“As we grow old…the beauty steals inward.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When Ron arrived at the lodge, I thought he was a nice old guy, friendly and out going, as fishermen tend to be. But, there was something different about Ron. He traveled alone and preferred to fish by himself, which in and of itself wasn’t unusual. But there was more… something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Ron was from Michigan and had fly fished all of his life. Like many older fishermen, especially from the northern states, he had a deep abiding love for brook trout, and it didn’t take him long to figure me as someone who’d love to hear him recount the days when a big square-tail wasn’t an oddity. Over dinner he discovered that I’d fished the Au Sable near Grayling, and he quizzed me.
“Did ya fish the Main Branch?”
“A little, but mostly the South.”
“Above or below The Smith’s Bridge?”
“Mostly below, out of Haven’s Camp, but sometimes we’d wander up into the Mason Tract.”
“Around the Chapel?”
“Yup.”
“How ’bout the Middle Branch?”
“Above Frederic. Good brookie water there.”
“But hard to fish.”
“‘Cause of the cedar swamps,”
“Blow downs,”
“And sweepers.”
“Ya ‘betcha!” He concluded, with a big toothy grin. As far as Ron was concerned, we were now buddies, and that was just fine with me.
“I just love brook trout,” he continued during dessert. “That’s why I came to Alaska.”
“There aren’t any brookies up here, old timer,” said another fishermen at the table.
“Oh, I know that all right,” Ron, said, with a twinkle in his eyes, “But the arctic char and Dolly Varden might as well be first cousins.”
September is my favorite time of the year in Alaska; the cottonwood and birch become shimmering gold curtains that frame cerulean waters. The tundra is aflame in a riot of purples, reds, and yellow. Mornings are cold and crisp, and the afternoons warm and gentle. There is a sense of bounty that is ripe with transition and urgent in it’s calling; a reminder that summer’s gilded end is at hand and winter will soon follow.
Ron had picked just the right time to visit. The sockeye salmon were at the height of their spawning, and the char and Dolly Varden would feed voraciously on their eggs. These mature fish were in prime condition, and the ivory colored edges of their fins seemed even brighter in contrast to their pumpkin-orange and bright red flanks.
I was on the dock when Ron returned from his first day of fishing. As he emerged from the last plane to return, he gave his guide a big bear hug and proclaimed, “That’s the best gowlderned day of fishing anyone’s ever had!” His face was aglow with a smile from ear to ear. “Thanks! I can’t thank you enough!”
Ron was half way to his cabin, moving slowly, head down, when his guide, Matt, called out to him. “See you at dinner, Mr. Brookie!”
Some nicknames are inspired on a divine level, and this was one of those. “So,” I said, to Matt, “Tell me about Mr. Brookie’s day.”
“Wow!” Matt said, shaking his head. “The river must have saved it up all summer for this one guy; it was on fire! I’m exhausted from releasing char. I can’t imagine how he feels.”
“So, how many?”
“I stopped counting.”
It’s not like a guide to stop counting; that meant something special.
Ron’s second day, on the Agulowak River, was a carbon copy of his first, with some Dolly Varden thrown in as icing on the cake. After day three, the other fishermen at the lodge had decided that Ron was some sort of fly fishing deity; the Brookie Buddha from Michigan. Everyone asked where he would fish next, and oh by the way, was there room for another guy?
Ron handled his success and popularity with aplomb, if he even noticed. He was so exhausted by the end of each day (and everyone wanted to buy him a drink and pick his mind) that it was a minor miracle that he stayed awake through dinner. I waited for him to ask about a day off to catch up on his rest, but it never happened. Ron was always the first fisherman up in the morning, often joining the guides for a cup of coffee and a game of cribbage, long before the other bleary-eyed guests shuffled in for breakfast.
Ron and I shared dinner most nights, but we hadn’t had the opportunity to fish together, and the week would soon end. As luck would have it, The Boss put us together on Friday for the grand finale. We’d go back to the “Pak” and I knew that it’d be tough, if not impossible to improve upon his first day there with Matt.
Ron spent the morning casting rather casually for a fly fishing God. At one point, he stopped in mid cast and opined, “Can you imagine if all of these char and Dolly Varden had been square tails? It must have been like that in Michigan once.”
His voice trailed off, and he was deep in thought when a big fish hit and pulled him back into the game. He landed it in just a few moments; a sure sign that he’d been at it all week. “Not bad for an old guy who hasn’t fished for almost ten years.” He said, as he let the rainbow trout slip through his fingers, back into the river.
“Ten years?” I asked. “I figured you to fish at least a couple of times a week, even more after retiring.”
“My wife got cancer,” he said quietly. “I took care of her for almost ten years before she went. There wasn’t any time for fishing.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“She made me promise that, when it was over… that I’d take some long fishing trips to places I’ve always dreamt of.” He set his rod down. “I didn’t come here alone,” he said.
It was in that instant that I realized what was different about Ron. Everyone else was on a holiday, a diversion from the pressures of their everyday lives. But, Ron hadn’t come to escape; he had come to recapture a part of his soul. He wasn’t running away from anything, he was searching for the rest of his life, and taking the memory of his wife with him.
“Let’s have lunch,” he said, looking away and reeling in.
