MoonShadows

Oh, I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow

Leapin’ and hoppin’ in a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow

-Cat Stevens

            I’d been a bit stressed about some things at work that day, on Thursday, October 5^th.  It was an afternoon that was leading up to the Harvest Moon that would be rising in just a few hours.  I decided to take off from school, with the encouragement of my wife and team, and head out for what was most likely my final trout fishing endeavor of the season.  I decided it would take an outing to regain the spirit within me.

            I zipped home, grabbed my gear and some food to eat, and headed out to a favorite creek a couple of counties northwest of the Stateline.  For me personally, getting out can sometimes help me clear my head, and realign what’s really important.  The skies were overcast, and were suppose to stay that way.  This meant I probably wouldn’t get any glimpses of the full moon, but it did promise to be good fishing.

            The creek isn’t much.  None of the holes in the bends are over my head.  In fact, the deepest hole only comes to my waist.  It isn’t very wide either.  The water itself doesn’t move very fast.  The creek is so thick with bramble that it’s nearly impossible to fly fish (although I’ve tried, and have managed to catch some trout there with my own hand tied flies once upon a time ago…but not without some major frustration and spending most of my time snagged in branches).  For this reason I fish by flipping spinners up along the grassy banks or under overhanging trees.  I could scream at the top of my lungs at any one time in that creek, and no one would hear me; it’s too far from anything through that long stretch of trout water.  For these reasons it’s perfect.  In fact, I love it.  I can fish.  I can be focused and precise.  I can stumble and bumble while walking in the water, or as I hike in and out, and yet through it all I feel safe.  More precisely, I know it personally and intimately; each bend, riffle, and the hidden underwater structure.  Because of this, I can think while I fish or fish while I think; either way I know what I’m doing and where to look while soaking in the experience and environs.

A Brown Trout

A Brook Trout

A Twelve Inch Brown Trout

            On that afternoon, I caught several brook and brown trout.  That in itself is pretty cool, but beyond that is the fact that it’s been twenty years now since I caught my first trout.  It was a little brook trout; wild, and crafty, and living in the headwaters of a blue ribbon trout stream just east of where I grew up.  I guess that evening was a way to commemorate my inaugural outing.  I caught that original trout as an adult just after my son had been born.  While our young family was up visiting my parents, who still lived in Northern Lower Michigan at the time, my Dad took me out.  He had taken me trout fishing off and on as I was growing up, but I just hadn’t gotten the knack of it, and so I usually stuck to pan-fish, perch, and the occasional bass or pike when I did go out.

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            As much as the excitement behind catching that first trout, was the awe I felt for the place where I’d caught it.  It was the place that had hooked me.  Twenty years later I still remember that it was dark, it was tight, and it was almost stuffy.  The water gurgled through thick, old growth white cedars; they were huge and sacred.  The trout itself was very small and I had caught it in a style not much different than what they might use for ice fishing, as I let a worm drift with the current in short little runs under red colored cedar roots and needle laden embankments.  It didn’t matter as I was simply elated that I had finally caught one.  I still remember that brook trout’s dark greenish-black colors with yellow spots, and red dots surrounded by blue hallows; a hint of orange running along its belly.  You simply don’t find a fish better colored than the brook trout.  Its creation is perfect.  I looked at that first trout and then eased it back into the cold water.

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            I thought of these things, and remembered these details, on that Thursday a week or so ago.  I fished until it was dark and I couldn’t see.  Two great horned owls called to each other from different areas of the surrounding forest.  I elected not to put on my headlamp, but instead used the moonlight that filtered through the thin layers of clouds to hike up through the creek, out through the woods, and on to the path that would lead me back to my Jeep.  The woods and trail were mine alone.  Some would probably find that frightening.  I found it tranquil.  It was a great evening to be out.  It was a great night to let the expectations, which can sometimes weigh on a person, simply fall away.  It was a great last run of the trout season.  By the time I had driven home, I was able to see distinct shadows of myself from the moonlight.

            See you along The Way…