The Round of the Year

My father was a flyfisherman. Now do not think that I believe that to be such an extraordinary characteristic in the greater scheme of things. But somehow, in my father's case, flyfishing defined him as a person.

To my father, flyfishing was a way of life, a philosophy -- sort of like his refusal to wear any other kind of dress shirt other than a button-down oxford. It was a statement about values. He believed that flyfishing was a code that you lived by, not only on the stream but in life as well. And when my father wasn't on the trout stream, he was thinking about it.

Mostly my father fished the Au Sable River. He sometimes fished the mainstream west of Stephan Bridge, the South Branch occasionally, but mostly he fished the North Branch. He was not a big fish fisherman; he was happiest matching wits with the small brown trout and brook trout on the North Branch. Especially the jewel-colored brookies.

Once, when he took a fourteen-inch, brightly-colored, fall brook trout on the Log Cabin Pool on the North Branch, he spent the winter thinking of that trout finning slowly in the black, ice-shrouded pool beneath the overhanging sweepers, waiting -- like my father -- for the spring.

My father believed that you had to be worthy of a trout like that. He believed that the dedicated flyfishermen approached life and trout fishing as a challenge. A flyfisherman was the type of person who found joy in the challenge of doing things the hard way: sailing instead of just cruising along in a powerboat; shifting through the gears of a sports car instead of just going along for the ride. That sort of thing. All the myriad difficulties and aspects of flyfishing appealed to my father's senses and engineering mind.

My father took a lot of pride in his flyfishing equipment. He didn't own the most expensive equipment but he loved the Orvis and the two Leonard split cane rods that he had had for years. Though I kidded him about being a dinosaur, he never would purchase a graphite flyrod, although he admitted that they had more accuracy; he was too much in love with the history, tradition and beautiful craftsmanship of split cane.

Once, I caught him in the bedroom in midwinter with his flyrods laid out on the bed holding one of the Leonards in the poplin sack up to his face. He grinned at me sheepishly and said he needed a dose of that wonderful, musty varnish scent to keep him going until spring. All winter long he would fuss with his English Wheatly fly boxes and the other equipment in his vest, arranging and rearranging it.

In the winter, my father would spend a number of evenings tying flies. Mainly he tied nymphs and hopper patterns. For the most part he purchased his dry flies -- mostly Adams and Wulff patterns in various sizes. He would set up his tying desk in front of the fireplace in the living room on wintry nights when the sleet and snow were slashing at the window panes. When the logs had burned down low on the grate and his board was littered with freshly-tied stonefly nymphs, I knew his mind was up somewhere on the North Branch of the Au Sable working one of his favorite pools.

Occasionally, a very good friend of his would manage to get him to fish the Pere Marquette or the Betsie River, and my father always enjoyed it. He especially enjoyed the Pere Marquette flies-only water with all its history, particularly the Claybanks stretch and the beautiful view of the river valley from the top of the stairway. But his heart was always on the Au Sable and he rarely fished anywhere else. There were sections of the mainstream and the North Branch that he knew intimately after all those years. He said it was always new and always changing ever so slightly from year to year.

As a traditionalist, my father always wanted to fish those two well-springs of flyfishing history, the Test and Itchen Rivers in England. He was a disciple of G. E. M. Skies and wanted to fish the two famous chalk streams that Skies had fished and written so much about. But he never got there.

As he grew older, we worried that he fished so much alone, especially when he related how he had encountered trouble one day fishing the stretch just below Canoe Harbor on the South Branch. He tried to get through a deep hole where the stream narrowed and went over his waders. He tried to back up and go around, but couldn't climb up the steep, slippery banks. Finally, feet flailing at the gravel bottom, he had propelled himself through the hole and worked his way back to where he had entered the stream. I told him he was a damn old fool for fishing some of those stretches alone, knowing full well he wouldn't change.

My father loved the cobbled bottom of certain stretches of the Au Sable mainstream and the lovely water below the old wooden ruins of Dam Four on the North Branch. He loved the river in the soft green newness of spring, when the marsh marigolds bloom along the edge of the stream, and he loved its summer lushness when the air is heavy with hatches. Once, in early March, anxious to be out on the stream, he fished the mainstream section that is open all year. The banks and dark green spruces were still snow covered as were the dark cedars leaning out over the black muted river; a lacy fringe of ice clung to the bank as he waded the stream and worked his nymph deep, marveling at the stark beauty of it all. But most of all, he loved the river in the fall with the yellow birch leaves falling softly on the stream and the red and yellow maples and oaks vivid against the gray-green spruces, white pine and cedars. He loved yellow and red leaves floating on the current, gliding over the trout holding gracefully in the stream, as the river rushes toward winter's black, ice-shrouded silence. RWOL

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