FENCEROWS...Season’s End
By John Luthens
The last day in September was never formerly honored between us. My father and I stubbornly refused to believe in it.
There would be carved pumpkins come Halloween. Our fishing knives were laying in wait, idle for nearly a month, and so we carved jack-o-lanterns with a vengeance, sticking our hands deep into pumpkin slime, pretending it was fish guts.
Thanksgiving and Christmas were fine. Family and friends were welcomed into the house with open arms. They were times of good will towards men. The trout lay sleeping and distant in their holds, never slipping our minds entirely, but the smells of baked pies and cookies floating from half open windows helped us forget. Those holidays were a mark on the calendar that we could live with.
The cold wind and snow of winter drove thoughts of trout fishing far from our minds, so it too was a reasonable enough season to fathom. Winter distanced us from our obsession. Undoubtedly, our minds were quite focused and shallow, so the distance of separation was relatively short.
Easter was observed, although it came to pass with nervous pacing up and down the basement steps. The dark and glorious concrete shelved corner that held piles of fishing gear was better than an Easter egg hunt. Anything might have been lost there, waiting all winter for a fresh discovery.
We were known to fidget through Easter Sunday church, too; Especially if the sun shone through the stained glass windows, and the smell of damp earth overrode the sermon and floated though the church like an uplifting hymn. I guess Easter weekend was just too darn close for comfort to the opener.
There was no fidgeting on the opener. It was what the days, months, and pages on the calendar had been rolling up to. It was a celebration, although it was observed in silence, with a solemn wader march into the dark, swirling waters of the first Saturday in May. It was a time when our fly rods arched into the stream with extra care and vigilance.
Everything else after that blurred and ran together for the rest of the summer. We fished hard and we fished far. Trout waters ran high and low with the summer weather, but we wore ourselves down without regard of rain or hot sun. In brush and rock-strewn bottoms, we sucked up what the trout gods offered.
It went on year after year like that, and we never believed it could end. But every season, come the last of September, the leaves turned red and gold, and the wind came biting down out of the northwest. It snuck up on us.
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| The last trout hole of the year. | My father, on the banks of our final trout stream. |
Our waders leaked and our rod ferrules were cracked. Tackle boxes were disorganized and our fly boxes had become sparse. We didn’t want to recognize an end to the season, because only yesterday it seemed that the winding streams might go on forever, and the grass banked holes were endlessly deep and promising. There might be one more crack at the late run of steelhead and salmon, but the small stream, inland stuff was over.
Maybe it was because, come the last day of trout fishing, we were worn out, and maybe we didn’t want to admit it. So we choose to ignore it. We went grouse hunting, or maybe we watched a football game; we occupied ourselves with anything but trout fishing on the last day. The last day never got admitted into our calendar.
I saw my dad on a trout stream for the final time last summer. It was nearing the end, and he was pretty sick by then. It was deep in the forests along Superior’s south shore. I can’t remember what the name of the coursing water was. It may not have even had a proper name.
Like I said, the places of summer blended together for us. We’d fish any blue scratch on the map simply because we liked the look of the country. Whether or not there were any trout in the lost streams we frequented was often incidental to our life’s purpose.
He was cold that day, and I made him wear my stocking cap, because he had lost his somewhere along the day’s journey. He was not agreeable to taking it, but I forced him eventually. There were few gentle words among us on the trout streams of our life together, because there was business at hand, and it was important business.
Cousins, Dominick and Tyler Luthens, with the last trout of the season.
We caught few trout that day. The wind howled through the pines, and the water rippled in back-current swirls. It wasn’t easy. Real trout fishing often isn’t. When we finally walked out of that wooded valley, we knew it was getting towards season’s end. But it was our sworn and unspoken agreement to ignore it up to the bitter end.
My father rounded the bend for his final fishing hole last September. I don’t know if he planned it that way. Probably he did. I wouldn’t have been on a trout stream on the last day of the season if he hadn’t.
It was after the funeral, and it really was the last legal day of inland trout fishing. There was no point in sitting around the cabin. It was crowded with relatives, and while relatives are good at the happy times of holidays, they can become a bit of a strain on the last day.
I took my son and nephew to a good, rushing culvert hole. The water flows hard under a road, and the water danced out over a deep cut log below the culvert. It was not far reaching trout fishing, but it was an appropriate spot to watch the season come to a close.
Of course the kids hooked and landed a nice brook trout. Their grandfather was present in the late sun and autumn wind, and he saw to it that it happened. It was a jumping and splashing fight, and I slid down the culvert slope into the rushing water to help them land the fish.
I voted for the release, but two excited kids overruled me. We took the fish back to parade in front of the relatives. Then we fried it up and ate it. It was a fitting end.
Now another year has gone, and this one wasn’t so different from many others that have passed. I fished hard, and I fished far. I caught trout. I lost trout. I saw many wild things come to pass in the back country streams and rivers of our great state.
My waders leak. It’s not so bad letting a trickle come in through the ripped seams when the summer breeze is gentle, but they need to be patched if they want to sustain one more crack at the steelhead run of late autumn, when the waters grow frigid and don’t fool around.
For me, the last day was likely only recognized once. My dad wouldn’t have thought it proper to make it an annual tradition. So today there was a backyard football game early, and loud cheering at a Packer’s victory later. I didn’t even realize it was the last day until I sat down to write this.
If you refuse to believe in something, maybe it never happened. Maybe it can go on forever.