Independence Day

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Perry Palin
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Joined: 12/07/12 13:34

Independence Day

#1

Post by Perry Palin »

Candle Creek slid out of a small lake and into a swamp. Those of us who tried to fish in the swamp were turned away by walls of willows and leaning alder tangles, and hummocks of sharp swamp grass and by hidden holes along the quaking banks. In the surrounding woods it was no better. Outside the swamp the sharp dead branches of black spruce stung the backs of our hands and our faces, and even when the wounds were small they hurt long after the blood had ceased to run to our fingertips and chins. The swamp surely had brook trout, but we couldn’t fish for them there.

The creek ran for miles before it reached the first bridge at a narrow gravel road. At the first bridge Candle Creek had gained in size and ran quickly over small gravel and smooth worn rocks between long shallow pools. Alders hung over the water but there was enough room for a cast. The brook trout were there in the spring, having come down with the snowmelt from the swamp. The trout averaged ten inches, a modest fish for a modest stream, but there were bigger ones too.

In the spring the water near the bridge was fished by people who came out to fill their frying pans. By the end of June the trout were scarce or shy near the road, and the better fishing was at the end of a pretty walk through the woods, with its bird songs and deer tracks and the surprise of ruffed grouse. It was further than most of the fishermen were willing to go.

The Fourth of July dawned warm and humid with a light breeze and an overcast sky. Summer school was out for the day and I was off my student job. It was a fishing day. I reached the Candle Creek bridge at mid-morning. An older sedan was parked at the side of the road. I drove over the next short hill to the trail leading upstream. There was a late model Jeep at the trail. I parked behind the Jeep, got into my hip boots and picked up my gear, and started for the creek.

Most of the fishermen would reach the creek and fish upstream from there. It was pretty water and it had its good times. Just short of the creek I shouldered my way through a stand of young balsams and broke out onto a level, easy path on an overgrown woods road used eighty years before to carry the big pine logs to the mills.

The path ended in a half mile and I cut down to the stream. I followed a game trail through the woods to a long pool where I had caught many fish in the past. I fished it carefully from the shallow tail and I caught no trout and saw no trout. This was an unpleasant surprise.

I reached the alder thicket that turned almost all fishermen aside. I was a mile from the road. In another two hundred yards I would reach the site of one of my summer camps. The camp pool was the best of the water, with a high bank on the west side and a big maple leaning over the deeper water. The east bank was lined with alders but there was enough shallow water to wade for a short cast to the current at the head of the pool.

I broke through the brush to my camp and I saw a man in the water, fishing from beside the alders. I was deeply disappointed to see him there. He was surely the reason I had caught nothing below the thicket.

He heard my approach, turned, paused, and greeted me in a false friendly voice. He looked at my old clothes and my budget fishing outfit and he looked as unhappy as I was to not have the stream to himself. “Well, how are you doing?” he said. “Are you catching the fish?”

“Not yet. I’ve been walking until now and I thought I would start in this pool, but I see it’s taken.”

“Well, I’ve been getting a few.” He cast into the shallow current on the right side of the pool and a small trout grabbed his fly. He pulled it in, the fish splashing on the surface, held it out of the water too long as he unhooked it, and dropped it in the water near his knees.

He was using an old bamboo rod, wore hip boots and a clean, new vest, and a tobacco brown fedora with a soft crease in the crown. He had a trim gray mustache. He had stepped out as far as he could from the right bank. The alders cramped his back cast. He maybe didn‘t know there was a tongue of shallow gravel leading from the tail toward the center of the pool, offering an easy cast to the water under the maple branches.

I watched him for a couple of minutes and said, “I’ll go upstream a ways, if that’s okay with you.”

“Sure. None of us owns the water. Go ahead.” He hesitated, and then said, “Why don’t I get out and let you fish this pool. It’s a pretty good one, and you’ve come a long way to get here.”

I frowned and said, “No, that’s all right. You were here first. The pool is yours. I’ll give you some room before I start fishing. There’s some good water above here, some good pools, and then a little tributary comes in from the left. I won’t fish until I get above that.”

“Do you know where the brook comes in? Wow, you really know your way around, don’t you.”

“I’ve fished here before.”

He smiled at me. “Have you ever fished the brook? Wow, what a place. There’s some good fishing up there!”

On earlier trips I had followed the brook upstream. It was narrow and shallow and choked with alders where it joined Candle Creek. Upstream there was a shallow beaver meadow with some small trout. It was a nursery stream for Candle Creek. “Hmmm. I don’t know.”

“You should try it. I’ve had some great fishing in that little brook.” He flashed a nervous smile. “Nobody goes up there, and there’s a lot of fish. I mean really a lot of fish, and some big ones, too.”

“Well, since you’ve had such good luck on the little brook,” I said, “I think I’ll leave that to you. Really, you like that water, and you say it‘s the best. I’ll go up the main stream. You can fish up from here, and then through that good water on the brook.” His smile fell into a frown. I turned and stepped onto the game trail that followed the stream, and I walked fast enough so the man would not be able to climb out of the pool and get ahead of me.

I started fishing about a hundred yards above the throat of the brook. Here Candle Creek was short riffles and shallow pools crowded by alders. The stream was smaller now that I was above the brook. The fish were not biting. I caught a couple of small fish but the fish were not biting.

I fished slowly through the shallow water until I reached an old beaver meadow. The dam was gone and the beavers were gone, and the stream wandered between banks covered with swamp grass. At the old dam site the bottom was gravel, shading into silt toward the banks, and deepening upstream to what once was the floor of the beaver pond. I waded out as far as I could and began to work my fly through the water of the pool. The fish were not biting.

I was using a gray and yellow wet fly, a pattern that I had developed just for this stream. There was no reason to change. If the fish wouldn’t take this fly, they wouldn’t take another.

I was discouraged. I wondered if I should continue upstream, or give up and head back to the road. Then there was a change. The small birds stopped calling and the air was quiet and still. Then the treetops on the hillside to the west began to move with a hard new wind. Leaves and small sticks flew off the trees. The wind worked down to the stream, and a bank of dark clouds pushed in over the trees. With a flash of lightning and quick loud thunder, and the roar of a sudden wind, a white wall of rain came to catch me. I could not retreat to the bank before the rain reached me. I turned my back to the storm and the rain hit hard and cold. I hunched my shoulders, held my rod low and parallel to the water, and hoped that the rain and wind would end quickly.

The first of the rain was the hardest, but then it settled into a steady, cold rain that soaked my hat, my shirt, and my jeans, and ran into my boots. The lightning moved on to the east. Standing in the rain I realized I was hooked to a fish. I pulled in a brook trout of about eleven inches. It was a surprise.

I unhooked the first good fish of the day and slipped it back into the water. I shivered in the rain, but I wasn’t done fishing. I roll cast my fly back into the pool.

The second fish came with a rush and a pull. It was bigger, about thirteen inches. As long as the rain fell the brook trout took my fly from just below the surface. The rain stopped after about forty minutes. When the rain stopped and the wind died the fish stopped hitting my fly. I caught seven in the meadow, the first one being the smallest of them. They were deep bodied, dark fish with orange bellies. I waded to the shallow water at the foot of the pool and climbed out onto the bank.

On the hillside the dead branches of the spruce trees pulled at my clothes. I circled to the east and walked through birch trees and aspens. The sun came around the clouds for the first time. When a breeze shook the leaves in the trees I was wet again with the rain falling from the trees. The walking warmed me and I reached the old woods road at three thirty in the afternoon.

driftless angler
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Joined: 11/09/18 14:49

Re: Independence Day

#2

Post by driftless angler »

Great writing Perry!

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Holland
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Joined: 05/06/01 19:00
Location: Ouachitas & Ozarks

Re: Independence Day

#3

Post by Holland »

Always a pleasure Perry; just like being there...

Perry Palin
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Joined: 12/07/12 13:34

Re: Independence Day

#4

Post by Perry Palin »

Thank you, gentlemen, for the kind remarks.

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GerardH
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Re: Independence Day

#5

Post by GerardH »

Great story, Perry...most appropriate to bump it up for this weekend.

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Flykuni3
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Re: Independence Day

#6

Post by Flykuni3 »

Great story, thanks.

NewUtahCaneAngler
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Re: Independence Day

#7

Post by NewUtahCaneAngler »

Let us know when you publish a book. Great story.

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GerardH
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Location: Wyoming, MN

Re: Independence Day

#8

Post by GerardH »


Perry Palin
Master Guide
Posts: 408
Joined: 12/07/12 13:34

Re: Independence Day

#9

Post by Perry Palin »

Thanks, NewUtahCaneAngler for the comment,

Thanks, Gerard, for the links.

I don't know if the publisher has any in stock anymore. I have a half a box of copies in my fly tying room, if anyone wants one.

I have enough material for a third collection of short stories, and I've written a novel, but i haven't been looking to publish anything for a couple of years.

headwaters
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Re: Independence Day

#10

Post by headwaters »

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks!

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teter
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Joined: 12/21/04 19:00

Re: Independence Day

#11

Post by teter »

That is some nice writing.

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