Gray

Photo Gus Merwin

Everything about the world was gray. It was drizzling and the light had retreated, so the world felt more subtle. A warm, rich gray. The kind of gray that makes you feel as though the world is simple and close. Large places become small spaces, and sounds become muted.

I have always loved the rain. The closeness of it. Not because I'm a gloomy man, but because it makes the world feel more intimate. While others hide in their homes, I head outside to see how the rain changes the world. My grandfather told me that the fishing was best in the rain, and he was always right. He also told me that if you weren't suffering, you weren't fishing.

There was a moment when my life made sense, and age ten was the pinnacle of that feeling. I had yet to feel the constant ache of puberty, and I was old enough to adventure on my own but still completely safe in my exploration with a watchful adult’s eye usually just behind me. I had free reign of the land around my grandfather's house but was too young to cause any real trouble. And I was obsessed with fishing. An obsessed boy is a happy boy.

The rain that day had started in the afternoon, as is typical in New England in the summer. A quick thunderstorm, and then it usually cleared up. However, this day the gray stayed. It felt like a blanket, draped over what would have been difficult fishing in the afternoon heat. This day would be different, and I could sense it at my grandparent's kitchen table. There was a slight drizzle as I collected my gear, grabbed my jacket, and threw on my hat.

My grandfather, my father, and I fished that afternoon. We set out together and strolled into the gray. I was excited because today would be a dry fly day, as my father described it. The mayflies would be hatching on the river because of the temperature change, and I would be floating a dry fly to tempt the rising fish.

For the most part, dry flies represent the stage in an insect's life where the fly transitions from a larva to a sex-machine. Until this time, the larva or nymph had spent all its time on the rocks at the bottom of the river. Sometimes building a case of pebbles or debris to live in, the nymph grew fat and prepared for what came next. When the time was right, the larva begins to metamorphose into a creature solely devoted to procreation. But before it can explore romantic possibilities, it needs to swim/drift to the surface, break out of its skin, step into oxygen to dry its wings, and then fly off to copulate en masse. An entire section of a river can explode with this profusion of sex-crazed insects in a matter of minutes.

The trout know this. And trout are not romantic. All they care about is the presence of a massive amount of food in and on the water column, and the trout will gorge themselves. It's an impressive sight when a peaceful section of a river suddenly erupts with fish losing their minds as they eat.

At age ten, I mainly fished under the surface, swinging flies that imitated little fish or bugs. My grandfather and my father agreed that this was the most dependable way to catch fish, and they were right. However, I yearned for "the hatch." Fish so numerous and hungry that they set aside safety and exposed themselves to predators as they ate ravenously. Dozens of fish in a pool poking their noses into the air to sip in emerging flies. These fish would splash the water when they took your fly. It was exhilarating.

However, I was terrible at it. You have to see the take, and you have to set the hook at just the right time. Not to mention the fact that the fly must not slap the water when it lands, and it needs to float on the water without causing a disturbance that will scare the fish. Trout might be crazy, but they aren't stupid. If they see something unusual, they will hide, and it will be 20 minutes before they return.  By then, the hatch could be over.

I scared a lot of trout.

But today was gray. The rain had closed everything in. I knew today was going to be different.

The bridge was one of my favorite places to fish. I believe that it used to connect to the old train station but now leads to the overflow parking for Merwin Meadows, the town park named after my family. It was made of huge timbers, laid on a small foundation that rose on both sides of the river. It was short, maybe 20 feet wide, but sturdy as hell, and had survived more than a few hurricanes. Standing on the bridge, you could look down between the slats and watch trout feed in the river below. Standing on the edge, you could look down the river and see the long pool that held the larger trout.

In the downstream pool stood two boulders. One at the top of the pool and another at the bottom, or tail out. These boulders would hold trout around them as they used the disturbance in the water flow caused by the boulder to hover and wait for food. From these positions, the trout could feed on whatever passed by without needing to expend much energy.

With the rain, my poor casts would be hidden. With the gray, I would blend into the background. With a prodigious hatch, I was sure to hook at least one fish.

I stood on the bridge and watched. Within a few minutes, I noticed the rising trout. For the entire length of the pool, trout were rising and sipping flies from the surface. In a steady rhythm, the trout found the flies struggling to be free of the water and would nose themselves into the air to gobble the hapless flies. This was the moment I was hoping for. The hatch was on.

My father helped me choose a fly.  Then I crossed over the bridge and made my way down to the water. I could present my fly to the rising trout by the boulders easily and without scaring all the fish from that side. Within minutes I had my first rise, and I soon hooked a few fish. I eventually landed three trout, all from that same pool.

I have caught thousands of fish in my life. I've had days where I have lost count at 100. I have fished some of the most beautiful water on the planet under a perfect blue sky and a slight summer breeze. But the three fish that day were perhaps the most special. I was awestruck that I had done "the thing." I had caught more than one fish during a hatch. I hadn't screwed it up. It had all worked as it was supposed to. The gray was my friend. The gray made it possible to do a thing well.