Fencerows: “No Man’s Pond”
By John Luthens:
I was first led astray to No Man’s Pond in that in-between season when the promise of magic water floats around the edges of a fly fisherman’s vision like a hidden diamond, but there are still enough slushy patches beneath the pines to dampen the spirits.
Peering from the morning window of my suburban home in Grafton, Wisconsin and contemplating the changing seasons, I noticed the wandering tracks of a deer that had cut through my backyard sometime in the night. Spring cleaning waited in the house with impatient steps, but she wasn’t awake yet; I felt like I didn’t have much of a choice. The deer prints were small and simple, and how they lured a fly fisherman to tiptoe out of the house and into such a haunting place is still a source of wonder.
I tracked the deer across the green spaces, day-dreaming of fishing expeditions to come and wandering through subdivisions and schoolyards as aimlessly as the trail I was following. Down the slopes of a small stream that was running rampant with snowmelt through town, ducking into brush, soaking to the knees and stumbling up the other side of the gully; Grafton isn’t that big, but I was a little turned around when I finally found myself in a dense stand of grape vine and maple on the outskirts of town.
A secret garden of discovery surrounds the banks of No Man’s Pond. (Photo courtesy of Tyler Luthens)
Deep in the thickets my solitary set of hooves turned into a cow path. It looked like the entire suburban deer population had homesteaded in the tangles. Deer hair hung like laundry from the remnants of a barbed wire fence that was encrusted and fossilized into the trees themselves. I was crawling through the bedded shadows beneath the fence when I broke into the glade. In an instant, as if the rusted fence had been electrified with an insane amount of frontal lobotomy voltage, all thoughts of deer were permanently zapped from my mind.
A silent mirror caught the clouds in the sky. The thickness of the surrounding trees stared at their reflection in a span of water that spread along a grassy meadow for perhaps 100 yards. It looked to have once been a small quarry or gravel pit, crystal clear and sloping along a rocky bottom. A small island hovered in the center, and an old wooden bench overlooked the pond on the far end. It was like a secret garden, absolutely silent, with no house or road in sight. It looked to be no man’s pond, and that’s how I christened it.
My world turned restless in the following weeks. The pond had cast a spell, beckoning me to return and ponder from the edges as the season warmed. I stood at the clearing and fidgeted my fingers like I was winding an imaginary reel, searching the banks for someone to quell the mystery. I went for long walks along the closest roads, trying to catch a glimpse from the surrounding subdivision’s back yards without looking like a cat burglar. None of the geography added up. No Man’s Pond certainly seemed to have been dug by human hands, and the wooden bench hadn’t walked in on its own. I simply couldn’t figure out where it had all come from.
I watched as the first weeds of spring danced to life and began swaying like mermaids in the water. Wildflowers blossomed on the edges, birds nested and called from the trees. As days grew longer, dark shadows materialized from the depths as bluegills and bass began cruising along the graveled shallows. And while may have been nothing more than a refracted trick of water, some of the fish looked as big around as a salad plate.
Summer marched on No Man’s Pond in a symphony of bullfrogs and crickets. Butterflies of every color skimmed above tops of daisies around the water’s edge. Bluegills dug beds in the gravel and wallowed to the surface at the tiniest disturbance. I might have gone ahead and plopped in right then and there, but it didn’t feel right. Looking from a distance is one thing, but someone had once taken sizable effort to stock the pond. Fishing without knowing for certain is another matter entirely.
I thrashed about in bed at night with fly rods and graceful casts reflecting in my dreams. Dark circles formed under my eyes, looking to the casual observer like I was on the edge of a breakdown. When I looked in the mirror it was like looking beneath the surface of No Man’s Pond, and the circles beneath my wild eyes looked hauntingly like the rising rings of fish.
Fly fishing the summer reaches of No Man’s Pond. (Photo courtesy of Tyler Luthens)
In retrospect, maybe I should have gone to the village hall and asked to look at a map. But No Man’s Pond had taken emotional control and I don’t believe I was right in the head. Perhaps I was never wound too tight from the very beginning. It was on a Thursday afternoon that I cast myself like a fly line across the neighborhood and began going to door to door like a salesman and asking about a hidden spot of water.
Tracking down the soul of No Man’s Pond was eerily similar to tracking the deer that had led me there in the first place. It was a winding path without a clear end, following rumors and leads, yard to yard and street to street. The story unfurled in bits and pieces. By nightfall, I’d wandered my way into a cull de sac of houses tucked along a dead-end road on the furthest fringes of town.
It seems that the developer who’d built the remote row of houses had dredged gravel and struck a natural spring in the process. The basin slowly filled and was turned over to the residents living in the development who were free to trek in and use it at their convenience. It had been stocked with bluegill and bass at some point, and due to the springs along its deep bottom, it never froze out completely in the winter and harbored a perfect balance of natural reproduction.
A swimming hole and fishing paradise for the neighborhood children; many of whom had long since grown and moved on to start lives of their own. No Man’s Pond slowly grew wilder with the passing of generations. It sounds crazy, but I’d like to think that a phantom deer led me to the shores to share the beauty and hear the ghosts and echoes of endless seasons gone by.
A treasured bluegill caught and released in No Man’s Pond.
I received permission to fish the pond, asking for a single day, which was more than enough. I took in a sun-drenched morning and a star-sparkled evening from the heart of the pond, striking bluegills on nearly every cast and ending up with a 3 pound largemouth bass on my final cast of the night.
Taking a last deep breath of cold water and living green, I turned my back on No Man’s Pond and I never looked back. I slept soundly that night, content in the knowledge that it was there, reflecting the years in silent glory, patiently waiting for another soul to uncover its secrets.
John Luthens is a freelance writer from Grafton, Wisconsin. His first novel, Taconite Creek, is available on Amazon or atwww.cablepublishing.com or by contacting the author atLuthens@hotmail.com