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Roderick Haig-Brown - was on my list this year to
read some of the dude's shit. Think I first learned about him through
McGuane, who I generally like - his Longest Silence
is a good read, with some wonderful insights (for example, his
soliloquy about "smoothness" being the hallmark of a great fisherman),
even if some of the language gets a little....aristocratic (please,
people, no more recondite). His essay, "The Heart of the Game," in the collection Hunter's Heart
is fantastic. McGuane wrote approvingly of Haig-Brown, and, though it
didn't broach my consciousness, Haig-Brown's name probably also got
into my brain by reading about steelhead - he's referenced in Milt
Keiser's tome and in Bill Herzog's about fishing spoons. What attracted
me to him was that, yeah, he was a fishing writer, who, as a tribe,
generally write far too much about technique (and therefore bear the
tainted air of veiled commercials - or not so veiled when one
manufacturer name after another is spouted in succession) and not
nearly enough about understanding, but McGuane suggested he bucked the
trend, promising more about the meaning of fishing, the Why, and less of a how-to guide.
So a few months ago I plopped down a little dough and bought A River Never Sleeps,
and at first I was a little disappointed - seemed just a bunch of
fishing stories, albeit with clear, vivid, detailed descriptions not
only of the fishing but also the theater around the fishing: the birds,
the trees, the look and feel of the waterways. Kinda felt I'd wasted my
dough, purchasing a book that would take precious space on the limited
breadth of my bookshelf. But after reading through a few more times - I
generally need to since I so rarely fully immerse myself in the
writer's world, ideas, in the first go-around - I saw that I'd erred,
with A River Never Sleeps deserving that precious shelf space.
Why? Many reasons. His language - it's so refreshingly direct, for example, when he writes that he kills
the fish, not euphemistically "takes" 'em or "keeps" 'em or "removes"
'em - he doesn't pussyfoot around the final act in the story of line,
lure, and gaff. He's honest. His accurate, detailed descriptions of the
stages of life, whether of tree or fish, reveal the value of careful
observation and engaged experience. His explanation of why sea-run
cutthroat trout do what they do remains better than anything I've read
in the scientific literature, no doubt because he considers science the
"bare bones" that need to be fleshed out with experience to gain full
understanding (p. 339-340). But more worthwhile than his honest
language and keen observations is his all-seeing, nuanced, appreciative
eye - he doesn't categorically dismiss or malign anything or anyone,
and he recognizes the individuality, the uniqueness, of each thing,
each life, without developing tunnel vision. Not once do you read the
phrase trash fish in his book - while he prefers
salmon and steelhead, he doesn't hate all other fishes, whether
deep-water marine fishes or bony rough fishes, but finds them
interesting and, by proxy, valuable. That's unlike many fly fisherman
who've claimed him as their own and yet spit that phrase - trash fish
- out anytime a sucker or mountain whitefish comes to hand. And the
fly-guys ain't alone - the mainstream white-guy American fisherman
frequently reviles anything not a game fish as a trash fish, and many
in the environmental community have their own trash fish, too, though
they euphemize 'em ("non-native," "invasive," "predator"). Sadly, all
three will cruelly toss their fish of scorn on the bank to suffocate
pointlessly. Similarly, though he prefers
the fly rod, he again harbors no hate for other methods when they're
more effective (for example, spinning/baitcasting rods and spoons for
kings), nor against those who employ those methods. In contrast, he
reveres them for their well-honed artistry, such as the English roach
fisherman or the Washingtonian largemouth bass fisherman. He rues some
Indians for killing a steelhead run but admires others for their grace
and craftmanship and intuition. That all-encompassing, nuanced
perception extends beyond fishy stuff - he recognizes the devastation
caused by clear-cut logging, but he's not immune to seeing that even in
that ravaged landscape, new, wild life springs and can contribute to a
beautiful scene, such as the luxurious salal bushes and booming
riparian trees by Theimer Lake. He sees beauty in the graceful lines of
Rock Island Dam, but he's not impaired from finding Grand Coulee Dam
ugly and lamenting the loss of free-flowing river. Concurrently, he
remains able to see the broad patterns across species and landscapes
and time, such as his observation of the main role of rivers all along
the Pacific Coast nurturing salmon (and salmon's main role of nurturing
watersheds), and similar occurring throughout much of the temperate,
coastal world. And of course - he's right.
Such an appropriate level of sensitivity - he rarely overgeneralizes,
but he also rarely over-specifies. Result? He almost never mistakes
assuming that what's right for one is right for another while
maintaining context vital for understanding the specific. So many of us
fishers and biologists would be better if we were more like him.
Naturally I don't agree with everything the dude writes - if I did, I'd
be denying my own individuality, and his. His statement that the middle
of the day is best for fishing - maybe that's true in the higher
latitudes and thus shorter growing seasons of England and British
Columbia, but the brown trout, lake trout, rainbows, kings, channel
catfish, common carp, redtail surfperch, largemouth and smallmouth and
spotted bass, pikeminnow, suckers here in California - they'd all
disagree damn near most of the year. Another - his statement that all
fishermen desire nothing more than the biggest fish. That's true of
most fishermen - but not me. I can appreciate the allure of a big fish,
why the behemoths are so hungered for - they show up on a hook far less
than smaller, younger fish just by dint of being rarer, older, and
smarter. Certainly big fish have deeply affected me - a big-ass hen
steelhead I caught just a week ago had me shaking, breathless. But that
wasn't the best fish of the year I caught - instead, it was a little
king salmon measuring a mere 25 inches. I caught lots of bigger fish -
other kings, carp, leopard sharks, stripers, shit, even that hen
steelie - but they weren't better. Why? Ironically, Haig-Brown answers
that question and absolves himself when he discusses how the experience
of fishing can satisfy, how the satisfaction can be maximized by a
flawless cast, by wisdom that leads to acute concentration, by (as he
alludes to) the surrounding setting of "...the color and movement of
water and sky, by the sounds and scents and gentle stirrings that were
all about me" (p. 202) - in other words, when one is fully engaged with
the entirety of the experience in which the desired fish is the axis.
No fish needs come to hand, though the experience is enhanced if one
does. That applies to my little salmon: I fished a wild, abandoned
river clothed with my loves the pines and firs, on a reach I'd studied
intensely for kings; I followed my hard-won experience on other rivers
by scaling down to a small, dark spinner when the morning sun started
glinting through the dissipating clouds; my knowledge subconsciously
focused me on the foamy edge of a slow, deep run; and my presentation,
damn, so perfect, an on-point cast, a quick mend to sink the lure, and
then the heavy thump of the spinner as it slowly backed toward that
edge near the bottom, my rod tip following to keep the lure deep, the
occasional tings of the blade hitting rocks vibrating up the line,
through the rod, to my hand. I could feel
a king in that edge, and when my lure reached it, the blade stopped and
then that second-long heavy, bobbing weight that signals a king has
gnawed - the truth of the feeling. I recognized she wasn't a snag,
quickly hit her three times to sink the hook home, she magnificently
ran in the typical upstream, blistering run, and several minutes later
I tailed her with grace. A few shots, then she blasted out of my hand,
showering me with a wall of water thrown back by her tall tail, as if
in baptism. It was the perfect experience, and she, being the fruit of
the perfect experience, was the most desired fish. In contrast, lucking
into a monster salmon while clumsily casting for steelhead at some
litter-infested, advertised "hot spot" - that'd be one to appreciate,
to learn from, but not to exult - it's cheap. In other words: the how, when, why, and where are as - or more - important than the what at the end of the line. An old story, but so many these days need to be reminded.
Finally, Haig-Brown's peace with the unknowns, the ineffable. He states
that one could never know everything about a river, knowledge can never
be complete, but unlike so many in my profession these days that would
be disturbed by that, that "uncertainty," would consider it a failure,
Haig-Brown sees it as a beacon, an allure, an inspiration. He's
accepting of his death, and that the only things bad about death would
be missing the people you love and not being able to experience the
things you wanted to but never got around to. Refreshing, when these
days so many seem to desire nothing more than recognition on silly
social-media websites rather than love and full experience. And he
never justifies why he fishes beyond that he enjoys it - and that may
be his best point. As a human, an animal with fishing embedded in his
genes for thousands and thousands of years, he doesn't need to, and so
answers the Why of fishing: it's being at peace with being fully human.
And of course - he's right. Wish more of us fishers and fisheries biologists were more like him.
REFERENCES
Haig-Brown, R. L. 2014. A river never sleeps. United States, Skyhorse.