Disclaimer:
It’s another one of those nights; quiet, cold, late and lifeless. Angry rain releases its fury onto the tin roof of my small guide cabin and wind-strewn branches scrape the thin glass window that looks out towards the vast, dense forest bordering the Dean River.
To my left, Colby snores heavily into his blanket, his whisker-clad nose and thick furred shoulders twitching furiously as he sleeps through the storm.
I smile at him; yes, it would appear that these nights have the same effect on us all.
The welcome flicker of a dancing flame livens up even the most ordinary of glass jars and the yellow glow lights the paper rested on my lap, allowing my eager pen access to the crisp white canvas.
I gaze at the two inornate objects; both so underestimated yet both so capable. The irony doesn’t make its way past me, and I am reminded again of why at an early age I was drawn to the comfort of such tools.
As pen meets paper, a literary intimacy begins and both merge as one until the birth of a message unfolds.
In the past, I have been confined by the simplicity and politics of strict editors and conservative publications.
“April, perhaps a light-hearted piece is in store? Maybe one on gear, or presentation, or even seasons…? Perhaps you can let the pot settle for a little bit before stirring it again?”
The plea is fair, for there is many an angler that thrives on such articles, so I succumb to the unpleasant thought of stifled opinion, instead lingering on the edges of boredom while differentiating between dead-drifted glo-bugs and current swung streamers.
The truth is, there are only so many ways that this twenty-nine year old mind can phrase what has already been so rigorously explored and defined by men nearly three times my age.
Respectfully, I try to leave the technique jargoned “how-to’s” for the mechanically inclined professionals; those who thrive off the vagaries of weather data, hydrometric charts and the latest and greatest in gear technology.
I, while relatively versed in the aforementioned, prefer to flourish in the quiet satisfaction of readership contemplation and the occasional bout of reflection.
In saying this, I have been well behaved in my last two columns and I would like to redeem my “get out of jail free” card before commencing with my next dice roll in the columnist game of editorial monopoly….
Game On: Defining the Grip & Grin…
The eeriness of the night has always been a cruel friend of mine. It does to me what it does to Colby, and my entire brain ticks and seizures with overwhelming ideas, thoughts and dreams.
Armed with only a bedside notepad and pen, I frantically jot down my impulsive flashes and try to guide the ink accordingly across the page in the blindness of the black room.
It was a night much like this nearly one year ago that was the impetus of this very article. I had been lying in bed below the same tin roof, sore and satisfyingly fatigued from a long excursion upriver with fellow guide, Steve Morrow. It was the end of our season and the two of us had trekked into a long flow of water in the upper stretches of the fabled Dean River in pursuit of adventure.
Steve and I had spent the last sixty consecutive days guiding other anglers and assisting them with the stalking, hooking, landing and releasing of hot steelhead that were making their migratory journey to the Dean’s tributaries.
Through wind, rain, heat and horseflies, together the two of us had tailed more fish than we could count and the mantra of the ‘grip, cradle, lift, smile, click, “give her a drink”, release’, protocol made our personal fishing days all the more at ease when it came time to land our own fish.
As an unspoken rule, if we were within talking distance we would assist the other with a speedy release but the camera played shy, exposing itself only for the occasional fish whose girth extended our splayed fingers more so than usual.
That night, as I lay listening to the soothing pattering of rain above, I replayed the day’s events and closed my eyes to envision the green and gold flecks of metallic that shone brightly around the fire in one of the wild hen’s eyes.
To do her justice, there was simply no need for a camera. I saw her clear and vivid on the inner dark screen of my rested lids; she had made an impression on my mind and her beauty had set itself in the depths of my memory where I could be sure to visit her every time I so inclined.
Truthfully, I had always softly lingered on the minor contradiction that posed photography entailed.
Myself, admittedly no stranger to the participation of a classic “grip & grin” photo, I had the pose down to a science.
Four of my fingers would lightly cradle her slick, white belly while the other hand closed a firm grip around her sturdy, spotted tail.
Together both my hands would lift on cue, allowing the light to accentuate her bright silver scales, the water droplets rolling and teetering on her soft edges before plunging back down into the river around my knees.
The fish, safe in my grasp, awaited the greedy click of the shutter and I turned my face to the camera with a trophy smile, entranced by my jewel.
The paradox here is one that may not be the most obvious at first. You see, for some, in that chaotic instance of camera bag digging, electronic fumbling and verbal communication between photographer and subject, it is inevitable that there is a moment of sheer splendor lost between the angler and his prize.
In a moment where a mere 30 seconds is the appropriate amount of time shared between both the ‘gripped’ and the ‘grinned’, 28 seconds of that is often spent focused on a completely separate entity than the fish… an entity complete with black dials, glass lenses and extensive light manipulation commonly known as a camera.
It’s an ironic trade off really; an unconscious sacrificial exchange between the moment of silent mental imagery and the moment of distracted, hectic poses. Both result in a stored image…one in remembrance and one in pixels.
While I most certainly will not speak for others, for me personally, I eventually found myself dreading the water sloshing footsteps of an encroaching photographer.
In the short 30 second time allotment that I had to spend with my surrendered beauty, even the smallest of distractions became a hindrance to me, and I longed to be left alone to indulge in the uninterrupted silence where my eyes could be left to etch a permanent picture in my mind.
This said, it might be wise for me to clarify myself further. Occasionally I wholeheartedly delight in having a remarkable steelhead documented for my photo collection. There are some fish that I quite deliberately photograph for future reflection and gratification; Extra hefty shoulders on an early season buck, the flawless and perfectly slender doe, the dainty down-turned eye above those sharp and unsuspecting little teeth…
