I spent most of this fall getting over betrayal from the ex, sucking at school, drinking entirely too much and quite frankly doing nothing productive. I caught one salmon and a dolly all fall, but I managed to build a rod, tie a few flies and come up with some dreams for the the future that require nothing from anybody but me. I started realizing that I was defined by fishing and every lesson I could learn about life could be gleaned from my lessons fishing. All of this came to late as the trout were under ice and the salmon were rotting by the time I needed the river. Finally I was able to get back to the cold part of Alaska, the part that is all ice and very little water. Went to a hot springs deep in the woods, soaked in a tub with the air temp -25 and the water 110° I saw old friends, I spent time with family, it all was good, but I still wasn’t happy.

Day one we arrive at the ferry and we were able to walk across the river which would be over our heads in the summer and fish the most fished stretch of water in Alaska, maybe the world, last year I caught a 24 incher here the day before the solstice, we work the water downstream, no fish, I’m nymphing a big flesh fly, S is throwing streamers, really big streamers, I’m dubious, but he is sure that techniques for Madison browns with translate to the pennisula I’m not one to argue this kid consistently outfishes me, I’m not sure its saying much about him but whatever. Today I worked down to my favorite winter hole and for some reason looked down at my fly patch covered with 3 months of torn up flies, one little nymph struck my eye as flies often will, I tie it on, dubious, its the middle of winter, the water temp is 36 and quite frankly why would a fish move for a size 16 caddis rather than a 6 inch long piece of rotting salmon flesh? Anyway I tied it on and fished it with confidence. Finally I get to the sweet water, this little deep slot next to a seam. My bobbercator starts dancing I set and work to tighten the line and get her on the reel, a few head shakes and I know this is no potatohead silver but a rainbow trout. She runs I bow my rod and let her take line and savor the click of the reel. I lead her into shallow water and admire her spots and her girth. Her mouth is torn but they all are like that, but like a woman you must love her today and not think about who she’s been with before, you must be happy to be with her today.

Day two I pick up M and N, who grew up together, I met them in high school where they constantly berated my crappy mending skills, and hid flies from me which I just learned how to tie this week 8 years later. We drive bleary eyed down to river, fueled by fast food and red bull we chatter about women and work. We tell fish stories that might actually be true. Our conversations usually end up leading to bowhunting and how awesome we are because we shoot stick bows (leaving out the part that non of us have harvested any big game animal with a bow), we talk ourselves up, perhaps trying to convince ourselves as much as each other of our greatness. We rag on folks who use bead, we talk about how manly swinging streamers is.

We get to the river and try a spot that looks good every time we float by but we never seem to catch anything there, we wade across the river, seeing the sporadic silver but catching nothing. I give a poor spey casting demonstration. Everyone tries to figure out the C spey and we finally get around to fishing what looks to be prime water without so much as a hit. We wade back across the river, that a year ago I could hardly wade into. The water is so low one can see where mid-river sockeye dug redds. I look at the cut bank I fished green drakes last august. I remember that night, driving to the south to get a burrito in town, and talking to my ex, back when she talked to me, joking and laughing like nothing had happened between us. Me hoping she would let me back into her life, her probably hoping I wouldn’t ask her to. Talking to me out of guilt or something. We climb over the ice bank and pile back into the van and drive looking at the lake seeing if its frozen, which is just an excuse to go for a drive and warm up our feet.

We stop at a store, pick up a six pack of mountain dew, some chips and salsa, and I buy a beef stick. We eat our lunch and drink our caffeine and sugar (M drinking four) and drive to another little spot. We stumble down a bluff and start walking downstream. Instantly 6 or 8 silvers spook leaving large wakes in the cold green water. “Let fish it,” N says and we cast.

Instantly all three of us have a fish on, M and I have silvers, N on the other hand has what we are looking for, I had M my rod and he fights two fish at once while I tend to N and his fish. He leads it to shallow water and poses for a photo

The barbless hook slips out and the fish swims away, I get back to my rod and fight my fish. M lands his I land mine.

We catch more cohos and eventually get cold and head home, buzzing with the joy of fishing. Driving through the cold dark night, stopping for gas at a ski town laughing at the suckers who paid $40 to ski for a day in the rain, I wonder what those folks with their goggles around their necks and snowpants on would think of us with our waders with lanyards holding hemostats and tippet around our necks. We go to N’s house and we make buffalo burgers, drink good beer and talk like we had just met.

My good friends and I can talk for days before we run out of things to say, maybe years, we don’t need each other for anything more than getting each other on the river and having someone to brag to who will understand. We plot and plan, the next day, the next week, the next year. We talk about adventures we want to take, give each other advice, give each other crap. The conversation sometimes gets serious, I talk about my ex, how much she hurt me, N talks about his dad who is sick, M is eerily silent about his time in Iraq. We don’t understand each others demons but some times its good to let things out to someone who can smile and nod, offer some kind of lame support, or change the conversation to laughter.

The next trip is with the same crew, we find N who is semi unemployed in his house, his girlfriend wishes him well and and gets ready for work, surely secretly wishing it could be her heading to the river instead of him. Backpacks and fly rods are loaded in the car and we are off, stopping for a new fishing license, a breakfast burrito and a 12 pack of mountain dew. Guiding the car I drove in high school down the highway. In the pre dawn glow we drive, back to the river.

The cold burns my lungs as I stumble down the bluff, my fingers stung from the breeze. This time M caught the rainbow.

We caught plenty of cohos too, big toothy bucks, in full spawning colors, ragged from fighting. Aggressive enough to take absolutely anything including a popper. I don’t much like fishing for salmon, especially when they are this old. Salmon are food, or money, or nourishment for the trout. Its my belief that because they don’t feed catching them and releasing them weakens them to a point that they sometimes cannot come come back and spawn. I especially don’t like fishing for salmon who aren’t aggressive, who won’t chase a fly. Sure I like fighting a really big fish, its a beautiful thing feeling the throbs of a 20 pound salmon at the end of your line, but I feel so cheap force feeding them or flossing them like you must do to catch them in a lot of cases. I’ll do it to feed my family or until recently my ex girlfriend (who’s salmon is now sitting in my freezer, as barter I hope), I’ll even keep one to eat myself once in a while. I do get a bit of pleasure from being good at catching my limit quickly so I can get on to more important things (like trout fishing) but, given an unlimited supply of salmon I usually don’t even bother fishing for them. In January, when its cold and you know you are in for a good 3 months of not having a tug on the end of your line they are great fun to catch, even though I feel guilty every time I hook one, but not quite guilty enough to break them off. I play them as quickly as I can slide the barbless out and let them swim back to fight with each other some more then when something happens to the water temp or something they spawn.

I let each salmon go and look at the mountains cloaked in white. I think about how lucky I am to live somewhere with ample salmon to catch. Where there aren’t 15 dams between them and their natal gravel. Where commercial gillnets can take sometimes 90% of the adults and the habitat is so productive that the remaining 10% will produce runs of the same size. I wonder if it will be like this forever, if we can stop the population of people from exploding. If my children or children’s children will have the room they need to roam to connect with nature in the way I am blessed.

I will lay in bed tonight, missing her feeling like I imagine it feels when someone loses an arm in war. I feel like she is there but open my eyes and she isn’t. The weight of the world will weigh on me, the plight of the peasant in Haiti brings me to tears. I will remember my friends who have had loved ones die, I will huddle under my blanket and try to forget about what I have lost, reminding myself that my life is good, heartbreak is nothing compared to what others go through. Maybe I won’t sleep tonight even, but I know tomorrow the sun will rise, and that river will be flowing and I will hopefully hold a part of it in my hands for a second or two, and love it. I will love the moment, and my demons will vanish, my thoughts will be clear, and my time will be my own. I will love what I have, and not resent what I don’t.