Back on the Still
Back when Kristen and I first met, I was a bit obsessive about fly fishing -- so much so that I kept my rod in the car and had to try every piece of water I came across, the way a gourmet might have to try each new dish his travels introduce to him. So it is that I have been fishing the Still River in Sterling, Mass., ever since the first time Kristen brought me home to meet her mother. I have fished it with her brother-in-law Jerry, with old Battles family friends like Bob Banks, with brother-in-law Ed and alone, tramping along the brushy shore, struggling not to spook the brook trout in that shallow, narrow, merry stream.
It’s changed, though, since the days when Kristen and I met, just as we have.
There’s a place that’s a good hike from the house that’s known for the steel box that stands on a pole near the hole. I’m not sure what the box is for, but that’s how people describe the spot -- the steel box. Jerry, Bob Banks and I went down there the night Ed and Wendy got married and caught big, dark purple brook trout that we’ve talked about ever since.
Saturday, Kristen and David and I drove down there to celebrate Wendy’s birthday and Mother’s Day -- Kristen’s first. The weather was sweet, cool and sunny with a nice breeze to keep the black flies moving. We got there early, and while proud mama K showed off David to his adoring grandmother, I strung up the fly rod and hiked out to the steel box.
Spring was on the woods, as thick as incense, and everything was green and startling, but not so bushy you couldn’t pass through. In the summer you think you need a machete in some spots. Big white blooms hung from trees and delicate purple and white wildflowers grew up between the roots and matted leaves on the path. It was a good walk, and it filled up my head and my heart.
At the steel box (after one wrong turn and a course correction) the river was changed. Like I told Jerry later as he and Ed and I cast to rising fish at The Eight Point Club’s trout pond: some parts that were wonderful before were nearly filled in and impossible to fish, and some parts you couldn’t even get to before had become lovely clear channels with undercut banks and easy backcasts over low knolls of marsh grass.
It’s funny how much can change in six or seven years. But then again, considering how much has changed in our lives, it might be just accurate to say that it’s amazing anything’s even recognizable after such a span, and it’s funny how familiar things (and people) stay familiar, despite that funny, heavy-handed brute, time.
Back when Kristen and I first met, I was a bit obsessive about fly fishing -- so much so that I kept my rod in the car and had to try every piece of water I came across, the way a gourmet might have to try each new dish his travels introduce to him. So it is that I have been fishing the Still River in Sterling, Mass., ever since the first time Kristen brought me home to meet her mother. I have fished it with her brother-in-law Jerry, with old Battles family friends like Bob Banks, with brother-in-law Ed and alone, tramping along the brushy shore, struggling not to spook the brook trout in that shallow, narrow, merry stream.
It’s changed, though, since the days when Kristen and I met, just as we have.
There’s a place that’s a good hike from the house that’s known for the steel box that stands on a pole near the hole. I’m not sure what the box is for, but that’s how people describe the spot -- the steel box. Jerry, Bob Banks and I went down there the night Ed and Wendy got married and caught big, dark purple brook trout that we’ve talked about ever since.
Saturday, Kristen and David and I drove down there to celebrate Wendy’s birthday and Mother’s Day -- Kristen’s first. The weather was sweet, cool and sunny with a nice breeze to keep the black flies moving. We got there early, and while proud mama K showed off David to his adoring grandmother, I strung up the fly rod and hiked out to the steel box.
Spring was on the woods, as thick as incense, and everything was green and startling, but not so bushy you couldn’t pass through. In the summer you think you need a machete in some spots. Big white blooms hung from trees and delicate purple and white wildflowers grew up between the roots and matted leaves on the path. It was a good walk, and it filled up my head and my heart.
At the steel box (after one wrong turn and a course correction) the river was changed. Like I told Jerry later as he and Ed and I cast to rising fish at The Eight Point Club’s trout pond: some parts that were wonderful before were nearly filled in and impossible to fish, and some parts you couldn’t even get to before had become lovely clear channels with undercut banks and easy backcasts over low knolls of marsh grass.
It’s funny how much can change in six or seven years. But then again, considering how much has changed in our lives, it might be just accurate to say that it’s amazing anything’s even recognizable after such a span, and it’s funny how familiar things (and people) stay familiar, despite that funny, heavy-handed brute, time.
<< Home