More from April, 2004

Editor's Creel:  April 2004 Letters from Hell . . . or Somewhere Warm

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There is a point, after all the research has been done, the decisions made—and frequently, the bills paid—when anglers are left to suffer through the remainder of the winter months with nothing to fill the angling void save a new gear catalog or two, the fly-tying bench, and dreams of the days ahead, particularly the ones that are to be spent on the water. For those stranded upon the frostbitten ramparts of the Last Frontier for the duration of the longest season, whatever visions of blue skies, long, free-flowing seams, and eager fish can be conjured are critical to survival. A hardcore angler forced to winter in this northern land is like a golfer banished to the Sahara. Sure, you can still play, but it’s hardly the same game. And, after a while, when each glance out the office window reveals the arrival of another six inches of the white shroud, one can come to forget what it ever felt like to have put a bend in a rod.

All too often, the melancholy that descends with each falling flake on every gentle, Norman Rockwell night is magnified for those of us who’ve entered into regular correspondence with the type of fiendish brute who chooses to spend his winters elsewhere. Yes, these are people we goad all summer long with giddy references to twenty-hour daylight and king salmon bigger than their legs. But they do get us back in the winter.

“Caught a 22-inch brown last night just down from the house,” begins one e-mail I received from a former good friend now teetering on the edge of the enemy-for-life list. The note had arrived in my inbox just before Christmas and was obviously not meant as a gift, for it had snowed nearly eight inches that day. “Took a #16 Hare’s Ear, launched like the Shuttle Discovery, and felt like a Kenworth on the end of my line.” Being only December, I was able to choke down the rest of the letter, though by the end of his rambling, incoherent, pointless screed, at least one name had mysteriously disappeared from my shopping list.

Little did I know things were to get worse. The winter, a humdinger even by Alaska standards, continued to grow in strength, and amazingly, the amount of correspondence clogging my laptop’s memory tried to keep pace. I received dispatches from Chile and Argentina, Andros Island, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and New Zealand. I suffered through photos of roosterfish on the Baja coast, bonefish from the Bahamas, and even permit (Permit!) from the Keys. In each triumphant image I receive, the angler’s eyes appeared to be brimming with tears. Whether caused by joy or mirth I could not discern, though seeing no hilarity in my condition and finding myself no longer willing to consider pleasure as a possibility for human life, I simply hit the delete button and went searching for a sidewalk to shovel.

Like howler monkeys that live at the very uppermost branches of the jungle canopy to avoid the jaguars and crocodiles and other nefarious creatures living below, we Alaskan anglers have devised a manner of coping with all the hours we must spend indoors while waiting for the chance to stalk open water once again. We daydream. A lot.

Thus, I soon occupied myself by wondering how much water the streams of Prince of Wales Island would have in mid-April when I visited in search of the West Coast’s most illustrious gamefish. Flies would be needed to cover both ends of the spectrum, which took up another few days. Soon I was picturing the aqua to emerald flows of the upper Kenai and trying to guess whether a Woolhead Sculpin or Flesh Fly would take the first trout of the year. That inevitably led to thoughts of even bigger flies and the mighty Chinook I hoped to entice into chasing them. Reels began to scream while I slept and I was sure there was no lovelier song. Rumor has it that somewhere around Presidents’ Day I’d been seen sporting a smile.

Predictably, this sort of rampant good humor was short lived. In a display of the disgusting effectiveness of today’s technology, I had soon begun receiving e-mails from an acquaintance who’d finagled his way onto a trout pilgrimage across New Zealand. Since there are apparently no laws forbidding patently cruel and unusual communication and since the airlines somehow got him there with his rods intact, this arch-villain immediately took up a pace of writing that would have made Balzac’s hand grow weary. I might as well have been forced to watch his every move on closed circuit TV.

He also had the habit of beginning his notes with the sort of subtlety that might be favored by members of the 1st Calvary Division. Usually that meant super intense descriptions of either the fishing or the fish. “We spent the day sight-casting Cicada/Stimulator patterns to big browns on the Enchanted River,” he began once, illuminating a path I didn’t want to travel. Another time he decided to forgo the drama. “This morning I caught a beautiful 26-inch buck with dark oak-colored flanks and big, black speckled dots.” But before I could initiate a counterattack, which at that time of year meant applying the block sender function, he sent a note that began by instilling hope in the oddest of places—me.

“The fishing was lousy this morning, and after three kilometers of hiking and fishing, I hadn’t even seen a trout.” I was overjoyed. Finally, redemption was at hand. “I was suffering from the ‘just one more bend’ syndrome and hoping to discover a honey hole by heading farther up the river.” I’d heard this story before, I knew. In fact, I’d told it before. This was safe ground, safe even for a winter-starved angler living under three feet of Alaska snow.

“So I rounded a blind corner and came upon a sight every trout fisherman must dream of…two topless women were splashing around and bathing in the pool directly above me.”

Read on, I wondered? Shovel my neighbors driveway, or perhaps the whole street? Jog to Tok? Ski Denali?

In the end I did read on, only to make sure he didn’t follow that up by finding a nice pod of rising trout as well. And by the time the night drew to a close, I’d tied 47 identical #6 olive Wooly Buggers and still had the shakes. Two months later, however, I know salvation is near. Both the carpet and my family’s patience may have been worn thin by the pacing that ensued, but it’s April now and that means the angling heavens are again beginning to open above Alaska. It’s about time, too, for I’ve a mind to write a few letters of my own.

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