, “I knew he was an officer”… The men chuckled as if they knew too.
We all talked on as the dominoes game unfolded. Before me sat a Navy WWII veteran, an Army Korean War veteran, and a Marine Vietnam veteran. We joked about the services represented – Navy men always having a clean comfortable bunk and hot chow at sea, the Army being second rate to the Marines, the Marines being a part of the Department of the Navy – the good-natured banter carried through the day even while we fished. And with that I felt that I was one with them, a privilege not forgotten and greatly treasured for these three barbers represented three generations of the best of America from three wars – WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam – all African American and all working out of the same barbershop in downtown Philadelphia.
Veteran’s Day is a day to honor those who served, who heeded the call, voluntarily or involuntarily, and who did what our country asked them to do, no questions asked. Three barbers served the span of some 30 years of military duty, fought far from home in foreign lands, across vast seas and I had the honor to enjoy their company that day. I’ll remember that trip for the opportunity to meet these three who fought and served, witnessed the best and worst of mankind, and returned home and settled into the everyday oblivion that is America.
The fishing was good – we slaughtered them – the blues as thick as thieves in the chum slick. But it wasn’t the fishing that engraved the memory of those three veterans in my mind, heart and soul. While fishing has its own bonding experience, there is nothing like the military that forms connections lasting a lifetime. Veterans serve their country but fight for each other, and in so doing, become a band of brothers.
I’d like to believe that I left the Doris Mae that day, and the three barbers, a lucky man, and luckier still if I had the honor to be considered by them, a brother in arms.
Men, it’s been a long war, it’s been a tough war. You’ve fought bravely, proudly for your country. You’re a special group. You’ve found in one another a bond, that exists only in combat, among brothers. You’ve shared foxholes, held each other in dire moments. You’ve seen death and suffered together. I’m proud to have served with each and every one of you. You all deserve long and happy lives in peace.
General Officer speaking to his men in the movie, “Band of Brothers”
Any little bit of joy or happiness that we have here is but a taste of the eternal happiness we’re going to have in heaven. But in order to achieve that eternal life in heaven, we must go through the process that we have come to call death. God has given us life that we should live it fully, live it completely, live it happily. God chooses the minute for each death and uses various circumstances to achieve that,
Father Vincent R. Capodanno, LT, USNR
Awarded the Medal of Honor, Posthumously
The book of a well-known psychiatrist I once read starts by stating that one of the greatest universal truths is that life is difficult. And that in overcoming the difficult, we live more fully…
That thought lingered in my mind as I left the small city of Binghamton behind on an early morning, crossing over the Chenango River on Route 17, and then slowly climbing the foothills that serve as the western entrance to that old and wise mountain range known as the Catskills.
Driving eastward in my truck, I crossed the upper Susquehanna, a river I’ve cherished on early summer mornings, fly casting across its riffles and plumbing it’s deep pools for smallmouth bass. Climbing further, I forged on into the promised land, soon crossing the West Branch of the Delaware in Deposit – a cold-water gem of a river for trout fishermen.
On I went, deep in thought, soaking up the trouty goodness all around my route, reminiscing about past places such as Hale Eddy, Ball Eddy, Fish’s Eddy, where I’ve loved fishing the quiet morning hours for wild brown and rainbow trout. But this day I passed all of them by, paying tribute to my best friend Bill and the loss of his dear wife, Pamela.
Bill lost Pamela to lung cancer and in life’s sometimes cruel twist of irony, Pamela never smoked a day in her life. After two years waging war against this shit-awful disease, she finally succumbed, leaving my friend with questions I could sense he thought but never asked; first and foremost, why a good God would allow the love of his life to be taken at the age of 61.
Bill and Pamela in their “happy place”, the Thousand Islands…
It had been a busy work week for me – flying out to Asheville NC to visit a supplier for 3 days, arriving home late Wednesday, going to work Thursday to catch up, and then making the trip east to Plaineville, CT, to attend funeral services for Bill’s wife.
Bill, Pamela, and their great pup, Fern…
While away on that business trip. I read a book about Father Vincent Capodanno, a Catholic priest who had gone on to become a Navy Chaplain, serving in Viet Nam in 1966 with the Marines. Oddly enough, Father Capodanno went to high school with my parents and so there was a bit more than a usual connection here, especially given my mother’s deep Catholic faith. My parents knew him; “Oh, Vinnie?” my Dad said when I brought him up in conversation. “We worked after school together – always trying to talk me into going to church…”
Father Vincent Capodanno started his priesthood as a Maryknoll Missionary. After seminary, he served as a priest in a number of missions in Southeast Asia. He served to his best ability as a missionary, trying to convert locals to the calling of the Catholic Church and teaching English in local schools. But eventually, as the Viet Nam War heated up, Father Capodanno sensed a calling to serve God more completely and directly. As the United States increased its involvement and commitment, the need for chaplains for all service branches increased as well.
“Stay quiet marine. You will be ok. God is with us all this day.” — Father Vincent Capodanno’s last words, speaking to a wounded marine on a battlefield in Vietnam in 1967.
Everyone has their own views on life and death and whether a creator somehow orchestrates our tiny lives, doling out the good and bad times at His discretion. And it is our human weakness, in my opinion, that causes us to doubt that there might be a higher story, a higher purpose, and a higher plan, to our short lives on this good earth.
I still wonder at my advancing age – perhaps will always wonder – where our lives end up, why they are as they are, why some so loved, so precious, like Pamela, can be flicked off like a light switch, leaving their loved ones open-mouthed, teary-eyed, breathless, sick with loss. There is no explanation in human terms, but I think Father Capodanno was deeply in touch with that higher being some of us come to doubt, especially on such occasions when someone so loved is taken, as Pamela was taken from Bill, and so many others – her family, friends, even those she brushed against passing through this life, like myself. I met her only once, at Bill’s father’s own funeral, another good soul taken from us too soon.
Father Capodanno saw more than his fair share of death while serving the 5th Battalion 3rd Marines in Viet Nam. He always went with his Marines into missions where intelligence predicted the highest risk of enemy contact so he could tend to the wounded and give last rites to the dying. He handed out cigarettes, candy, asked for stateside supplies of all sorts of items that might make his marines just a little more comfortable as they faced the peril hidden in the jungles, on the red-dusty plains, and the high hills of VietNam. On his last day of life, he tended to the mortally wounded, said last rites, and shielded the wounded though he was not armed. Enemy strength that day was reported to be at least 5 to 1. And Father was one of 127 of the 500 in combat that paid the ultimate sacrifice.
.And so Bill, this is how I know God is somewhere out there, and how He reaches us in strange ways, ways we can’t fathom to understand while on this earth. Indistinct and different points of life circle about us in our lives and then come together at times with gut-wrenching impact and sorrow, leaving us with a bit more wonderment, and if we listen carefully, with a bit more wisdom. It does not make it any less difficult, but that’s how I reconcile your loss of Pamela who deserved a longer life, a good retirement, and lasting love with you.
For my mother never directly mentioned Father Vincent Capodanno to me, never said she knew him, went to school with him, but I discovered him after remembering her comments one day about a Marine from Staten Island who died in Viet Nam and I found him just after Pamela passed, in a random book I took on a business trip. And in my own searching and wondering what might be passing through your mind, heart and soul, I found some calm in all of this, some presence in his words. Father Capodanno knew my parents, gave last rites to many Marines on their last day on earth, including one who died – a medal of honor winner from just down the road from where I currently live – and died way too early like your beloved Pamela, and it all came to me on a plane flying just a bit closer to him, high up in heaven, on a business trip…
Remember, in the worst of times, like the days you spent with Pamela fighting for her life, that God is with us always, and that you will be OK. And believe in the words of Father Capodanno, that God is with us this day.
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