by Henry Hughes
The name ayu nicely translates as sweet fish, and it has the lovely golden colors and grace of a trout. In winter, ayu hatch upriver and head out to sea, returning in spring and early summer and continuing to feed on vegetation and small insects, growing up to thirteen inches.
Masugata took the tired decoy off the hooks and creeled it in a little floating bow-nosed holder he towed like a toy boat behind him. The freshly caught wild ayu was hooked as the new bait and the show went on. The water was deep and swift, and I knifed my hips into the current, found some sure footing, and swung my flipping friend into a likely lie. But I had trouble knowing if the wiggling action was my bait, the rushing flow, or an ensnared quarry, and I pulled up too often to check, wrecking my set and, in a couple cases, knocking off a nearly hooked wild fish. Masugata coached the best he could, but I exhausted a couple baits and had to start fresh. This time when I felt something like an attack, I yanked fiercely and shot two fish way over my head onto the gravel.
We waded and fished until early afternoon. Small sculpins fled from our steps, and sulfur butterflies fanned the mud. Masugata landed ayu like a lacrosse goalie stopping double shots with ease, while I caught only one more, admiring the sunburst on its side and the orange trimmed adipose fin. “Smell it,” Masugata urged. “Maybe melon, nē?” There was something fruity to the ayu’s skin. The subtle and various smells of fresh fish were always pleasing to me. Fresh bluefish smelled of garden cucumbers, and grayling earned their Latin name, Thymallus, from their air of thyme. Oregon writer Ben Hur Lampman found smallmouth bass “as fragrant as flowers,” and old Izaak Walton wrote that English smelt “smell like violets.” The Oxford English Dictionary notes the peculiar odor of smelt but does not suggest a connection to the word “smell.” With words, I say, it’s not so much where you begin but where you end up, and this sweet smelt smelled swell.
We built a small fire on the bank, and as the wood burned down, we drank sake from pull-cap glass cups. Masugata drank little, observing the enforced zero-tolerance for alcohol and driving in Japan. The Japanese were really good about this—they loved to drink and party but knew enough to arrange a ride or call a cab. Today I could drain a few cups of sake, eat strawberries his wife packed, sit back, and watch the river and the other anglers.
Down at the water’s edge, Masugata splashed some river on himself and me and said “River spirit.” I asked if it was a Shinto rite, and he laughed and said, “Cheap shower.” The Japanese seemed to be the most and least religious people in the world, but either way, they worshipped the spirit of all things fishy.
I helped Masugata clean the fish, friends and all, and he reminded me to carefully scrape the bloodline, the dark purple artery and kidney in the body cavity along the spine. I then followed as he raked his knife back against the tiny scales, patting the fish dry with a clean rag. He pushed a long metal skewer longways through each one, salted them, and, like an installation artist, positioned the fish over the fire in a way that suggested a swimming school. The perfectly fatted fish sizzled and twisted, turning golden brown. With a pair of gloves, Masugata pulled out a couple stakes and pushed off the cooked fish on black plastic plates. Ah, sweetfish, I thought, chewing slowly. The skin was salty and crisp, the flesh extraordinarily moist and, yes, slightly melony—indeed, some wild fruit, some sweet sacrament of the river.
In November of 1992, my old friend Eugene Jones came to visit me in Japan. I picked him up at Narita airport, and we rode the Shinkansen, the bullet train, back to Niigata, sipping fugu sake from cans that activated a heater upon opening, gently warming the fish-infused brew. “Not bad,” Eugene said. Many of my gaijin friends reviled treats like fugu sake, sea urchin sushi, jellyfish salad, roasted squid on a stick, or savory bar snacks of nuts and minnows called iriko. “Bait” was the common joke. Japan was, indeed, a fishy place, but Eugene was a fishy guy, and I figured he’d like fugu sake. Opening up the English edition of The Daily Yomiuri, he started asking questions about Japan and then said, “Holy shit,” pointing to a small headline, “Man Dies of Fugu Poisoning.” But this fugu sake had only positive effects that we chased with a couple beers, arriving in the Tsubame-Sanjo station where Teiko and her friend, Yuko, met us with a car.
Teiko hugged me, put on her hip blue-framed glasses, and drove us to a local izakaya for more drinks and food. Cushioned on tatami, Eugene and I were getting pretty loaded, eating gyōza, yakitori, and fried crickets, croaking karaoke, pawing our dates, and at one point reaching into a large aquarium to grab a dinner-fatted carp. We paid our bill, and Teiko was herding us toward the door when Eugene stumbled. I tried to steady him and also lost balance, both of us crashing through a shōgi screen and into a room of celebrating businessmen who found the intrusion hilarious, unlike sober Teiko and the tavern keeper.
The next day demanded recovery. “Did we really eat crickets?” Eugene rasped as I poured cups of green tea. In the morning mail I received a long letter from Caitlin that reminded me of her beauty and brilliance. She was flourishing in graduate school, excited about new books and her own writing. I read parts of the letter to Eugene, and he said, “She’s pretty amazing. But so is Teiko.”
Hungover but dutiful, we made it up to the junior high, where Eugene was a big hit with the kids, talking, asking simple questions, and handing out half dollars, I Love New York stickers, and little tin models of the Statue of Liberty. This went a long way, especially since my principal received a phone call from the izakaya owner reporting that Hendy sensei and his big gaijin tomodachi had trashed his tavern last night. My supervisor, Sagi, was not happy, but he deftly repaired the situation. “You pay nothing this time,” he told me. “Bring present and say, ‘Sorry.’ Next big teachers party, we have there.” I brought the tavern keeper a good bottle of sake and bowed in apology. He smiled and said, “Okay.”
Sagi was a wise and warm friend, and he and his wife hosted Eugene and me at his home with a feast, including superbly grilled wedges of salmon and a seemingly endless sampling of fine Niigata sakes. A year later, Sagi and his wife visited New York, and Eugene and I took them out dining, drinking, and porgy fishing.
During Eugene’s stay in Japan, Sagi arranged for the two of us to go cod fishing with his old friend who ran a boat out of Teradomari. I never got the man’s name, but everyone called him Senchō san, Mr. Captain, and we stepped aboard his creaky boat on a cold, drizzly November morning. The seas were rough, the tops of big swells blowing off like snow in a stormy Hokusai print. Eugene and I sat in the cabin with two silent fishermen, rolling and tossing, unable to do or say much of anything. Senchō san was probably in his early sixties, but he jumped around the deck like a teenager. We stopped, anchored, picked up the heavy rods and reels, pierced bits of squid on a set of three hooks, and sent them down into the dark. I could feel the lead hit bottom, but it was hard to keep it there with the high pitch and fall of the boat. Senchō san smiled and showed us how to click the rod butts into the holders. “Sit down and watch the poles,” he said in Japanese. Eugene and I were both feeling cold and queasy, and it was one of those rare moments when I wasn’t entirely happy to be fishing. At Senchō san’s command, we reeled in and tried another spot, catching a couple tiny fish, including a small fugu, its pectoral fins buzzing away like a hummingbird. The little spotted puffer inflated in my hand as I unhooked and tossed it back, floating for a moment until the waves washed it away. Finally Eugene’s rod showed some life, and he reeled up from a hundred feet, with hardly a fight, an eighteen-inch tara, codfish, that I netted. It didn’t look like much, but the captain was delighted. Within the next four hours, the other three fishermen and I caught one cod each of identical size. I had to wonder if, like the Atlantic stocks off North America and Europe, these cod were pursued beyond the brink of survival? Should the Japanese, like the Canadians, put a moratorium on catching cod before it was too late? Should we even be out here?
When the boat turned back toward land, Eugene and I felt relief. And when we got into the calm har
bor, we felt damn good, cracking a couple beers and eyeing the sights. Senchō san tied up and invited us into his dockside house. Past the runkled tin exterior, the wooden two-story displayed an impressive timbering of cedar and smelled strongly of fish, the bottom floor a kind of shop with nets, rods, tools, and large boiling cauldrons. We climbed wooden steps to a loft that served as a casual parlor where we sat on cushions beside a kerosene heater. The captain’s wife appeared. A short, thick woman, gold-toothed and friendly, she poured us sake and set down a dish of shredded dried fish. Eugene and I looked around. There were old family portraits in tortoise shell frames tilting down from the wall: a young man in a Japanese naval uniform, a handsome couple in formal yukata and kimono, perhaps a wedding photo. When Senchō san returned we asked him about the photos, and he said, “Father and mother,” and nothing more. I was fascinated by Japan’s World War II history, but most Japanese were reluctant to discuss those dark times. After a couple more sakes, I asked Senchō san about his father. Was he in the war? “Yes. His ship went down at Leyte. I was just a boy.” Eugene and I both said we were sorry. Eugene spoke briefly of his father, a surviving veteran of D-Day wounded at Battle of the Bulge. I mentioned my father’s service in Korea. “To our fathers,” Eugene raised his glass. I translated, and we drank.
The captain’s wife brought three steaming bowls of soup on a lacquered tray. “Tara jiru,” cod soup, she said over the yellowish broth amalgamated with leeks, white radishes, and big hunks of cod. Mine contained a head. We lifted the bowls to slurp the misoed broth, then chivied out bits with our chopsticks. Working on the head, I pulled lovely white meat from behind the cheeks then plucked out one of the eyeballs. “Oishī,” delicious, pointed Senchō san, his face reddened by the sake. So I put it in my mouth, the lens was a bit chewy, the ball bursting briny between my teeth. The captain clapped his hands and laughed in approval. Eugene downed his sake and said, “Okay, bring me a head.”
Cool Hot Chance
Eugene kept his head during the software boom and bust and moved up as a systems designer for a pharmaceutical company. “But the best drug is fishing,” he’d always say, and in 1993, while I was still in Japan and riding a strong yen, we arranged a late summer rendezvous in Alaska. My father’s older sister, Aunt Shirley, lived in Anchorage, and she met us at the airport. I didn’t know Shirley well. She was sixty-nine with the tan, creased skin and lean figure of a lifelong skier and hiker, her wind-whipped hair suggesting a recent flight from a grizzly bear or ex-boyfriend. On the drive back to her house, Shirley said, “My son, Doug—your cousin who you met when you were just a little boy—wants to take you to church tonight.” Eugene shot me a severe look. I hesitated, then spoke.
“We’ve had a long trip, Aunt Shirley.”
“Well, we’ll go over to my place and have a drink first.”
I’d heard that Aunt Shirley liked gin and tonics, so my panic turned to confusion. When we got to her house the Tanqueray and Schweppes were on the counter. “I’ve got ice and limes. You boys make yourself at home,” Shirley said, smiled, and crossed the room decorated with watercolor paintings she’d done of her favorite ski runs. Eugene and I knocked back a couple drinks, and when my cousin Doug and his wife arrived, he asked about Japan and our fishing plans. “Well,” he finally said. “I hear you’re up for a little church tonight.” His wife laughed and walked into the kitchen. My gin-tuned receptors sensed a code cracking moment, and after a fine supper of moose stew and local squash, Doug drove us to his favorite strip joint for a few hours of worship and hymns like Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and Warrant’s “Cherry Pie,” the elastic offering plate frequently filled. The drink-serving altar girls wore T-shirts depicting lady anglers above the testimony, “I Love a Good Pole Dance.”
The next morning, after pleasant reflections on the evening service, Eugene and I gave thanks and took to the skies in a small plane for Fish Lake, seventy miles northwest of Anchorage.
“There must be a thousand Fish Lakes in Alaska,” Eugene spoke to the pilot through the headset mic as we leveled off below the clouds. “How will I know where I am?”
“Because in a couple days I’ll be back to get you on this one,” the pilot answered and laughed.
Looking past the wing strut over the woods, rivers, and vast wetlands of Alaska, spotting moose and caribou, it’s easy to believe that the planet is still a wild and beautiful place.
“It’s all ours,” Eugene cried as we landed. The outfitters provided an A-frame cabin and a small aluminum boat tied to a wooden dock. Unpacking our simple gear, we launched within minutes, casting floating Rapalas, twitching, and retrieving until a pike attacked. The northern pike is a magnificent predator with sight grooves down its snout to target prey and a vast mouth of needle-sharp teeth to seize and swallow anything that moves. I had caught pike in South Dakota and Indiana but never of this size and number. We landed several long fish up to eight pounds and kept one, from which I cut translucent white slices of sashimi that we dipped in soy sauce and wasabi brought from Japan.
On the second day of fishing, Eugene hooked and fought a tremendous pike. It ran and jumped and rolled like an alligator, and I swear it was more than four feet long. “Of submarine delicacy and horror / A hundred feet long in their world,” the poet Ted Hughes, imagined the pike’s powerful place in the little lake community. This fish thrashed and circled the boat, but those brilliant teeth sawed away the twelve-pound-test leader, and it was gone. “I can’t believe I lost it,” Eugene groaned, and I reminded him of that time he was so cool after hooking and losing a five-pound bass on Lake Ronkonkoma. He groaned on. Then I offered Izaak Walton’s adage that, “No man can lose what he never had.” He groaned some more. Big fish lost haunt us more than big fish caught, but they deepen the angler’s soul, reminding us that it’s not “all ours,” that there are still great, ungraspable forces alive and free in the universe.
Big fish lost can also deepen our worries and guilt. I fretted over the pike swimming around with a Rapala stitched to its mouth. Hooks rust quickly in water, I told myself, and this beast was a survivor. But we can’t deny that anglers injure some of those fish we lose or let go. I love fishing, but I know it does harm. It’s a dilemma I’ve never resolved.
Fly fishing is gentler. I brought along my fly rod, which I owned for years but used only occasionally to whip poppers over sunfish and bass, not thinking much of the style or efficiency. The beautiful film A River Runs Through It had just played in Japan, and I went on to read the novella by Norman Maclean. It was a deeply moving, lyric story about an early twentieth-century family and fly fishing in Montana. The angling metaphors spoke clearly to me, and I was ready to seek grace through the metronomic rhythm of the fly cast. “Come on, Yooze. Will you get that serve—that cast—down,” Eugene ducked from my wild delivery. At first the fly cast felt all whippy, my tippet hopelessly tangling, and the back cast requiring much more rear tolerance than I was used to. Perhaps I wasn’t ready for grace. But I slapped out enough line to put my streamer near a log, stripped back a few inches and there was the fantastic strike of an over-willing pike. All aspiring fly anglers should be brought to an Alaskan pike for confidence counseling, which sometimes doubles as the illusion, perhaps the sensation, of art and grace.
Flown back to Anchorage, we rented a camper and drove up the Alaska Highway—for many miles a gravel, washboard, two-lane road—toward Denali and got stuck behind a slow moving Army convoy. When the sign for Willow Creek appeared, we pulled off and parked. The air was heavy with spruce, fish, and the cries of gulls. Walking past a stand of birch to the river, where a few people were casting, I could see a silver-gray parade moving upstream. I had never seen salmon so close and dense in a river, and my hands trembled as I snapped on a bright spoon and cast into the school, immediately snagging a twenty-inch fish and putting it on our chain. A boy with a crew cut and bright red jacket walked up to me and said, “You’re not suppose to snag them. You can’t keep them when you
snag them.” His father nodded approvingly from a distance. “I had no idea,” I said, thanking the boy, bowing humbly to the father, and adjusting my practice. We caught several three- and four-pound pink salmon, still quite bright and full of fight. Gulls and eagles crossed the sky, and boot and bear tracks dented the sand.
Back at the camper, Eugene sliced up raw salmon for a nice plate of sashimi, while I marinated the jewel-like eggs from one fat hen in a little soy sauce. Eugene vinegared and sweetened some leftover white rice, and I reconstituted miso soup from shiny packets. We sat down for lunch with the pink salmon. This pretty fish spent two years at sea dining on herring and anchovies and then journeyed up Cook Inlet into the Susitna River and Willow Creek, where she met two humans who were born on Long Island but traveled thousands of miles to catch and kill her. A crazy lunch date, I thought, spooning her eggs into my mouth, divining over the briny, creamy crunch. “The essence of fish,” I pronounced. “Now the essence of us.”
“Okay, Mr. Poet,” Eugene took it down a notch. “To us and the fish,” he raised his beer.