Fishing Report

But I hate to fade away; and I'll only fade alone.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation uses scoria aggregate.

It’s red lava rock. The same stuff my grandparents put around their patio. And in Wyoming they use it in the roads.

It doesn’t show on a freshly paved road surface. But after a few years the iron in the scoria bleeds through to the surface giving the highway a reddish hue.

So when I drove down Highway US 14 south of Dayton WY—heading straight for a canyon cut through that seemingly impenetrable wall that is the east face of the Big Horn Mountains—the road looks like a long serpent tongue leading into the mouth of some great beast.

Dark clouds are building over the range. Gary Numan comes on the Spotify. Dark synths to match the dark clouds.

Gary sings to me,

And me, I eat dust We're all so run down I'd call it my death But I'll only fade away And I hate to fade alone Now there's only me

Now there’s only me. A guy fading away. And I’m fading alone. Driving into the Bighorns.

But am I fading alone? It seems like we’re all fading together.

The mountainous wall, and the clouds and the music give me a strong sense of foreboding.

I’m apprehensive. But not about what I’m driving towards. I’m more worried about the thing I’m driving away from.

But fuck it. I’m going fishing.

———

Men need an escape. Something that’s more than a hobby. Something to obsess about that’s not women or money or prestige.

Many turn to golf. But I turned to fly fishing. And I’m damn lucky to have it.

The Writer told me where to go. He posted a pic of a healthy Cutthroat Trout. I sent a DM and asked where he got it. He told me where to go, so I went.

He told me where to park, where to walk, and what to use. And then he apologized for giving me “TMI”.

I told him, there’s no such thing as TMI when it comes to fishing advice. Fly Fishing is a knowledge based sport, and it helps to have as much information as possible.

I hadn’t fished the Bighorns before. It’s far. Wyoming is a big place. Feels bigger than Montana. And it’s empty. Emptier than the great basin. And the Bighorns are far even by Wyoming standards.

I’ve been curious about the Bighorns for years—decades actually. But there was always something closer to explore. The Unitas, the Wind Rivers, the Rubys, the Never Summers, the Snowys, or the San Juans, the Sawtooths, and the Beaverheads.

There’s no shortage of mountains in the Mountain West, and as a Bighorn virgin The Writer’s intel was welcome.

My dad was an Angler. He loved to fish. I found an old pic of him from the 1960s.

Someone—I don’t know who—had posted it online.

It was him and some of his rockstar clients fishing in the Bahamas. The catch is spread out before them on the dock. Looks like Yellowtail to me, but I’m not that familiar with saltwater species. There’s a group of the men on the boat, Most are shirtless bearded rockstars. But my dad is dressed like the businessman he was.

All are enjoying themselves.

All are happy.

I didn’t know my father as a fisherman—as an Angler. I only knew him as an old man.

I can’t imagine him striding across a mountain meadow on his way to catch wild trout. I only imagine him as I knew him—old, and sick, and nearing the end. He didn’t have the energy to take me fishing.

It was my grandfather who taught me how to fish. While I’d consider him a generally principled man, his strong ethics didn’t extend to fishing.

I remember a trip with him and my uncle. They were so far over the legal catch limit that Fish and Game confiscated the boat and the rods. He had to buy it all back at auction.

My grandfather would use a fly rod, but to him it was just another tool in the toolbox. He’d fish bait on the fly rod. His favorite was live grasshoppers—just like Nick Adams in Hemingway’s short story Big Two-Hearted River.

I’ve never read Big Two-Hearted River, but I’ve heard about it. It makes the rounds in fly fishing circles. I don’t like reading about fly fishing. And I haven’t read much Hemingway—although people tell me I write like him. I read The Old Man and the Sea in school, and For Whom the Bell Tolls at some point. But I don’t care to read more.

When I was 16 my mother saw Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It and decided her loser high school dropout son will become a Fly Fisherman.

She took me down to the fly shop and bought me a fly rod. It was a Cortland “Just Add Water” kit. It came with a rod, a reel, fly line and a VHS instructional video.

And thank god she did that for me. Fishing has always been there for me. Through illness and financial catastrophe and births and deaths and everything—it’s always been there. Even in when I was in the depths of addiction it was the one thing I could stay sober for.

I’m an Angler. My children know me as such.

Thank you Mom.

———

Leaving the high plains, the red surface of US 14 climbs thru a series of hairpins and steep grades before arriving at the verdant high meadows of the northern Bighorns. It’s early and there’s very little traffic. It’s Wyoming, and everyone is in a truck—save for the tourists from the newly well to do parts of Montana and the ever expanding Denver megalopolis. They drive Subarus and 4Runners.

I see a woman on the side of the road standing next to her Subaru. I wonder what she’s looking at, and crane my neck to see a cow moose and calf grazing in a meadow.

There’s lots of moose here. I saw many the previous day, in another part of the Bighorns. They make me uneasy. To a hiker (or Angler), they’re more dangerous than bear.

I’ve been charged before. A cow moose went after my dog. Moose hate dogs and will go out of their way to attack and kill them.

We were hiking up a trail in the mountains near my home. The dog was in her usual spot—walking 20 feet in front of me. Sniffing. Happy. I was carrying my rod. We were looking for a good place to fish the creek.

The trail dipped into a marshy area—full of willows. It was perfect moose habitat. I should have put the dog on a leash, but I’m not sure it would have helped.

As we walked, the dog paused. Then she turned her head and growled. And then a CRASH CRASH CRASH as a cow moose burst from the willows. Her head was down and she was aiming right for the dog.

The dog scooted out of the way with a YIPE YIPE YIPE. My dog emptied her bowels as she bolted up the trail. The moose had missed her by inches, and she got away unharmed, but that left me alone with an displeased moose.

The cow turned towards me. Her head was down. She was ready to charge. She was so close I could reach out and touch her. Once she had me on the ground she’d stomp me to death with her entire 1300 pound weight.

I had a pistol. But it was only a 9mm—not of much use against a moose. Besides, it was in my backpack and not easily accessible.

I should have run. But it was too late. The moose was too close.

So I backed away slowly. All the while shouting “HEY MOOSE! HEY MOOSE!” to try to scare her away.

The cow followed at the same arms length distance. She followed me until the trail ascended out of the marsh and back to the rocky forested area, and then she turned around and went back to the willows. She had a calf out there in the marsh and was merely escorting me away.

The Subaru driver only saw beauty. Enough to stop her car and take a picture.

I’m not immune to beauty. I love beauty. I seek beauty. Seek it where ever I can find it. I seek it in places others don’t look. It’s part of my job. I get paid to do it.

But I also see the danger.

Because I’m clear eyed about nature.

Because I’ve spent a lifetime outdoors.

I read this in Field and Stream Magazine at a dentists office, so take this with a grain of salt, but an outdoorsman goes through 3 stages:

The first stage is awe. When faced with something like the Bighorn Mountains you’re overwhelmed by the grandeur and the beauty.

Then comes respect—that’s the second stage. You realize you can get killed out here. That you can die here. That there’s a reason nobody lives out here. So you adopt the Boy Scout motto: be prepared. You have to know what you’re doing. You keep the gun on your hip, not in your backpack. Charge your phone, use your OnX app, carry a compass and shoot an azimuth back to the truck if the weather is closing in. Have the tools to start a fire. And so on and so forth.

The third stage is fear. Straight up fear. You’re afraid of getting attacked by a moose or a bear. Or getting lost. Or dying in a rockfall. Or buried in an avalanche. Or struck by lighting.

Yet you keep coming.

Why is that?

You keep coming back because there’s another stage. This wasn’t in the magazine article—because nobody would print this in Field and Stream or any other respectable publication.

Because it’s something we don’t talk about in the modern world. Something we don’t have language for. And because we don’t have the language it’s impossible to describe with precision.

The stage I find myself in is this: there’s something out here.

Something lives here. Something is present here. Here in the places least touched by human hands—unmolested by the will of men. Something that science can’t explain, and will never explain. Something my Jewish background, and the Christian society I’m immersed in couldn’t prepare me for.

And maybe the beauty and the awe and the respect and the fear is That Thing trying to communicate with me.

And I’m driven to find it.

I’m driven to learn its secrets.

This is what That Thing wants. And I’m determined to converse with it. I’m determined to commune with it.

The scene in front of the Subaru lady is very beautiful. There’s a cow with her calf. They’re backlit in the willows next to a steaming stream. I have my nice camera with me. I should pull over and join her, I think. I should take a picture, I think.

But I’m driven to do something else.

I need to have a conversation with That Thing.

I need to go fishing.

So I keep driving.