The Photograph
From the Pendergrass Library
For the trout-chasing angler the most sought after trophy next to an actual fish on the wall is ‘the photograph.’
You’ve seen the picture before, it’s of an angler - usually a guy - he’s got on his waders, the ball cap perched atop his head is askew, and he’s down on one knee. Across his arms and in his hands rests a trout of such size that it seems gargantuan in its proportions. If the angler is lucky this trout will be of the male persuasion, thus sporting a kype - or hooked lip. Big male trout just seem bigger. They do. The entire scene will be shot streamside, possibly after dark, and the heat of the day will be evident on the angler’s brow.
Jack and a special prize
The key to the photograph is the face of the fisherman. His dancing eyes will project a feeling of happiness and joy. His smile will show the pride in the trophy that he has on display. His entire demeanor will say “Look what I found?!? Look what I found?!?” You might even smile back at the photograph because you can’t help yourself. It just happens.
Now, an angler from a more urban area than where I live in Grand View, Wisconsin - population 468 as of the 2010 census - might be willing to pay heaps of money for the chance to have his picture taken with a good-sized brown trout. He might be willing to book a room at a hotel, eat pricey meals at the lunch counter back in town, stumble around in the dark all night as fish splash and rise during the hex-fly hatch that comes off each July. He’ll drive a big European SUV hundreds of miles to get here. All told this angler might invest the sort of money many of my hometown friends might use for a mortgage payment on their modest home. Seriously.
But if you’re like me you just drive the 15 minutes or so it takes to get from the front door to the river any and every night you want to go. It’s only going to cost me a lack of sleep before heading to work the next morning. That’s it. Oh, I have to survive the other 11 months to be here, including January and February. I’ll have to contend with massive snowfalls, and some of the harshest climate known to man. But, I’m still here.
I’ll set the scene. My son, Jack, and I have become trout bums of the worst order this summer, and we’ve been chasing the hex-fly hatch big time up on the White River. What this means is that for the past two weeks we’ve spent virtually every night away from home, spraying ourselves with enough bug repellent for a small village in the Congo, and hanging out on the river’s edge under a full moon, just for the opportunity to hook into good-sized brown trout.
The trout are there because the flies hatch out at about this time every year. The big ones go a little bonkers, to tell the truth. Usually much more wary for the rest of the year, the 20-inch-plus fish get nothing short of stupid; they’ll race around and careen between the banks of the river for the opportunity to gorge themselves on the flies that are drifting down the river.
You can tell the big fish from the little ones by the sound of the splash they make on the feed. A little trout can get his entire body out of the water because he simply doesn’t have as much weight to heft up from the bottom. He sounds big because for the big splash, but often times he’s not everything he’s advertising. While the big fish is still out of control on these nights, he can’t porpoise out of the water as easily, meaning his feed is sometimes just a bit quieter.
So, here we are. It’s about 10:30 at night. The perpetual din from the legions of mosquitoes that dwell here has quieted, but just a little. It’s humid. The full moon that’s risen above the pines and willows looks like it’s going to crash into the parking lot at any moment. And Jack seemingly has the last rising trout of the night on the entire river right in front of him. It rises, again and again.
In fact, two of us are standing there watching, there’s nothing else for us to do. My son has been casting for nearly 45 minutes to this same fish, with not so much as look-see from the trout at the fly he’s tossing. For the sake of angling I offer up my own fly rod, which has a fly just a bit smaller than what he’s got on, with just a slightly different pattern. He might as well give it a try.
And there it is. The trout has taken the fly, and the battle begins. It’s a good one for sure, as my St. Croix Imperial is indeed a light-weight rig. I slide down into the river, as I’ll man the net. The big fish makes three or four good runs, succumbs to the will of the angler, and glides into the net.
There, on the banks, in the gathering gloom of late night, we snap a photograph. The photograph. It didn’t cost us as much as it costs others.
But it’s worth everything to us.
Darrell Pendergrass lives in Grand View.