Autumn

What is the feel of autumn? The canyon color is at its’ peak right now.  I've spent more time in this canyon this year, than any other year; by far.  It has all been either painting or hiking.  Possibly the record snow fall is accountable for the blaze of colors, splendid oranges, glorious reds and unearthly yellows.   At times I've hung my head in wonder at the beauty of it all, especially when I have tried to put it to canvas.  I know the color of autumn; I know the smell of autumn as well.  Today I put the brushes away, hid the hiking boots, instead I grabbed the four weight, a box of dries, a DMD and off I sped.  As I strung the rod streamside, sitting in the warm sun enjoying a slight breeze touch my face, I realized why I fish, why I’m afflicted with this disease.  I realized I didn’t even need to catch a trout. I still don’t.   “What is the feel of autumn?” I don’t mean tactile, I mean emotionally. To me it is a beginning.  Even though it may be the beginning of the end, nature seems alive. Every living thing seems bent on being alive, totally and thoroughly alive.  Just as I was; standing in the cold water.  What is the feel of autumn? It feels like a cutthroat.

Sausage

The Summer of 1985 found me on my maiden voyage to western North Carolina and to pay passage, I gained employ at a meat packing plant. Hogs rolled in from Iowa and bacon, sausage, ham and eventually scraps for the dog food plant left the building. I had the distinct honor of working on the sausage line, packing little boxes of sausage into bigger boxes. I learned first hand that summer how sausage was made, to this day, I don't eat sausage.

John Deere Gator HPX-1

I hit Wilson on a sunny morning with the first hints of fall in the air. The delayed harvest should be underway I surmised. But after slogging through my favorite runs and spying only a couple of perch, I got back in the car, confused, bemused, bewildered and began the long dirt road back to civilization. As I passed the "old mill" turn out, I spied a couple of guys and a truck with a state agency tag, sitting around a gator with a big rectangular box strapped to the back. I pulled down for a closer look. If any question remained, the large long handled shallow nets leaning against the gator subtly answered. I pulled by and backed into a parking space, still in my waders and rod stung up and stowed from the back head rest to the front passenger floor board. I sat there for a few minutes, not sure what to do and pounded out an SOS on my Ipad to Pablo, but there was no signal. A few minutes passed and an old man in an older Subaru pulled up and spoke to the men. I rolled down my window to hear the reply, "They start right up there at Harper's bridge, didn't you see them? We're waiting for them to get down here."

I felt strange, like a rubber necker at a car wreck, but I had to go,I had to see it for myself. I drove to the bridge and pulled inconspicuously off the road just before the bridge. Through the trees I saw two guys hoist nets brimming with wriggling trout from the truck's tank and jog down to the stream. I didn't actually witness the spawn, but I heard it. I heard the splashes, and saw them jog back up the bank, nets empty.

I was still sitting in my car when they drove by me. I felt ashamed and looked down at my lap. They seemed to want to pull off the road just past me, so I pulled forward to accommodate them. I pulled right where they had been parked. I waited, I waited for them to be around the corner, out of sight.

The little angel on my shoulder told me to break my rod down, peel off the waders and head for home. But some disgusting, ugly, dark part of me, the part I try to keep buried deep in my subconscious, took over and I walked, rod in hand, in their very foot steps, stream side. Never has the bend of the rod and whir of the casting line left me so flat. No more than 5 casts later, I gave into my good side and packed it in. Maybe leaving fishless could redeem me from giving in to the dark side.

MMMM GOOD!

The joyless ride home was full of questions. Profound, soul wrenching questions. Yes, I have known for years that my delayed harvest trout are not real, they are as synthetic as this keyboard, as cyber as this blog. But I had never had to see the spawn, I'd never experienced the absolutely hollowing scene I'd just witnessed and I wondered. I wondered if I could ever eat sausage again.

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after the fact, I realized I fished on Friday, not Saturday... sssshhhhhh.... don't tell.