Book Excerpt: For Everything There is a Season

“The first rule of this river is that you don’t talk about this river. At least by name.” That’s how the text read.

“Understood.”

This was starting to feel a little like Fight Club, the much-maligned late-nineties flick where Edward Norton is beaten into a new, self-reflexive consciousness, or some such bullshit.

My buddy, Jon Osborn, was taking me to one of his top-secret fishing spots, a stretch he affectionately terms “The Murder Water.” I’ve never been entirely sure what that means, but coming from a cop, it didn’t seem like a compliment.

Regardless, buddy or not, the message was clear: This is a place very few had been invited to, and I’d best keep it tucked well under my hat or risk losing my invite. Permanently.

“You’ll want camo. These fish are spooky, and we’ll be right on top of them. Oh, and bring a handsaw. And a dry bag.”

What the hell am I getting myself into? I wondered.

We waded this water once last summer with some success, but to get into the bigger fish, he assured me, we needed to float it. In a canoe.

Murder Water in a canoe? Perfect. Just perfect.

I may not have been completely forthright with Ozzy about my abilities in a canoe, the first and last outing dating more than twenty years back and nearly resulting in a swift divorce. “About as useful as snow shovel at a sidewalk cafe in Buenos Aires” most aptly describes me in a narrow two-seater.

But I wanted the fish, so “fake it ’til you make it” was my mantra for the day. Buddy or not, I wasn’t about to let a little thing like my complete and total inability to manage the required watercraft interfere with an opportunity at the giant trout this water supposedly held.

We pull up to the put-in, and Dwayne (name changed to protect his identity) is waiting for us on the tailgate of the red Chevy. Dwayne is a retired local who knows these thorny bends like the back of his leathered hands and offered to help us stage the vehicles.

“How’s it looking?” Ozzy quizzes.

“As tangled and tormented as ever,” came the blunt reply that did very little to boost my snow-shovel-in-the-sunshine confidence. “But she’s fishing well.”

A few small caddis are already fluttering clumsily above the water, like overloaded airplanes struggling to clear the runway. Not bad for a sunny early afternoon, I reckon. Dwayne catches my eye and chuckles, “Save your energy, son. These fish aren’t interested in little bugs and fancy casts, they’re meat eaters. You’ll do best throwing brown or olive – something with some legs – in a size two; or anything that looks like a big juicy crawfish.”

Noted, Dwayne. Noted and approved.

The canoe and mountain of gear is quickly unloaded, and I’m left to sort it while Dwayne and Ozzy head down to spot the truck. Rods and reels, nets and packs, pipes and paddles; coolers and thermoses and an entire milk crate that’s stocked like the top shelf of a Roaring-Twenties speakeasy. It suddenly seems like significantly more shit than our meager vessel is meant to manage, but I organize the best I can, line the rods, and slither down to the river’s edge to take a better look. It can’t be that bad, I assure myself.

Ozzy’s back, and we finally shove off. Gratefully I’m in the bow, sitting on a freshly rebuilt seat and working to find my balance while casting from a sitting position in the overloaded banana boat. Less than a minute into the float we spot a riser and decide to post up, despite the formidable float still in front of us. The feeder isn’t super consistent, but consistent enough, so we watch and wait as the river slides past as tranquil as a summer moonrise. The mellowness of the moment is quickly interrupted by an ear-piercing CRACK! and I find myself sitting in the bottom of the canoe, surrounded by the splinters of the seat that was new that morning.

This is definitely not the start I envisioned.

I apologize, attempt to pull myself up, and nearly capsize the canoe in the process. “Whoa,” Jon cautions. “Easy.”

I already need a cigarette…

“For Everything There is a Season” is now available in the MidCurrent marketplace.