Fish Tails

Again, why am I starting a blog?

As you can already tell, it isn't to perfect my white spacing, my designer intuition, or to kill time. I honestly don't have a good answer for this question other than I for some reason think it will be fun. Oh, those anticipated benefits were actually a huge part in the reversal of the decision, Sparenborg vs. Blog. Yes, because I wrote this quick, garbled email to my immediate family about a week ago and by their responses, it became apparent that I could be better at communicating. And, of course, now I can keep up with all of my friends who are so well experienced in this bloggy blog world.

The impetus for a first entry came just tonight. I received a reply email from Sarah indicating that what I had written was "blog worthy." It was odd to read a comment like that. I read blogs but I never thought about what makes something “blog worthy.” And without any further consideration on the matter, I decided to just do it, start a blog, amen—I am trying to avoid any classification of entries and will try to avoid any blog stereotypes with Simple Things e.g. using it as a showcase for my amateur photography, turning it into a journal, only posting vacation pics and updates, etc...

I don't agree with Sarah that what she saw to be blog worthy is actually so (this is good because we recently decided to make a concerted effort to disagree more often, sort of, but let's be real, her blogging skills go back to somewhere circa 2005, so my opinion holds nothing against her honed judgment). Still, I do want to share the part of the email she did not find to be blog worthy.

I went to the stream yesterday for my post exam detox. Myself, Frank, and Doran. All three decked out in blue jeans and hoodies, we stopped at the local outdoors shop to get our licenses (fishing licenses in NY end every October) and made it to Allen's Creek before any other anglers. I was operating on shady equipment: an ultralight rod, tip broken off, 6lb line. That's not your ideal rig to catch 15lb+ chinook salmon but the bottom line is that the trip goes down in the books as one of the top five fishing trips ever--and I've been on a lot.

I set up my rig at the water's edge and balanced across a path of stones til I was about twenty feet from shore and forty feet from the base of a waterfall. Perched on two solid rocks, I watched with my mouth half open these enormous fish leap out of the water in futile attempts to clear the falls and continue upstream. Our timing was perfect. The salmon were running in the stream according to their instinct. They return to the tributaries every fall to spawn. Witnessing the salmon run, alone was amazing. I stood still listening to the gurgle and surge of the water, smelling the layers of air coming off the surface of the water.

I gazed over the water back and forth in search of shadows flashing in the pools near my feet and then I took my best guess and cast my bait where I anticipated the shadows to appear next. A father with his three girls and dog came by splashing and watching, hoping to see a catch. They headed down stream and yelled to get my attention. I flattered them and went to see what it was, knowing quite well that it was another shadow, one just like all the others I was watching at the pooling of the falls. Those little girls were so excited to help out, how could I ignore them?

I returned to my preferred spot and cast for another twenty minutes until it happened. No sign of warning, no splash, no shadow appeared. My line just started zooming out of my reel and I felt the tip of my poor little ultralight bend in submission to the salmon. Silence, then noisy reel giving line and giving line, then splashing, two, three violent turns, tail whipping, then a leap out of the water, then another, then quiet, no sign of a fish except that the rod bent further begging the fish to stop. My forearm couldn't handle it, muscles ached. I held on with both hands laughing. I struggled, he struggled. After some time, ten minutes, maybe fifteen, we came together in the shallows and I knelt to place my left hand around its enormous body just in front of the tail fin, the caudal peduncle, if you will. We were both exhausted; we were both smiling. I placed my right hand under its front end and lifted just enough to appreciate its color, its power, its strength. I placed him back in the water and waited for both of our respiratory rates to relax. It was a delicious moment. I still smell it on my hands, er, I did this morning (pre-shower). Mmmm. Thank you waterfall, thank you salmon.