Barnwood Slam

Image by Erik Hanson

Editor’s note: For backstory to enrich your reading of “Barnwood Slam”, please read “Barnwood” published here on MidCurrent a few weeks ago. 

We shucked our waders and stowed rods. I asked Howard about the business end of barnwood. We just left behind an unnamed creek with big trout. You need a reason to do that, or at least a reason to feel better.

He started the truck and stuck an unlit cigar in his mouth. As we pulled away the double axel trailer bounced on gravel ruts. Howard held the cigar between thumb and forefinger and gave me a short lecture on economics. The kind you give to children:

After stripping the barn, we sell the planks to Wade Larson at Lake City Antiques. Then Wade sells it to a lumber yard in Red Wing. Then Red Wing sells it to a decorator, who sells it to an architect, who sells it to a builder, who sells it to…

It was a whole lot of selling. And his math was off. In order for everyone to make a profit, the lumber would have to cost $1,000 a board.

We pulled into Brownville. There’s nothing going on in Brownville, and they like it that way. The town has a one horse bar, and if you have a horse you can bring one. There’s a hitching post and boardwalk. “Let’s go inside,” Howard said. “And see what’s for lunch.”

I’d heard things about Brownville. Bad things. “We don’t know these people,” I said.

“What can go wrong?”

“They could kill us.”

“Well,” Howard took the soggy end of the cigar from his mouth. “We all have to die sometime.”

He had a point. And I was hungry. We parked and went inside.

Sitting at the bar we ordered burgers with waffle fries and cokes. No alcohol. We were working. Looking around, Howard said I might be right. A few beer drinkers were staring at us in a most unfriendly way. I got up to use the restroom. Howard put a hand on my arm. He warned me to talk to no one.

When I returned I saw him standing by the pool table, yakking it up with a local who wore a ponytail, a black leather vest, earrings and chains, and must have stood six and a half feet tall.

The big guy was a pool player, bending and firing the occasional shot while talking. This is what I saw. The big guy pointing, Howard nodding. The big guy smiling, Howard frowning. The big guy laughing, Howard crying. Howard really wasn’t crying. He might have been laughing. He returned, a little out of breath.

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

The bartender put our baskets down. I don’t know how they make their burgers where you live. But the cheeseburgers in these outback saloons are unbeatable, a sizzling half pound with cheese and two strips of thick, home-cured bacon.

The bill? $12.50.

Howard left a twenty. “Let’s go,” he said. “Now.” We got off barstools and bumped into the big guy at the door.

Or he bumped into us. He put his arm around Howard. “Listen,” he said to me, squeezing my friend’s shoulder. “Whatever this guy tells you, do the opposite.”

I said I’d try my best.

He clapped me on the back. “Atta boy.”

We jumped into the truck. But Howard took a hard left out of the parking lot. The trailer shuddered.

“What are you doing?”

“Going fishing.”

“Where?”

“Right up here. At the bridge. Tony put me on to a great spot.”

“You mean Jumbo?”

“His name’s Tony.”

“Sorry.”

“He told me just below the bridge were the biggest trout he’s ever seen.”

“He’s a fly angler?”

“No. But do you want to disappoint him?”

No I did not.

The river looked none too promising, flat and black as far as you could see. But below the bridge was a broken dam of concrete and limestone rubble, with water pouring into a big, foaming pot. That looked trouty.

Howard pulled on waders. I found a folding chair and sat down.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Watching.”

“Aren’t you going to fish?”

“Nah.”

Here’s the thing with fishing. When you catch a really big one, as I had earlier, you feel pretty good. And pretty lucky. There’s such a thing as going out on top.

I carried the chair down to the river and sat. Howard waded in well below the dam. He worked his way up, carefully, crouching and throwing a big March Brown. And I mean big, with soaring wings and a striped yellow belly. Giant mayflies had long finished their June mega-hatch, but Howard has a theory. When it comes to eating, trout have long memories.

Also, he simply liked using oversize flies. Even if a hatch calls for a tiny fly, he’ll often knot on a big one. “What’s the fun of dry fly fishing if you can’t see the dry fly?” he says.

I have to agree, and I took a ringside seat.

He dropped the March Brown at the base of the plunge and watched it wander back. The second cast landed in the falls, the fly disappearing. When Howard hauled back he let out a whoop. Fish on!

He used his bigger rod, a nine foot five weight, and when that thing bends you know he’s got a fish. The size served him well, and he “muscled” the trout away from the branch-tangled plunge and into knee-deep water. After a couple desperate runs the fish tired, and Howard scooped him up. He stared into the net.

Well I’ll be danged, he said.

“What is it?”

“A big rainbow.” He jiggled the hook from the blunt head. Howard’s a sportsman. He won’t touch a fish if he doesn’t have to. He put the net in the water and watched the ‘bow swim off. “That’s one weird fish,” he said.

I knew what he meant. Rainbows are rare in these little Midwest creeks. The DNR stocks a few “keeper” fish, and tells us they don’t reproduce. But I’ve caught enough little ones to make me suspicious. Howard’s might be a wild fish.

He blew the big imitation dry and checked the knot. Then applied more silicon floatant. After casting again two or three times, he had a splashing take.

This was another big fish, and Howard expertly played him into shallow water. But there was no quit. The fish jumped, turning all the way over, showing yellow and red. A big brown, maybe as big as the one I’d caught.

People love rainbows. It’s a western thing, a Montana thing, but inch for inch nothing battles like a brown trout. The fish jumped again and I thought Howard lost him. Gaining line, he discovered the fish, now tired, trying to sneak downstream. He netted him going by. The trout had tangled up in the tippet, and Howard wet his hand and pulled the fish free. He held him up.

“Eighteen inches?” he called.

More like sixteen, but why ruin a man’s fun? “Shouldn’t we get back to the barn?” I called.

“You going to pull me away from this?”

Not me. And in no time Howard had another take. Another big one. I was curious to see if it was rainbow or brown. It turned out to be neither. It was a brook trout, mottled with irregular yellow spots and sporting orange underfins trimmed in black and white.

A sort of toucan fish. Pretty rare too, for this flat, oily river. But all bets are off for big fish, I’ve found. They go their own way.

Howard released the brookie and said that’s enough. He climbed from the creek, knees stiff. He said that water was cold. In the truck he put the unlit cigar back in his mouth.     

I was mighty impressed. He hit for the cycle, as they say in baseball. Except for the home run. Which, I suppose, would be a snapping turtle.

I told Howard this, and he laughed.

“What would you call catching all three, then?”

He took the cigar from his mouth. Smiling, he said, “Son, I’d call it a Barnwood Slam. Wouldn’t you?”

Yes I would. And although I wasn’t sure about the economics, I knew one thing. Barnwood was already paying off.