A FIGMENT OF THE RIVER

For just over a year, now, I’ve been fishing for a figment. A figment of rivers large and mysterious. A dragon, in aquatic form, full of sharp teeth and angst. A figment feet long but easily hidden and sparingly seen; vicious, but only occasional moved to feed. 

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    In a year’s time I’ve only managed to be on the river searching for this figment a week of days. Another half dozen I’ve spent rowing others down the river, hoping they too will assign reality to the figment, and keep me company in desperation. But in a year’s time I’ve tied a few dozen flies, read a mountain of articles and scientific papers, and talked to anyone that would listen—including you, reader, who may have read my fanatical, poorly organized words about the almighty musky, the object of my obsession.

    Most of the non-angling folk are unaware of the musky’s existence so close to their safe, warm beds. 

    “That lives in the river?” they gasp, incredulously. 

    Indeed they do. I’ve seen a few dozen, but it occurs to me that if it weren’t for the historical success of anglers like me and the hands of scientists physically on the flanks of the creature, I’d have little reason to believe my sanity not drowned in the river. An appropriately shaped log, or even a shadow of the right dimension, after all, when paired with the rippling surface of the river, can fabricate a lot of things.

    But I’ve written all that off, for this figment has been realized. 

    My story is not an uncommon one. Nicknamed the fish of 10,000 casts, the musky often demands days, sometimes weeks, occasionally more than a month (in one friend’s case) on the water in order to grace an angler with its presence. They are a fish of low odds and probability. The more time spent on the water, the more likely a fish in the boat becomes, and the more tools you earn to put the odds ever more in your favor. 

    My seventh day came on a cold, blustering, mid-December day, fishing alone on one of my home waters. The mid-morning sun pushed the mercury over the freezing mark, and the wind beat it back down, shoving my raft around the river and my casts out of form in the air. The water was exceptionally clear and the sun was shining bright. I was swimming a few new flies, hoping they’d push my odds into the black. As both captain and angler, I worked slowly down the river, analyzing cover to anchor in strategic positions, and then trading oars for a fly rod in the bow. 

    The wind roared through the height of the day. Early afternoon brought a slight respite. I worked through it, stoically searching for the figment of the river.

    Cast. Strip. Pause. Strip. Pause. Repeat. 

    My eyes drifted to my watch as the sun began its decent into the mountains, and the musky sunk deeper into the river, retreating again from reality. And when the light faded to the harsh pre-dusk hue that makes the river’s surface a mirror and turns the fishing into a mindless salute to the expiring day, the world turned upside down. 

    Halfway through my retrieve I stripped my fly into something solid. But this time the flexed butt of the rod told the story not of a rock or log, but of a living thing. 

    A well-matched tussle ensued. A tug-of-war between man and beast unseen. I made my way frantically to the middle of the boat, as my net, massive in circumference, was stored in the back. My rod very literally doubled in my rod hand, I used my left hand to extend the net. After a handful of tense minutes, leverage trumped raw power, and the figment broke the surface tension and succumbed to the net bag. 

    I celebrated briefly, still in shock. Then, a working man with a job to finish, I dropped back into the rower’s seat, secured the net handle so that the fish was safely and securely in the water, pulled the anchor, and rowed to shore to tape and admire the fish. 

    The tape measured 40 inches of musky, on the dot, and I thanked my lucky stars as I beheld them and preserved them in film for perpetuity.

    Despite the hours of dedicated work invested in the fish in hand, the moment was fleeting. I lowered it back to the water and saw it off. Lazily, it slid below the mirrors surface and waved a languid goodbye, and the finned memorial to my sanity returned to the river.□

*Originally published in The Rural Virginian