Barnwood

Image by Jillian Schuller

My neighbor retired last month. This is his fourth or fifth retirement. Then he goes back to the office. Such things are increasingly common. People stop working, and there’s nothing to do.

Howard is lucky. A devoted fly angler, after each retirement he waded the rivers of SE Minnesota to his heart’s content. But with each retirement he made the same discovery. You can’t fish every day. Or even every week. Thunderstorms fill creeks, and you can’t fish. Or it’s too hot, and you can’t fish. Or it’s the wife’s birthday, or the dog has his annual vet appointment, and you can’t fish.

“I fished more when I had a job.”

I know what he means. When you’re working and get a day off, you don’t fool around. You go fishing.

But now Howard is retired for good. At least that’s what he says, and after watching him leave every morning in a fly vest, I couldn’t take it anymore. The heck with work. I started tagging along.

On a late July day we stood in Glen Creek, casting to rising browns. Howard talked about women, money, fishing, and barn wood.

Barn wood?

“Old wood,” he explained. “On barns. It’s more valuable than you thought.”

I hadn’t thought about it at all. “Who wants old wood?”        

“People with money. Young people. Urban professionals. Look around. All these new homes are built like farm houses with porches and rocking chairs. People want old-fashioned stuff. They use barn wood in cabinets, on floors and walls. And they’re willing to pay.”

“Old wood in a new home?”

“Not old. Vintage. Heirloom. The floors might be heated, but the wood is a hundred years old. Parents want to tell their kids it’s the simple things that count.”

“Wouldn’t it just be better to live simply?”

“You sure don’t know rich people.”

Howard even had a barn ready to strip. Or de-lumber. Or whatever he said, way out in Fillmore County. The farmer would get a flat fee. After removing the planks we could split the profit 50/50.

“We?”

“It’s a two-man job.”

“I don’t think so.”

“That’s too bad.” He set the hook on a small brown. “It’s a pretty drive, with lots of back holler creeks. I thought we’d do a little fishing, too.”

The man knew how to sell. The next morning he pulled in front of my house with a flatbed trailer. I was ready. But one thing or another came up. The dogs needed walking. Then our neighbor Florence saw the trailer and wanted a load of brush dumped at the compost lot. We didn’t get going until ten. An hour later we made a detour into a side valley, because an unnamed creek was rumored to hold trout.

“Here it is,” Howard said, pulling over. We parked and walked onto the bridge, which was nothing more than a pair of corrugated pipes covered in concrete. Water shot through and tumbled off in a long run. Upstream, limestone boulders littered the water, forming breaks and pools. As we watched a fish splashed. Then another.

We ran for the rods. Using whatever was knotted (I think mine was a Royal Wulff) we each caught a pair of spanking browns, males in their brilliant spawning colors, yellow sided with red and black spots.

Howard took off his straw hat and tipped it to an ear. He said he heard something. We waded to where a plunge, or short waterfall, poured over a beaver dam.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“There’s only room for one of us.”

Howard’s a sportsman. “You try it.”

I tied on a big tungsten bead, the kind with a green and gold, iridescent body. I had to be careful. The fly would drop through the water fast. There would surely be a tangle of logs at the bottom of that plunge. I’d rather not lose my tungsten fly. But I also wanted whatever was hunkered down in that hole. Waving the rod back and forth, keeping the line in the air, I dropped the bead right into the falls. I waited a second. Then two. Then hauled back.

Snag. I shook the rod tip. Gently.

“You’ve got a fish!” Howard yelled. Sure enough, the rod dipped and jerked.

“You’re right!”

“Get him out of there!”

I knew what he meant. I was in danger of the trout wrapping on a deadfall. Holding my line I walked backward, keeping the rod tip high. The reel doesn’t help you in these narrow-valley creeks. You have to play them by hand.

I got lucky. The fish decided to run toward me, for the pool below the beaver dam. I pulled line and a long-jawed brown trout jumped, shaking his olive gold head. He splashed down like a jug thrown into the river. What a trout.

He ran to the safety of the falls, and it was touch and go as I gave him just enough line to think he could make it. The fish slowed. Crouching, making my approach, I was able to net him from behind. I call this stealth netting. A big fish always has one last surge, if they see you coming. I’ve lost plenty that way.

It was a dandy brown trout, thick-sided, big-eyed. The oversized red spots always get me. Crimson red. No, that doesn’t do it. Blood red.

We didn’t carry a tape. We put the fish at twenty inches. Howard was as proud as I was. That’s a fly fisherman for you. I balanced the trout in the water, letting him catch his breath, and watched him swim off.

The creek rounded the corner. Then switched back under towering bluffs. We could have spent the whole day exploring that valley, but we had a truck and trailer, and the barn was still another hour away. We had to go to work.    

Work. That awful word.