Water Torture
How anglers survive the agony of early spring
March, 2004

I have absolutely no business being here. None of us do. But on an unseasonably warm spring day like this one, when the sun decides to punch in for work for the first time in five months, it happens. You head out on some fool household errand and the next thing you know your car has driven you down to the river. And there, standing around the boathouse parking lot like convicts counting the days until their release, are half a dozen guys just like you. We are wearing pinstriped suits and plumber's coveralls, leaning against waxed Suburbans and rusted panel trucks. And to a man we are tantalized and transfixed by that water sliding away just out of reach.

It's too soon. It's still winter, season of extra layers, road salt, and despair. The water is too high, too muddy, and too cold. The first decent chance you have of something hitting a hook is two weeks away, minimum. We know this. We know it's spring doing her annual striptease, that the universe is just yanking our chains. It's just that we're fishermen and we can't help ourselves. So we've come to stare at the water as if we can speed up spring by telepathy. Here's the drill where I live. The first perch don't even think about migrating up the river until the water temperature hits 47, and they don't start biting in earnest until it's in the low to mid-50s. Then come the other migratory fish, the shad and herring. Only after that do the bass, crappies, and catfish turn on.

It would be easier all around if fish lived in the air. Air's a pushover. You throw it a little sunlight and it snuggles into your arms and coos, My place or yours? Even soil heats up fairly fast. A single warm day like this one has no problem coaxing the daffodils and forsythia into promiscuous behavior they'll regret with tomorrow's cold snap. But water remembers what Mama told her. She requires the prolonged application of warmth before she comes around. Danny, who has worked at the boathouse all his life, is busy with the annual repainting of the rowboats. Today he's got three up on sawhorses, like giant turtles stranded on their backs in the sun. They're 141/2 feet long and made of white oak. Some are 60 years old. They've been painted the same colors for as long as anyone can remember: brick red to the waterline, battleship gray beneath.

"The color never changes, only what they call it,-¿ Danny says. "Most years it's been -¿tile' or -¿brick,' sometimes -¿burnt brick.' But lately they've been going a little overboard. Guess the marketing guys have to earn their pay. Last year it was -¿Hessian.'-¿

"What the heck is a Hessian?-¿ I ask.

"I was wondering that, too. So I looked it up. It's a German mercenary serving in the British forces during the American Revolution.-¿

I guess Danny's got too much time on his hands, too. I ask what the color is this year.

"-¿Matador,'-¿ he says.

"No. Come on.-¿

He gestures to the can, and I bend over to look. Sure enough, matador. So now we're waiting for the water to get warm enough for the running of the bulls. Fine. Whatever. Just hurry it up.

By now, most of the stranded anglers have drifted over to watch Danny. We envy him. At least he's got something to do with his hands. The group watches silently as a fat honeybee sets down on a section he has just painted.

"The color,-¿ he murmurs to no one in particular. "They think it's a flower.-¿ There is not much to be done about a honeybee who tries to suck nectar from a red rowboat, just as there isn't much to be done about an angler who tries to pull fish from a too-cold river. Danny turns to load his brush, and when he looks back the bee is gone.

"Oh, good,-¿ he says. "She got away.-¿

The phone rings and he answers it. "'Bout two weeks,-¿ he says. "But keep checking with us because you never know when t