The Glassy Pond
The pond is glass. The decision to roll out of the warm bed before we’d caught the first Striper of the year is not easy but the birds at dawn and the lack of any wind movement in the tree tops are overwhelming motivation. Without time for the real stuff, I stuff a pinch of coffee in my bottom lip, grab my gear and set down the the dock.
Casting the small Whaler off the pier, I paddle off a bit before starting the engine. The old Evinrude quits after a few waking compressions but restarts quickly. The surface of the pond shows no circles or splashes, just a mirror of the rocky shoreline and soft morning sky. I head for the East corner which has rocks and depth and a history of early spring fish.
Even at this early hour, the orange sun comes up again, amazingly. I see what seemed like movement in the water and stop to cast without luck. The little boy in me speaks and says to put down the damned flyrod and cast the giant mackerel swimmer. I do, again with no result. I decide to troll with the heavy sinking flyline that I haven’t changed since a glorious salmon run North in April. Trolling with a fly rod is like shooting turkeys with a crossbow I suppose. Fancy gear for easy work. A small striper takes after not long and I cut the engine. After landing it quickly and noticing the healthy lines and sea lice, I return it and begin casting. The fish hit regularly now, almost on every cast. I catch one for every one I miss and the fish are small but fight hard. The salmon purist would kill me for saying it, but a 27” Quonnie Striper fights as hard as a few of the 40” Atlantic Salmon I caught just 60 days ago. The Stripers are on the way North from the Hudson and competition for food is fierce.
In the midst of all this, I think of Dad. He’s laying in a hospital bed in the house he’s lived in for twenty years and his kidneys are finally quitting on him. He’s decided not to extend his life with dialysis because of time and energy is not worth the little extension of an increasingly dependent life would give him. As much as we love him, I’m not trying to convince him to do otherwise. He’s earned the right to decide on that one I figure. The people who love him have had good visits recently.
He is pain-free and, more importantly, he has no regrets about a life well lived.
I’m thinking of him because my part in the beauty of this morning is in large part due to him. He raised me and taught me how to work and how to treat people right. He worked hard and found a place in Rhode Island, far from the rush and crowd of the Jersey shore. He learned the water and bought this ‘66 Whaler and showed me how not to hit the big rocks around the points. I remember my call to him from a foreign port when his boyish enthusiasm jumped through the phone as he told me that he couldn’t wait to show me that you could catch Stripers on a fly IN the pond!
I focus on the fishing again. I move to that corner where I caught my first keeper on fly with him many years ago. The same place we saw the Blackfish “kissing” on the surface in the fog and where the Cormorant popped up and nearly scared us out of the boat in the same fog. That seems like a long time ago. I hook another good fish and drop it. The wind shifts and the glass is gone. The clouds shroud up the sun and the day’s feel has changed. As I’m ready to give it up, a “God’s eye” of sun pokes through the clouds. A big beam lights up to the North and West. The kid in me wonders if its pointing to an old white house in Northwest Connecticut, to the man who I have to thank for this morning on the glassy pond. I need to get my boys out here next time.
