'Fishing Always Seems Like the Answer'
Even when you're not clear what the question was.
Those words are taken from John Gierach’s book, All Fishermen Are Liars, which I’ve been listening to in the car for the past week. I made it through All the Time in the World, narrated by David Colacci, in just a few days. It was the last book Gierach completed before dying of a heart attack last October at the age of 77.
I first heard of Gierach—the Midwestern transplant who’s credited for coining the term trout bum—two years ago when I was looking for a quote to serve as the epigraph for “Trout Fishing in Arkansas,” a story I included in my first book. I went with this bit of wisdom:
“The solution to any problem—work, love, money, whatever—is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be.” (The quote is from Standing in a River Waving a Stick.)
Last week, that idea was inverted.
On Wednesday, with the temperature in the 70s for the second day in a row, I ventured to one of my favorite small streams in the Smoky Mountains to catch wild rainbows. I knew the fishing might not be good yet. The Apocalyptic Cowboy, my trout sensei in years gone by, warned as much. But even when you can’t buy a bite, one of the nice things about fishing in the mountains is that you’re surrounded by nature and typically hiking, which counts as exercise. So the outing becomes like a two-(or three)-for-one special.
This year, for Lent, I had to make the tough choice between giving up Coke Zero or negativity. Since they’re both as likely to kill me, I figured I’d give the larger obstacle a crack first. And despite not seeing a fish for five hours of casting into pool after pool, I drove home happy for getting to enjoy time outside on a workday.
On Friday, work was slow, and the Lake Info app I downloaded to track dam release schedules informed me that the TVA had quit dumping water out of Cherokee Lake. This meant the flows were fishable, which is one way of saying that a person could wade comfortably without worrying about being washed downstream by a torrent of water.
I made my way to a favorite spot on the nearby tailwater, with only one other fisherman casting a spinning rod about a hundred yards downstream. Within five casts of my squirmy wormy, I was rewarded with two gorgeous rainbows.
The second trout I pulled into the net was the big fella you see at the top. He measured about a foot and a half, though he was clearly the first at the buffet line each morning. Engorged is the word my friends and I like to use for these meaty chunksters, which we gently release, hoping the fellas throwing nightcrawlers don’t pull them all out of the river by summer.
By the time I’d hooked my third fish on a brown mop fly, the Apocalyptic Cowboy pulled in, fresh off nuclear-proofing his bomb shelter for spring. After netting a few more fish before lunchtime, I pulled out my tobacco pipe, watched him cast for a bit, and then drove home. (As per usual, the fishing turned on after I left, with AC reporting one bow so chunky that it broke his hook in half.)
When I pulled into the driveway, I was ready to put in a few hours of computer work before clocking out for the weekend. While unpacking my waders, I noticed a drip coming from the ceiling. Water had already puddled on the floor, which was worrying. After some phone calls to men who know more about this kind of stuff, I found the leak was coming from a pipe hidden above ductwork. I followed the copper line up to the middle cabinet of the guest room bathroom, where I pulled out the drawers and discovered an inch of water that had pooled over.
It took four days of pouring out water from a plastic food container—the only bucket-like thing that would fit and not spill over in an hour’s time—until a plumber could repair it for just under $500. It’s a good thing I didn’t put in an order for the new floating line and flies I’d been looking at online, which is the kind of excited purchase I tend to make after a good day on the water.
I’m not sure God works this way, but I can’t help believing that He granted me a morning of good fishing because He knew the leak would be waiting for me when I got home. Since I was in for a weekend of anxiety anyway, I needed to catch some fish to keep that Lenten promise of positive thinking going.
One of the new sections I’ll be premiering on Substack next week is Brain Crumbs, which will replace my weekly column. In this new section, I’ll explore topics like the Big-fish-little-pond effect and attempt to answer questions like “Why are the Japanese so good at fishing?” and “What really is the longest word in the English dictionary?”
For now, I’m doing some spring cleaning.
Because of that, I’m offering a discount special to join my Attic Club before April 8.
The next time I’m out on the water, it’ll be with the kids. This week, I bought the 3-year-old his first Zebco rod and organized a simple tackle box for catching blue gill and bass.
If the weather’s back in the seventies before Monday, we may have to find ourselves a pond to drown some worms in. Hopefully, when we get back home, there won’t be any puddles waiting for us in the garage.
Before you leave, support my work by upgrading to a paid subscription for as little as $4.17/month ($50/year)—even less if you take advantage of my huge ‘Spring Cleaning’ offer.
Buying me a coffee, ordering a copy of my first story collection, or listening to my stories on YouTube and Spotify are other great ways to support Storytime with Big Head.
Ironic that you went from a tobacco pipe by the stream, to the less enjoyable and more costly water pipe at home. Beautiful fish though!