Fencerows: October Cathedral
By John Luthens
It was time for me and Tom to go to confession in the cathedral of October. I needed to reflect on the wanton neglect of my civil duties that had festered like weeds from a trout fishing addiction. I needed to beg forgiveness for the awful state of my torn waders and fly lines, and I needed an exorcism to absolve the smell of a summer’s worth of trout from my fishing creel.
Tom’s waders were pure of heart. He doesn’t grovel at the altar of the trout on a regular basis like I do. He doesn’t crawl along the nettled trail of tears that the finest of Wisconsin’s trout streams can become. He’s also smart enough to step over barbed-wire instead of plowing straight through to the river.
The Bois Brule River flows through October.
It should, however, be duly noted in the sermon notes that Tom’s offering-plate of a freezer was greedily overflowing with bluegill fillets from the Lake Winnebago system that he calls home. He may not have been as derelict in his home life as I was while chasing fish all summer, but I know for a fact that he curses when he misses a fish, and that some of his curses are profound enough to still be hanging over Lake Winnebago to this day.
We had both been blessed and cursed in our own ways with a high-summer of fishing along the greenest and bluest waterways of Wisconsin. It was time to give humble thanks to the gods of fish. We navigated a three-day pilgrimage into the forests of red and gold in northwest Douglas County, where, flowing with cold and rocky music through the cathedral of October, the Bois Brule River waited for an autumn reckoning.
We went to the Brule to meditate on our shortcomings. We also went knowing that somewhere between the first hint of frost in October and the first, gusting mid-November snowstorm to roll in off Lake Superior, when the lower stretch of the Brule north of Highway 2 finally calls it legal quits for the year. Somewhere, sandwiched in the pews of those two months – spawning steelhead trout come cavorting like devils up the river.
Tom and I have worked side by side for many years. He knows my dark motives and trout temperaments as well as I know his guiltless bluegill gluttony. Doubtless we are such good friends because we are both unrepentant at heart. Three days of fishing burdens and a lot of miles of October steelhead water were competing for our souls. We hitched up our waders in stoic style and started praying.
Tom Nigl fords the autumn river.
Maples and aspen were in a torrent of color. Every bend of the river burst forth in a new array of fireworks. “Take a picture of that tree, take a picture of that ripple – Oh, you have to take a picture of that golden tamarack,” Tom goaded me at every opportunity. Tom had repented, he’d become one with nature, but he had suspiciously left his own camera back in the truck. I always seemed to be fiddling with the camera right before we reached a promising pool, and Tom seemed to be getting first dibs at baptizing it.
The river was low, with a roaring autumn wind sailing a shipwreck of colored leaves onto the water. The air temperature fluttered in the 60s. The sun came and went behind rolling and leaden clouds as we waded upon the backbone of the mighty Brule. The conditions were more conducive to fishermen than fish. Still, there were rumors of dark shadows skirting the gravel beds “That was a big steelhead,” said Tom. It came out of the pool and swiped at my lure.”
I never saw it. I was occupied with tracking a woodcock that had flushed from a stand of yellow birch. “Are you sure it wasn’t a leaf?” I called from the brush. “I know your imagination when it comes to matters of size.” There was no reply from Tom. “Make sure it’s a 26- inch leaf if you catch it,” I continued. “That’s the minimum size for a legal steelhead. The reply I finally got is not fit for print. Three days holed up in even the grandest of cathedrals is bound to make two children a bit fidgety.
We flowed at peace with the river, offering what we had, catching and releasing enough small browns and rainbows to keep the days interesting. We never hooked up with an October monster. I believe my fishing creel was absolved of wrongdoing because of it.
John Luthens tries his luck for a fly rod steelhead.
I’d also like to believe that somewhere along the way Tom forgot all about his 25-fish limits of grease-battered pan fish. Shore lunches were a steady diet of venison sticks and pickled herring, but they were eaten underneath spires of whispering white pines and flaming maples, and the look in Tom’s eyes said they were eaten with proper Thanksgiving.
When it was over, Tom and I were reborn and reinserted back into the passing stream of daily routine. Work and home awaited our arrival with fiery vengeance. But we had been on the Brule River in a place far removed. We had waded through the cathedral of October. A knowing glance passed between us. We were blessed. For two unrepentant fishermen, it doesn’t get any holier than that.
John Luthens is a freelance writer from Grafton, Wisconsin. His first novel, Taconite Creek, is available on Amazon or at www.cablepublishing.com or by contacting the author at Luthens@hotmail.com