Run Amok

If the chain-smoking angler upstream gets any closer, we’ll both be sucking on that cigarette. The guy has eyebrows like huge leeches, and he’s muttering incessantly to himself in one of the Slavic languages. He is standing 8 yards away and has been stealthily lengthening his casts so that his drift finishes almost at my feet. Any closer and I’ll step on his fly. Accidentally, of course. You can’t blame him, really. When the big ones are running on New York’s Salmon River in October, the meek inherit bubkes.

I’m fishing the Long Bridge Pool in downtown Pulaski. My downstream neighbor, also 8 yards away, is a tall kid with a starter-kit soul patch, lime-green hair, and a fish-skeleton tattoo on his neck. It must have taken a lot of work to look this unemployable. Thing is, the kid knows what he’s doing. His cast-­drift-­retrieve cycle takes all of 10 seconds—a kind of economy that comes only from time on the water. The 8-yard interval, in effect for the 150 yards I can see up and down the river, has nothing to do with good manners. It’s about self-​­preservation. We’re all fishing chuck-and-duck style. The method involves long, soft rods, short lines, and at least half an ounce of split shot to get down to where the fish are. (The noodle rod, in fact, was invented here in the 1960s, when someone at the Salmon River Sports Shop slapped a mono-filled spinning reel onto a Fenwick fly rod as a way to absorb the shock of a 40-pound chinook grabbing the fly 10 feet away.) At the end of each drift, you do a roundhouse back cast and lob the rig back upstream. At any given moment there are any number of hooks and lead weights flying through the air. We’re all mad to catch fish, but we all want to go home alive, too. Thus, the 8-yard rule.

Every few minutes, another wild-eyed guy with a bent rod yells “Coming through!” so that we all know to duck under his line. As soon as somebody hooks up, a waiting angler takes the open spot. To have any hope of landing a big chinook, coho, or Atlantic salmon, you need the current on your side, so you try to get below the fish to make it think that escape lies upstream. Even if you do everything right, only about one in three hookups results in a catch. A buddy with a big net helps. Or a stranger with one. The competition for space is fierce, but once a fish is on, the vibe along the river is surprisingly brotherly.

Even when you think the fight is over, it’s not over. Earlier this morning, I saw a 30-pound chinook—exhausted and beached 10 feet from the water—summon a final surge of life, flap its way between an angler’s wadered legs, and vanish back into the current. The guy’s face went from stunned to heartbroken in two seconds. But that’s how it goes here. These fish are bigger and stronger than any I’ve seen in freshwater—and, at least apparently, more determined. Atlantic salmon may spawn several times over the course of their lives, but for the chinooks and cohos, it’s not just spawn or die; it’s spawn and die. And they go at it as if they insist on dying as soon as possible. The banks and shallows are littered with the bodies of biologically successful fish. After a while you get used to the smell. Curious about the prominently underslung jaw of a male chinook, I ran my finger over the teeth of a floater this morning. They were serrated and sharp as a new steak knife.

“Mudshark” Central

Pulaski (population 2,365) bills itself as “The Salmon Capital of the East” and can back it up with hard numbers. There are roughly 9 fishable miles upstream of the town, and another 4 downstream to the river’s destination, Lake Ontario. Most of it is public access. What the river lacks in length, it more than makes up for in the size and number of fish. The 33-pound 4-ounce world-record coho came from these waters in 1991. So did the Great Lakes regional-record chinook of 47 pounds 13 ounces, back in ’98. There are brutes in that ballpark right now cruising up a river you could throw your smartphone across. Twice today—and it’s not even 10 a.m.—I’ve heard the unmistakable sound of $500 worth of graphite exploding under too much shock.

As for me, it’s not just the size of the fish combined with my inability to catch one that’s driving me nuts. It’s the sheer number. Every year, the state stocks this section of the river with 300,000 chinook salmon, 80,000 coho salmon, 30,000 Atlantic salmon, and 180,000 steelhead. Then, after varying lengths of time spent living in the lake, the survivors run back up the river to spawn. The chinooks, or king salmon, are the biggest fish and the biggest draw. They average 15 to 30 pounds, but 35- and 40-pounders are not uncommon. Most cohos, or silver salmon, are in the 7- to 10-pound range. The Atlantics average 8 to 10, the steelhead go 7 to 12, and there are also big browns here, most running 7 or 8 pounds.

Where there are lots of fish, and lots of big fish, there are lots of fishermen. The state estimates that the Salmon River and its tributaries receive 1.1 million hours of fishing pressure each year. The gauntlet of hooks in the river is such that you wonder how any of the fish make it to their spawning grounds.

I’m halfway through a three-day trip with my friend Patrick “Fidge” O’Neill, who came up last year and fell in love with the fishing. We drove the 350 miles from Baltimore two days ago, did a little scouting the first evening, and fished hard all day yesterday. Fidge hooked a chinook so big that it looked fake leaping out of such a small river. He raced the fish downstream and around a bend before it broke his line. Returning fishless but exhilarated, he held up his orange egg-pattern fly. “I think it just worked its way out of his mouth,” he said. “But, man, what a $%&#@*& beast!”

Today, Fidge already has two nice steelhead on a chain stringer wrapped around a big rock. They’re gorgeous fish—6 to 8 pounds each, bright as hammered silver, and fresh from Lake Ontario. Some of the anglers around us target steelhead exclusively, though I’m not sure how. They call the salmon “mudsharks.” I’d love to hook into a nice mudshark. True, some of them are already too far gone for eating. But many are still in fine shape. And even a half-dead mudshark turns vicious when hooked.

Salmon River

Big Tease

I’m trying to be philosophical about my fishlessness. I’m not unaccustomed to fishing in unusual places that call for specialized tactics. Neither am I unacquainted with being outclassed by guys with more skill. Nor even to being snakebit, to having inadvertently displeased the fish gods. But having all three happen at once is getting to me. I must have made 2,500 casts yesterday. I had one salmon on for two seconds—a ferocious explosion of speed and power that tore line off so fast that my reel made a scream I’d never heard before. But my line broke, and I never got another bite.

Today is not shaping up to be any better. The spot I’m fishing now, for example, is a good one. I saw two hookups within 20 minutes before jumping in after the second guy grunted, clutched his rod tighter to his chest, and began backing out of the current. I’ve been working the spot for two hours without a nibble. Cast, drift, retrieve, repeat. I understand that these fish have spawning on their minds, not food. I know the three basic theories about why they strike: (1) that they’re aggravated by the lure and want it dead; (2) that they consume the eggs of other fish to increase the survival odds of their own offspring; and (3) that the instinct to feed is so deeply rooted that it can’t be completely overridden, especially when the food is practically spoon-fed to them. None of this knowledge is particularly helpful right now.

What makes it worse is that big fish occasionally break the surface so close I could club them, although I’m pretty sure that’s considered both unsporting and illegal. I see their curved backs pop above the water as they slug their way up the rapids. At such moments, I’m reminded of a horse’s neck as it leans into a plow. That a fish can be so close and so unreachable is killing me.

Brain Drain

I know Fidge just well enough to resent the hell out of him. For one thing, he’s offensively cheerful, in a way that’s charming in children but inappropriate in anyone over 40. Come to think of it, he may not be 40. But he fishes like a man convinced that he’s about to catch the world record. He’s also annoyingly determined. He can go without a hit for two hours and still murmur “I’m not leaving this pool without a fish” under his breath. Worst of all, he can figure things out. Both yesterday and today, he studied the water and the anglers around him for 20 minutes before wetting a line. He noted that the fish were coming from the fast water, not the pools. He determined that orange egg flies and egg sacs were the hot tickets. He studied the casting cadence of successful anglers and how often they mended line. About an hour ago, he came over to point out that I was fishing the wrong part of my water.

“Whaddya mean?” I asked. “I’m fishing right where the other guys here did.”

“Not quite,” he said. “You’re missing the slot.” Then he cast and directed my attention to his drift. “See how my line’s moving a little slower than the current?” It was. It was moving noticeably slower than the water around it. I realized that what had looked to my eye like undifferentiated whitewater was in fact marked by subtle distinctions. “It’s only about 6 inches wide. But that’s where the fish are gonna be.” At which point, as if on cue, a fish’s back appeared for a second in the slot. As Fidge went off to find himself a spot, I stood there, sifting mixed emotions. I was grateful to Fidge. I also wanted to cut a tiny hole in his waders.

I’ve been working the slot ever since. I can tell when I’m in it and when I’m not. It isn’t especially hard, but I need to stay focused. Thing is, it doesn’t matter whether I nail the slot or miss it completely. I’m still not getting bit. Or I can’t feel it if I am. Or some alien tractor beam has bored into my brain and siphoned off half of my IQ.

I can actually feel myself getting stupid, losing my grip. For one thing, I’m getting tunnel vision—always a reliable indicator of reduced mental capacity. The world has shrunk to the 20 feet of water sliding by just before me. My hands and arms keep casting and retrieving, but I’m just going through the motions. It’s like I’m watching myself from a distance. I know I’m losing it. It’s just that I can’t seem to stop it. I am delaminating.

Potty Crasher

By 11 a.m., fewer fish are being hooked and guys are breaking for lunch. It’s apparently not unusual for the bite to slow around the middle of the day. Fidge shows up and suggests we take a break. He hoists his two steelhead, and I carry the long-handled net as we hike up a steep trail to the truck, where I take some hero shots of Fidge and his steelhead.

“Dude, you need to pull those fish in a little closer to your body,” I tell him.

“Why?” he asks. “I want them to look big.”

“Yeah, but your hands are twice as big as your head from this angle.” He pulls the fish in a little.

We get a sandwich outside a little strip mall where a group of Mennonite women in black dresses and bonnets are all clutching brand-new Muck Boot boxes with the same fierce possessiveness city women might display guarding designer pumps. Fidge orders a large Mountain Dew, which means that he’ll be even more hyper than usual for the rest of the afternoon. We drive to Altmar, where Fidge learns that there haven’t been many fish caught and suggests another spot, Ellis Cove. He gets to the water while I’m waiting my turn to use the porta-potty. By the time I find him, 100 yards downstream, he’s hoisting a 25-pound chinook.

“I spotted him hanging out near this undercut bank by the path,” he tells me. “There were guys fishing nearby, but nobody was casting to him.” Fidge says he just slipped into the river below the fish and started casting upstream, and the fish grabbed his egg pattern. “He took off upstream, then came into the shallows on the far side, and a guy was right there with a net.” The fish is dark, indicating that it has been in the river awhile, but looks to be in O.K. shape and will be good eating. Fidge has just caught a big salmon while I was in the crapper.

We fish Ellis Cove hard, but neither of us catches anything else. Around dusk, as we’re packing it in, a group of four Asian guys—all in shorts—come wading around the bend, working the water with long spinning rods. I’m wearing insulated waders and I’m cold. These guys are not just barelegged, but barefooted, which blows my mind. In addition to rocks and gravel, there is broken glass and an untold number of fishing hooks in this water. I ask one where he’s from. “Syracuse,” he replies. They don’t seem to register the cold. And they’re not pounding the water. If a hole doesn’t produce within a few casts, they move on. Like just about everyone else here, I figure, they must know something I don’t.

Zen Master

On the morning of our last day, we’re back where we started at the Long Bridge Pool, and there’s one guy who seems dialed in. He hooks up and chases fish past us four or five times over the course of an hour. He’s using an 8-foot spinning rod, which is on the short side here. He’s around my age but shorter, fitter, wearing a hooded gray sweatshirt, with a neatly trimmed gray beard. As he passes behind me, his hand buried in the gills of a big steelhead, I can’t resist giving him some good-natured grief. “Hey, how about giving somebody else a chance?” He smiles and heads back upstream.

I’m banging one pool, Fidge another 40 yards below me. After an hour, I give up my spot to go look for the guy catching all the fish. I find him 60 yards upstream. He’s standing knee-deep about 10 yards off the main current. He’s not casting, just watching the water. But he nods as I approach, clearly remembering the guy who teased him. In situations like this, I generally just tell the truth. “I’ve been fishing for three days and had one quick hookup,” I tell him. “I’ve watched you catch more than anybody else. So what’s your secret?”

He motions me over. First, he’s been coming for 20 years. It takes a while to get the hang of this kind of fishing, he explains. Also, he’s not into beating the water. “Mostly, you just turn fish off doing that. They’re in the heavy water to get away from us”—he gestures to the multitude up and down the stream. “If we all backed off, they’d be swimming where we’re standing.” So, I ask, how do you catch them?

“You find a good piece of water and sort of stare at it until you get hypnotized, you know? You get so you know it—know when a new shadow shows up. That’s a fish. Then you drop your lure just upstream.” He demonstrates. He has maybe 10 feet of line out and two split shot instead of the four most everybody else is using. “Yeah, I don’t do the chuck-and-duck. You don’t really need to if you’ve got a fish right in front of you. I have better line control this way.”

“That’s it?” I ask. It seems too simple. Like there has to be more to it. After all, he’s outfishing everybody on this section of river today.

“Well, there is one other thing,” he says. “You have to be relaxed.”

An involuntary hoot escapes my throat. Relax. After three days, thousands of casts, and the fishing equivalent of a nervous breakdown, I could more easily grow a second head than relax. I thank the guy for the information and wish him continued good luck.

Shadow Casting

Back at my original spot, I remove two of my four split shot. I take a few deep breaths, try to empty my mind, and try to convince myself that I’m not a complete wreck. I stare at the riffle. It doesn’t take me long to become mesmerized by the water just before me. I don’t see the fish arrive, but at some point there’s a shadow that wasn’t there a moment ago. I cast and drift my offering past it. I cast again. And watch the shadow move slowly upstream and vanish. O.K., shake it off, I tell myself. You’re making progress.

Again I soften my focus, allow the current to hypnotize me, and wait for more shadows, which appear every 10 minutes or so. But each sequence unfolds exactly like the one before. I get in two casts, and the shadow moves on. The fidelity of each instance to the one before it is the stuff of nightmares, the same failure over and over. The skill of the bearded angler seems even more extraordinary. In my mind, the guy becomes the fishing equivalent of a kyudo master, one of those Japanese archers whose arrow finds a distant bull’s-eye even when he’s blindfolded. It’s all so simple, yet so out of reach.

I keep at it. What else am I going to do? I actually know a bit about kyudo, which teaches that focusing on the result is a mistake, a trap. Instead, you concentrate on each moment, each action, as an end in itself. You only hit the bull’s-eye by forgetting about the bull’s-eye. Soon I detach myself from the departure of each shadow. I no longer feel the stab of disappointment. I focus on staying hypnotized, detecting each new shadow, making my casts and drifts. I lean into the current like a solid thing and feel more balanced. I’m more aware of the easy lob of each cast, the arc it makes in the air. I’m more connected to the drift of line and lure.

So what if it takes 20 years to master? So what if I don’t live long enough to do that? What counts is now—shadow, cast, and drift. I start to find the rhythm that has been waiting to be discovered. The fish are almost incidental. I’ve stopped resisting. I’ve given myself over to the moment, and it feels good.

Someone taps me on the shoulder. It’s Fidge. “Where’d you go? We should have left half an hour ago. I gotta be home for my daughter’s soccer game.” He shows me another big salmon he has caught since we split up.

“Good for you,” I say. And mean it. He’s already walking away along the shore. “C’mon, dude!” he says. I don’t want to stop, but it looks like I have to. Just as I’ve begun to embrace the Zen of failure, I’ve got to get my butt in the car. “We gotta boogie,” he calls over his shoulder. “It’s not like you’re catching fish anyway.”

It’s true. I haven’t caught a single fish on this trip. The trick, I think, is to be O.K. with that. And to my surprise, as I slosh to catch up with Fidge, I seem to be pulling it off.