The Longest Silence

by Thomas McGuane

  The fish were, in fact, traveling slowly toward us, rolling with open mouths and looking like a nest of enormous baby birds awaiting a worm. I cast to the edge of the school and was able to turn one fish, who then gathered himself under my fly and sucked it down. I hooked him and he burned off for about fifty yards. Out of nowhere, a hammerhead shot through the school looking for my tarpon. I tightened the drag and broke the fish off, leaving the shark sluicing through a piece of empty ocean. Re-rig, start over.

  Hours later, we found the most beautiful big school of tarpon under a sky burnished pearl by the tropical wind. They were barely moving, their thick green backs just under the surface and their steeply angled, gunmetal-gray fins piercing the surface in such numbers that, from a distance, they looked like a small island. We eased up on the school and Jimbo cast into them, stripped, and hooked a fish. Stepping backward off the casting deck, he nearly went over the side. There was a circle of white around his eyes as the fish headed for the sky in the first of a series of ocean-bursting jumps. George stood next to Jimbo and coached him to keep a deep bow in the rod and put maximum pressure on the fish. After several hundred-yard runs, the vaulting leaps were reduced to surface lunges and the fish was soon alongside the boat. Jimbo sat down, pouring with sweat. George and I could reimagine our own first tarpon as we looked at the silvery bulk of this great game fish. We knew the euphoria our friend was feeling, and the odd, pure relief at the moment of release; the tarpon eased itself back into the darkness under the skiff and resumed its migration.

  While I ran home against the falling tide, a happy Jimbo indulged a reverie about his grandparents, Osceola and Naomi, who fished for gars with whole croakers. “Benny Jones worked for us then and he cut those gar into steaks with an axe and took them to Gertie Pearl to sell in her nightclub.” Jimbo smiled, either at the memory or at the Gulf of Mexico; it was hard to say.

  But that was a whole other story. George was still looking for a fish.

  The Hard Way

  I’VE BEEN FISHING for permit for thirty years and I will simply not state how many I’ve caught. I once lived next to the permit flats and I have caught some. Fishing alone, with friends and with guides I have had the meager success that generally must suffice. But each one of those fish has meant so much and the struggle has been so enduring in memory that I know I’ll go on trying, however feebly, to catch another for as long as I can cast. Anyone who has ever caught a permit feels the same way. New flies have proven effective and new fisheries have developed in Central and South America. The definitive permit though is still a fish from the keys, where for so long anglers have attempted to make some sense of its habits.

  This year I again borrowed a spare room from my brother-in-law in Key West, scattered my clothes and tackle about, established the code for the CNN news loop, bought the Key West Citizen and a book of tide tables—in general, raising all the antennae for local orientation and preparing myself for four days of fishing with my friend and guide Gil Drake, who has dedicated forty years of his life to understanding permit. I doubt any other fish could have held his attention for so long. I caught my first one in 1969 and have felt the same unwavering passion ever since.

  We left Key West and headed southwest along the Gulf of Mexico flats in a glaring stillness. I stripped off enough line to present the fly and stood in the bow as Gil poled us across what seemed to be a large, vague area of shallows. Until you acquire enough knowledge of flats fishing to convert this lack of definition into the intricate and highly patterned habitat that it actually is, the sport is little more than a series of accidents, and maybe not even that. There are times when it is an impenetrable tedium from which you emerge desperate for home waters.

  Because of the stillness of the day, the low mangroves stood mirrored in a chromium glare. Small flocks of migrating gannets passed by, the blinding white of their bodies shining against the green shallows. These excellent birds winter at sea but their advent among the islands in search of nesting sites accompanies spring permit fishing and the first runs of tarpon. Warblers have begun to appear, mangroves to put on new foliage; the storm-clouded waters are clearing and the flats are astir as global heat starts north.

  A squadron of permit appeared on the flat, feeding steadily, tips of dorsals and tails making incisions in the slick water, their deep bodies taking on their surroundings as they moved. At a range of about a hundred feet, Gil began to position the skiff. I checked and rechecked the loose fly line on the deck, made my best effort at estimating our closing speed, and raised my rod to begin casting. The fish exploded in the general direction of Mexico.

  With this slick, transparent water, we were hoping for intent, feeding fish. Any fish that looked up at all was bound to see us. We hoped, too, for an afternoon breeze that never came. Instead we found through this long day numerous permit, some of very substantial size, but all well out of reach; some simply dematerialized in the glare. They induced futile casting, among other defiant gestures; so when the water jug was empty and the last Cuban sandwich swallowed, we felt as far from catching a permit as we had when we began.

  To pass the time, Gil and I talked about how we’ve changed the way we fish for permit. The flies are heavier and more realistic. We cast much more directly to the fish, as close as possible, instead of the long leads we used to throw out for fear of spooking them. Knowledge of tides and seasons, as well as the extremely specific “trails” used by permit, has improved. Catching a permit on a fly has gone from nearly impossible to extremely difficult. The fish are around in good numbers, thanks to a persistent practice of releasing them. Key West remains at the center of stateside permit fishing, and if the attempt to ban Jet Skis from the White Heron National Wildlife Refuge is successful, we may look to a long future for this exalted fishery.

  The breeze picked up the next day and our ability to reach the fish rose accordingly. Of course the wind makes accurate casting harder. And there were fewer fish around. One fish after another refused the fly; several lifted in the chop as I cast, and saw the boat; another tried to tail on the fly but lost it in the grass. And then the sun went down. Afterward, I drove into town to buy sandwiches for the next day at Uncle Garland’s. We went from Cuban Mix, to roast pork, to a belly-buster called the “Midnight Special.” So far, lunch was providing the only punctuation in the search for fish.

  The third day enlarged our sense of struggle. The nice cobia I caught off the back of a stingray early on did little to mitigate our frustration. I had several opportunities through the long hot day and none of them came to anything. You find yourself looking at jet contrails, wondering when they’re going to open up Cuba, trying to remember the names of the bartenders at the Anchor Inn on Duval Street in 1971. The light was at a low angle and the cormorants were homeward bound. We crossed a shallow flat at the middle of which was a kind of trough. A nice permit was swimming up the trough with the lazy movements of a feeder; I could just make out the edge of fins around the deep, shadowy body. I made a cast and the fish responded. From his vantage point on the platform, Gil called out suggestions for working the fly. My hope was still low when I felt the slight tightening in my line. I struck and the fish streaked off so fast that I had loose fly line ten feet in the air. Once he was on the reel, a satisfying whirr from the drag indicated his progress throughout a long, fast first run. Fighting a permit is pure worry. I worried about my knots and about the line to backing splice I’d done the night before. I worried about the hinging effect, after hours of casting, on the knot at the fly. I worried that fishing with a barbless hook had been taking sportsmanship too far. I desperately wanted to land this fish.

  I began to believe the permit was coming to the boat but at the range of sixty feet, he went on another wild run, this one ending in a dogged halt a long way off. Gil kept up our pursuit with the push pole and after a while the fish was a rod’s length from the starboard side of the skiff. But when Gil started for the net, the fish shot straight under the boat. I plunged the rod t
ip underwater to keep the line clear of the hull and waited for the fish to continue his run out the other side. He didn’t reappear. My hopes began to vanish. I reeled until the leader was inside the rod and felt the dread certainty that my leader had fouled on one of the trim tabs under the hull. I lay the rod down and hung over the transom. Below the hull, the tail of the permit projected, finning evenly, the leader fouled on the bottom of the boat. I had one chance left. I reached down and tailed the fish and lifted him into the boat with one motion. Caught! I felt the cool solidity and strength of the fish between my hands. After Gil removed the hook and eased the fish back into the water, I watched him surge off into the evening glare.

  Tomorrow, we were going permit fishing.

  The Sea-Run Fish

  I AM PASSIONATELY interested in Atlantic salmon, steelhead, and sea trout, all kin. More than any other fish, they have carried on their backs centuries of hare-brained theories and demented off-season reflection. Yet each of them have created different sport fisheries. Some are quite difficult, others are set up so that the well-heeled may be successful. Atlantic salmon fishers have fallen into several groups, of which the following is an incomplete list.

  The Rich, Old and New

  Awaiting a bush plane or gut-festooned aluminum outboard boat in flannels, cordovans, a signifying necktie or bowtie and the oddly imprisoning drapery of a J. Press blazer, these men often own the rivers they mean to fish. However, given the tedium of riparian owners’ meetings and unpredictable encounters with native peoples who are increasingly armed, if not with Kalishnikovs then with counsel, they sometimes have transferred ownership to the credulous and more recently well off, demonstrating once again how they have hung on to money for so long.

  The newly rich aren’t discernible from the old by visual references. If they now often own the river, they seem left holding the bag by their predecessors who continue to exercise a sort of droit du seigneur through frequent visitation, on the theory that they add tone and continuity to the old camp. With experience at their backs, they can jubilantly outfish the new owners. Only loose tongues as to the odious rise of the Irish or the poor job done by land grant colleges can get their rod privileges pulled. So many of the children of the old rich have given up their club memberships and are now in rehab that this group of anglers is discovering a hard-won humility and is getting along with the new rich better.

  Corporate Groups

  These are growing more common. Say you’re on the edge of the tundra hoping to spot the great skua in his hunt of the arctic seas, when a Gulfstream jet, with the logo of a world-renowned widgetworks on its fuselage, lands in a cloud of jet exhaust, scattering caribou, penguins, and reindeer. The door opens, the stairway descends, and here they come! All hard-driving executives with new gear, they fly well below the radar of annual reports which do not reflect this use of the multi-million dollar aircraft. Shareholders know a G-3’s “out there” but they think it’s going to merger meetings or is being used as a kind of attack aircraft in hostile takeovers. Retirement-minded investors would be hard-pressed to imagine their benefactors at forty thousand feet, stretching nine-weight flylines in the aisle while Debbie Does Dallas plays in the little lounge area where the steward brings peanuts and cocktails, or relaxing in the always-open cockpit where you can sit with the pilots and study the gray seas below while pondering the mystery of salmon.

  Time Sharers

  Yes, people, they are condominiumizing rivers. With a group of angling writers, I was once invited to a Scottish river as a guest of the syndicate which was preparing to sell shares. I declined to attend, but the very able fishermen who did go fished hard and got one fish in a week between them. I don’t think these guests helped the owners’ cause, releasing as they did many sardonic reports that poorly concealed their hysterical boredom. Nevertheless, I am told the river “sold out.” The new owners, I’m confident, will be made to know that the Atlantic salmon, in addition to being the king of fishes, is a difficult fellow; and that while awaiting the bite it is advisable to reflect upon the advantages of services, cuisine, and clean towels.

  Spongers

  To this group, which is comprised of guests and writers, I belong. My wife, less flatteringly, says that I am a salmon-steelhead whore. When I have phone calls to return and she prefaces her listing of them with the suggestion that I get into my net stockings and high heels, I know that anadromous fish are at issue. I try to be a good guest. I save up jokes. Sometimes I have to bunk with a nincompoop and am thus made aware of the nature of the hole I have filled. I suppose I don’t care, not when I’m on the river. Yet at dinner, there are times when I am keenly aware of a great gulf. Here is where the early bedtime comes in. Still, it’s possible to feel the shame that makes the modern hooker call herself a “sex worker” and attempt to start a respectable union like the AFL-CIO. But when streetwalkers go on strike or writers refuse to salmon-fish unless every condition is met, that’s entirely less impactful than when airline pilots or teachers go on strike.

  The Poacher

  I find the rod-and-line fellow rather attractive as an amiable sort of buccaneer, not necessarily with a family to feed but more likely with a lack of sporting opportunity to redress. I used to fish the Blackwater River in Ireland with a local poacher. When we caught a fish we took it straight to the landowner’s door, generally an Anglo-Irishman, whom Brendan Behan defined as a Protestant with a horse. We would sell him the fish at a pretty penny, as it was so fresh as to be hard to hang on to, lurching about in our hands. The few shillings thus attained looked remarkably at home on the counter of the local pub, where the miracle of economics transformed them into foamy-headed black stout. In the words of the immortal Flann O’Brien, “A pint of plain is your only man.”

  And so there you have it. To ascend this ladder in the salmon hierarchy is possible if you have the pluck and aplomb of Becky Sharp or Willie “the Actor” Sutton. Otherwise it is hard to maintain your salmon privileges and you most certainly must study the societal underpinnings of this arcanum or else will be banished to a high-volume bonefish camp in the Tropics, where guides, management, and local idlers alike will abuse you, steal from you, and say unspeakably nasty things about your mother, whom they haven’t even met.

  Steelheaders fall into a very different set of troupes. The first group, distinctly, are the original California steelheaders emanating from the Bay Area. In fact, wherever you go in steelhead country, there will be a remarkably high number of San Franciscans, because their home fishery has all but disappeared. The situation from which these anglers emerged was unique and will never be seen on earth again. Mostly city dwellers, they had a casting club in Golden Gate Park that for many years was the cutting edge of fly casters’ technology and produced almost all of the world’s great casters from Jon Tarantino to Steve Rajeff. What can never be replaced is the steelhead run on the Russian River, a short distance outside the city, a run of over thirty-thousand wild, big, beautiful steelhead in public water. And not very far beyond were other great rivers, including the Gualala, Eel, Klamath, Trinity, all of them now pitiful remnants of their original selves. To put yourself in fishing anywhere near this quality would take a very substantial outlay and probably it can no longer be done, even with jets and dollars.

  I first arrived on that scene in the middle sixties, and by then it was on the way out. Many of the prominent anglers, exemplified by the peerless Bill Schaadt, had moved on to other things, from king salmon in the Smith and Chetco to stripers in the bay. What remained of the steelhead fishery was in the form of lineups, a string of anglers, shoulder to shoulder, moving at a prescribed pace down the pool. I must admit that I was unprepared for the competitive nature of California steelheading, the heaping of scorn upon one another, the invidious comparisons: it was very much an urban scene transported to the river. But they had certainly brought the craft of fishing fast-sinking shooting heads to its apogee. A more recent wave of Californians have introduced the dead-drifted nymph a
nd Glo Bug techniques, and it is even more deadly than the shooting heads. In my view, both of these methods are inappropriate to today’s hammered fisheries. Happily, there are signs of repentance, and more and more steelheaders are returning to the floating line, accepting its limitations just as we accept the net in tennis.

  Another group of steelheaders are the “locals.” Some of these are anglers of high refinement and exquisitely tuned sensibilities, people like Bill McMillan and the monks of the Skagit who pioneered for North Americans the rediscovery of the double-handed rod. “Locals” are now scattered more or less between Portland, Oregon, and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and while they have an understandable level of turf consciousness, they are no match for the animals who oversaw the last days of California steelheading. If you are sufficiently self-effacing to soak up a certain amount of social abuse, and willing to accept that locals have utter contempt for any other kind of fishing you might have done, you might eventually be able to spend some time around them. Your next job is to outfish them, which they don’t think is possible; and after that, socially speaking, they’re fucked. Now you can lay all the bad stuff on them, early rising, persistence, and the rest of it. Locals often fail to see this coming or to realize that nothing is more abhorrent than an out-of-towner with a plan.

  The lodge denizens form another group. I am sometimes one of them and I think this is often a good deal. The lodge has the unenviable job of maintaining living facilities, waterborne transport, and guides, as well as some level of communications and emergency medical capability in remote places. The logistics underlying this can resemble what in military parlance is called a task force, but it enables one to arrive with clothes and tackle only, and depart with no responsibilities for maintenance and other ordeals of the off-season, a real luxury. The downside is that it’s not cheap and you never know who you’ll be bunking with. By and large, you are housed with collegial spirits, some of whom will end up as friends. Still, there is always an element of risk and if you travel long enough to so-called destination angling, you will meet some unparalleled Twinkies and monsters. A Frenchman of our acquaintance had his trip to an Alaskan steelhead camp ruined by some bearded slimeball of a Denver lawyer who didn’t like the French and threw rocks into the river ahead of him while he tried to fish. My son and I had the depressed manager of an aluminum plant cast a glum shadow over a promising week of bonefishing. The CEO of a worldwide construction company dominated the services of one steelhead camp and treated the staff with painful rudeness. And of course, a certain amount of regimentation is necessary in the operation of a lodge, and so the usual eccentricities of the dedicated angler are not necessarily appreciated. Real fishing camps don’t like to be turned into love nests by philanderers and their dates. Vegans may starve to death, and while the companionship of men is a common thing in such places, drumming and hand-holding are thought to take the mind off the real work at hand.