Lost In The Woods
I used to be the Captain of a fine old boat that has been sailing on Moosehead Lake for almost a hundred years, the Katahdin,. I’ll put in plug here for the “Kate” and the great people of the Moosehead Marine Museum who keep her afloat. Go to Greenville and take a ride. You won’t regret it. But, this isn’t about the Katahdin, it’s about getting lost.
As soon as the last line was out and the Kate was safely moored for the night I would head for the fish. There usually was only a little of the day left and I often had to make my way out of the woods in the dark. I’ve walked for hours using my rod as a blind man’s cane, head cranked back, looking straight up at the stars, trying to keep sight of that little break in the treetops which helped me stay on the path home from Horseshoe Pond. I’ve crawled through fir thickets along the Roach River so dense that I’ve had to wriggle through places on my belly for what seemed like miles, but was probably only a hundred yards or maybe even ten. Who knows? I’ve made the mistake of trying to take a “shortcut” through the cut over slash left after a logging operation. I’ve slept in the woods without a sleeping bag on nights that I just gave up, shivered, and waited until morning. Some days I’d show up at the boat with so many scratches, lumps, and wounds from my walk in the woods that if I was a woman they’d have my husband in jail in a heart beat.
A sensible person might ask, why wait for dark? Why not leave when there’s enough light that you could just walk out the way you walked in? La-di-da, whistling as you go. I’ve asked myself the same questions. Why would you risk breaking your rod crashing around in the woods in the dark? Even if Orvis or LL Bean is willing to replace a broken one for free you’re still stuck without your favorite toy right in the middle of fishing season. Why indeed?
It’s the EVENING RISE. It’s an addiction. Like just one more chocolate chip cookie. One more cigarette. Or, I can only suppose, one more shot of heroin. Just one more cast and then one more. One more pool around one more bend in the stream. It could have been slow all day, but when the sun starts to hide behind the tree tops the fish start to bite. Do the bugs try escaping the stream in the cover of twilight? Do fish just want a trip to the fridge before they go to bed? Whatever drives them, the action starts. And then it gets a little better. And a little better, and you just can’t quit. It must release some kind of natural dope in your brain because it can make a rational man foolish. You can’t quit until you can’t see to tie on another fly. You may not even see well enough to realize that you haven’t had a fly on your line for the last ten minutes. How many muttered curses of “How the #*@* did he miss that one?” before you catch on? Here’s a tip. When you stop catching fish, maybe its time to see if you still have a fly down there at the business end of your rig.
The most spectacular evening rise is the Hex hatch. Hexagenia is the biggest, fattest mayfly that comes off ponds in Maine. It happens at sunset around the 4th of July. It’s liquid fireworks. The first rises are like the slow motion bubbles in cooking candy. Soon, water that hasn’t seen a ripple or a splash all day can boil for an hour. Fishing lunacy sets in. Ron and I can turn a canoe into a cat’s cradle of fishing line, netting, paddles, and curses before the second fish is landed in a good Hex hatch. Make a mental note: Next time be ready. Be sure to each have a backup rod all rigged with floating line and a big Green Drake. You’ll need it when your first rod is fouled beyond use. You want everything in the canoe as trig as the captain’s cabin before the action starts. Nothing should interfere, not a canoe paddle, not a jacket, not a cooler. It’s time to clear the gun decks for battle.
Here are a few recommended modern devices that will prepare you for getting in and out of the woods alive. There’s an invention called a compass. You can buy one small enough to pin right on your fishing vest. People say they’re very handy. They now make very small, but very bright flashlights. If it’s turned on when you drop it in the stream it’ll keep on shining. Your clothes might get a little wet trying to reach deep enough to fish for it with your net. Anticipating this, they also make very light weight thermal protection devices (high tech blankets) the size of a handkerchief that will help you stay warm in your wet clothes when you’re lost in the woods for the night. They make clever little LED head lamps. Some they sew right in the bill of your fishing hat. It will help you tie one more fly on as it keeps getting darker and you’re not smart enough to have started for home a half hour earlier. And a final tip. The buddy system.
I’m a much better navigator on the water than I am in the woods and to be perfectly honest I have a better sense of direction than Ron in either environment. So after he’s fallen and broken his favorite rod don’t let him strike out on his own up the hillside and out of sight on what he figures must be a short cut. Even if he’s steaming, make him stay with you and return the way you came in. If you don’t you’ll have to double back to find him and as certainly as a Brook trout will have a big Hex feed on the Fourth, you’ll fall in the dark too. You’ll break your fishing rod and say things you might regret. Oh, and put a few good sized band aids in a pocket of your vest.