9

The Line Storm

“It sure don’t feel like fall’s ever going to get here,” said Keith mournfully. We were towing his Boston Whaler up Route 1, heading for the landing on the Kennebec to catch the turn of the tide. The back of Keith’s truck was loaded with 9- weight fly rods and big-arbor reels and plastic boxes full of Deceivers and Clousers.

He flapped the back of his hand at the passing roadside. The birches and poplars were droopy and brown. In the swampy areas, the maples were turning the color of dead grass. “We got no pretty leaves,” he said. “No frost on the pumpkin. No little russet fellers twittering down into alders on the full moon. The other day I ran Freebie through that string of alders along the brook behind Mrs. Sucheki’s pasture? The mud was cement. No sign of a woodcock.” He shook his head. “It don’t even smell right.”

“Bird season opens a week from tomorrow,” I said.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if they closed the woods,” said Sam from the back seat. “I heard they might. On account of forest fires.”

“Yeah, well, we could sure use some rain,” said Keith. The summer-long drought had continued into September. We’d had no significant rainfall since Memorial Day, and this was another in an endless series of cloudless days. “Anyway,” he said, “the good news is, the river’s rumored to be full of stripers comin’ down from Nova Scotia. The autumn migration. Maybe the fish know something we don’t know. Be nice to intercept a couple of them big cows on their way south, put an end to this damn fishing season and get on to shooting ourselves some birds.”

We launched the boat and headed down the river toward the estuary. Sam and I rigged up our fly rods while Keith steered. Sinking-tip lines, big Clousers with dumbbell eyes.

A minute later, Keith said, “Hey-lo.” He kicked the outboard up a couple notches and swerved into a cove.

Sam pointed, and then I saw them. Swarming gulls and spurting water. We coasted up to the fish, and Sam and I both had our lines in the air. My first cast had barely hit the water when my fly stopped. “Got one,” I said.

Then Sam grunted. He had one on, too.

Schoolie stripers pull hard. We never sneer at them. But we weren’t after twenty-inchers. Sometimes big old cows lurk under the schools of smaller fish, and if the schoolies let a weighted fly to sink down to their grandmothers . . .

By the time Sam and I released our fish, the school had gone down. Keith putted around the cove, looking for spurts or swirls or wakes, and Sam and I dredged the water. But they were gone.

We headed back to the main channel. Now the tide was running hard up the river. Sam and I double-hauled our leaden sink-tips blindly against the rocks and along the dropoffs. The closer we got to the estuary, the harder the wind blew.

We saw no breaking fish. We tried to cover the likely water, the holes and rips and channels and current convergences where baitfish stacked up.

But it wasn’t happening, and gradually my fishing adrenaline stopped pumping and my attention began to wander and my shoulder got tired and my casting deteriorated.

Two men throwing sink-tip lines and saltwater streamers tied on 2/0 stainless-steel hooks and armed with big lead dumbbell eyes into a hard quartering wind from a small boat is asking for trouble. An awkward double-haul, a sudden gust of wind, and my Clouser slammed into Sam.

“Ow,” he observed. “You got me.”

“I’m sorry, man. Damn. You okay?”

“I’m not sure,” he said.

I put down my rod and looked. My fly had impaled the fleshy part of his right ear. The hook was buried halfway up the bend. “It’s not bleeding,” I said. “How’s it feel?”

“Oh, fine,” Sam said. “Pisser.”

“Did you debarb that fly?” said Keith.

“I always debarb my flies,” I said. I wiggled the big streamer that hung from Sam’s ear. “That hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” I said, “it looks like I didn’t debarb this one. It’s in over the barb, and it’s not moving.”

“Gotta push it all the way through, then,” said Sam. “Okay?”

“Me?” I said.

“I’ll do it,” said Keith.

It was hard to watch. Ear cartilage is tough stuff.

“How you doin’?” I said to Sam.

“Good,” he said. Then he grunted, and the barb broke through. I cut it off with fishing pliers, and Keith backed out the hook. Sam’s ear gushed blood. Keith poured some beer over the wound, then gave the bottle to Sam, who took a big gulp.

“I’m sorry, man,” I said to Sam.

He was holding an oily boat rag over his ear. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It could just as well’ve been me nailing you.”

“Nice try,” I said, “and I appreciate it. But I don’t buy it. I got tired and careless, and I should’ve stopped casting for a while. No excuse.”

“Look,” he said. “It was stupid, both of us trying to cast at the same time. Sink tips and weighted flies in this wind? Dumb, both of us.”

“I could’ve stuck you in the eye or the throat or something.”

“Well, you didn’t. So forget about it.”

“You guys gonna keep beatin’ your breasts,” said Keith, “or do you want to go fishing?”

“You take the bow,” said Sam.

“No,” I said. “You go ahead.”

Sam shrugged and began to cast. I sat down, snipped off my fly, reeled up, and took down my rod.

“What the hell’re you doing?” said Keith.

“My arm’s tired. I’m going to watch Sam, maybe take some pictures.”

He arched his eyebrows at me.

I shrugged. “Okay, so maybe I’m just wishing fall would hurry up and get here. Fishing doesn’t feel right anymore. I’m ready to go hunting.”

“Not if we don’t get some rain,” said Sam.

Keith trolled and Sam cast and I watched until the tide turned. Nobody had a strike. Sam and Keith argued about whether the stripers were done for the season. Keith believed the year’s southbound migration had already passed through the Maine coastal waters. Sam thought there’d be some more fish coming along.

I didn’t join the discussion. I had no opinion.

* * *

The next evening I washed all of my fly rods, cleaned all my reels and lines, reorganized all my fly boxes, and stowed everything away. Then I took my 20-gauge Winchester Model 21 from its case, assembled it, peered through the barrels, snapped it shut, mounted it to my shoulder, and swung on the imaginary woodcock and grouse that were flying around in my den.

Then I wiped it off, disassembled it, and put it back in its case.

I sat in my big chair. Burt, my Brittany, ambled over and flopped down beside me. I reached down, scratched his muzzle and told him he better start giving serious thought to bird smells. I told him how the stripers were heading south. All it would take, I told him, would be a day or two of wind and rain to bring the woodcock down from Nova Scotia. A line storm, we call it in New England, the big blow that comes every year out of the northeast to demarcate the line between summer and fall. It was overdue.

And I told Burt how I’d impaled Sam’s ear with a 2/0 Clouser that I’d inexcusably forgotten to debarb, and how I took that as a sure sign that it was time to put fishing behind us and move on to the next season.

That’s when the phone rang. It was Art. He lives on the banks of the Merrimack River. “The river’s full of fish,” he said. “Schoolies, mostly, but a lot of big cows, too. I was out this morning, and—”

“No, thanks” I said.

“Huh?”

“No, I don’t want to go fishing. Far as I’m concerned, fishing season’s over. I nailed Sam in the ear with a big weighted Clouser yesterday. I already put my fishing stuff away for the winter. I’m ready to go hunting.”

“Too bad,” said Art. “They were breaking all over the river. We were catching ’em on Gurglers. Some pretty big ones, too. It was better than that time back in June.”

“Better than June?” I said. “That was a helluva good day.”

“This was better.”

“The fish were pretty much gone from the Kennebec.”

“Sure,” said Art. “They’re moving south. Now they’re here.”

“They were really breaking all over the river?”

“Everywhere,” he said. “It was awesome. So whaddya say? Tomorrow morning?”

“Keith shoved that hook all the way through Sam’s ear,” I said, “and he didn’t flinch. It must’ve hurt like hell. I could’ve put out his eye.”

“Meet me at the ramp. Six-thirty.”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess so.”

* * *

At six-thirty the next morning, black clouds hung low and dark and heavy over the Merrimack River in Newburyport. The air was still and moist and salty, and the water looked as flat and black as carbon paper. The muffled clang of a distant bell buoy echoed through the mist. I rigged up my seven-weight with a floating line and a debarbed Gurgler.

“Watch out for me,” I told Art as we pulled away from the ramp. “I stick hooks into people.”

“We’ve fished together for forty years,” he said, “and you haven’t stuck me yet. Anyway, I’m—hey!”

He pointed to a swarm of gulls that were circling and diving a hundred yards ahead of us. Under them the water was spurting into the air.

“Hit it,” I said.

Art gunned the motor, then cut it, and as we drifted up to the melee of birds, bait and fish, I had my line in the air, casting over the bow, very aware of Art behind me in the stern.

My Gurgler hit the water. I made it gurgle, and it disappeared in a swirl. From behind me I heard Art grunt. I turned. His rod was bowed. Doubles on our first casts.

They were twin schoolies, not big, nineteen-inchers, but they pulled harder than any nineteen-inch rainbow or smallmouth and, when I released my fish and looked up, the air was full of birds and the water was bubbling with swirls and splashes as far as I could see. Every cast brought a slash and a strike, and we caught stripers steadily for two hours. Neither of us rammed a hook into the other guy’s ear, and we didn’t even notice when it started raining.

The fish disappeared abruptly and without warning. We cast for ten minutes without seeing a swirl or getting a strike. It was raining hard.

“It’s over,” said Art. “The tide turned, and that’s that.”

“Good,” I said. I sat down, reeled up, and took down my rod.

Art peered up at the sky. “Lots of rain coming,” he said. “Here’s our line storm. Cold front behind it. Yesterday it was summer. Day after tomorrow it’ll be fall, and the stripers’ll be gone.”

“Bird season,” I said. “The woods will be wet. There’ll be water in the brooks. The leaves will color up, and there’ll be frost on the pumpkin, and the little russet fellers will come twittering into the alders on the full moon.”

“Now you can stow away your fishing gear.”

“I did that once,” I said. “Thanks for making me do it again. Now maybe I won’t have to think about Sam’s ear all winter.”