Georges Braque
The Compleat Angler
Tottenham
Wall
Mark 7:11
"But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free."
Violin and Candlestick, George Braque 1910. Braque exhibited with the
Fauvists before establishing himself as a Cubist in the early 1900s
Chess: "Georges Braque" "The Compleat Angler" "Tottenham" "Wall"
The Lake
Article by John Merwin. Uploaded on February 22, 2013
Catch Bass and Bluegills—Then Enjoy a Warm Meal and Sip Cold Drinks Out On The Porch
As we walk toward the inn, I can hear the occasional
creaking of rocking chairs from the long front porch. It’s an
old-fashioned kind of place; a horseshoe pit out back and a rolling lawn
leading to boat docks out front, where I can see the shimmer of a
northern bass lake through an ancient stand of white pines.
First things first. Right after we check in, I mosey into the dining
room. Breakfast comes out at 6 a.m., and dinner service stops at 10
p.m., which means we can fish early and late, the best times for summer
bass, without missing a meal. Perfect.
My wife hauls our luggage to a room down the hall while I launch our
skiff at the boat ramp. By the time I get the boat tied to the dock and
head back inside, she is already at the bar with a couple of cold
longnecks. Like I said, first things first.
Early Risers
By
6 a.m. we’ve grabbed some coffees to go from the dining room. Time to
fish. We putt-putt our way across the lake to a shallow, weedy cove,
expecting to find some surface-feeding bass before the sun gets high.
I cut the motor and the boat drifts quietly near some reeds and
large, under-water boulders. I hand my wife a medium-weight spinning
outfit rigged with fresh 8-pound mono. She ties on a floating Heddon
Tiny Torpedo and starts casting.
That’s right, I say. Along the edge of the reeds. Make it look like a
little frog. Slow down a little and wait longer between twitches. Give
the bass time to take a look. She turns to roll her eyes at me. A fish
rolls on the plug when she’s not looking. Her strike is too late, and
the lure floats amid fading ripples.
“I love you, too,” she says. “Now please shut up.”
So I do. She casts again and this time hooks a bass almost
immediately. It’s a small fish but a fun fish. She releases the bass,
then hands me the rod. “Your turn, Mister Smart Guy,” she says, smiling.
I make good on the deal after a couple of casts, landing another
small bass. We trade the rod back and forth for the next couple of
hours, picking up a dozen small largemouths along 200 yards of
shoreline. By 9 a.m., the action slows as the morning sun intensifies,
telling me most of the fish have moved deeper. Time for breakfast.
Afternoon Blues
Stuffed from waffles and bacon,
we’re seated in the rocking chairs. “What’s next?” she asks. I explain
that we could fish plastic worms deep along the outside edges of
weedlines, where at least some bass have moved after the early bite. Or
we could fish for bluegills, which might be a good bet considering that
it’s within a couple of days of a full moon. The moon makes bluegills
romantic, I say, so they start nesting and are easy to find. Sort of
like me. She rolls her eyes again and opts for bluegills.
A low section of shoreline where steep hills aren’t plunging into the
water promises an expanse of shallows. That’s spawning water in
bluegill talk, so that’s where we go. Sure enough, there are
saucer-shape bluegill beds along the bottom in water 2 to 3 feet deep
that we can easily see, some with fish on them. Time for flyfishing
practice.
I give her a 4-weight fly rod with a floating line and a 71⁄2-foot 4X
leader—the short length makes for easy turnover in casting. She fastens
on a small sponge-rubber spider with wiggly legs.
This time I know better than to advise. She casts fairly well and
drops the bug next to one of the visible beds. A bluegill swims up and
sucks in the spider, making a kind of kissing pop. After a dozen or so
repeats, this starts to get old. Let’s catch some bigger ones, I say,
and move the boat farther offshore, where the water’s about 6 feet deep.
I add 3 feet of 5X fluorocarbon tippet to her leader, tie on a size 12
Tellico nymph made with wiggly hackle, and place one small split shot
about a foot above the fly.
Cast out and let it sink for a while, I say, then retrieve in slow
little twitches. And pardon the advice. Midway through her first
retrieve the rod tip is yanked underwater. The rod bends deeper this
time, and the fish takes longer to work to the surface. It’s a monster
bluegill—all of 12 inches—and I land it with a net. I think of having it
mounted. Then I think of eating it. Meanwhile, she lets it go. Oh,
well.
By now it’s midafternoon, and the discussion topic is whether to have cocktails before or after this evening’s bass fishing.
“Both,” she says. Soon we’re back in the porch rockers, nursing
frozen margaritas while I think about what a rough life this is.
Night Bites
The setting sun is kissing the
treetops by the time we reach the outside edge of another weeded cove.
We’ll be fishing until full darkness, which even in June’s long daylight
means we can still make last call in the dining room.
I hand her a spinning outfit with 14-pound line this time because I’m
hopeful of a bigger bass in the magic hour of near darkness. A
3⁄8-ounce, frog-pattern Jitterbug goes on the line. The lure’s noisy
gurgling surface crawl should help bass find it in the half-light. I
point out narrow lanes of open water between large lily-pad beds. Cast
your lure right down those lanes, I say, so you can retrieve the plug
close to fish cover without snagging. And remember that you’re a
salesman, trying to convince a bass that your lure is good to eat. She
doesn’t roll her eyes. Must be she’s getting serious.
So she casts and casts and casts. Don’t let your attention wander, I
warn. Keep concentrating. By now I can just make out the glow of a
rising moon behind the hilltops. Ka-chunk. I whip my head around to see
my wife hard into a heavy fish. There’s lots of thrashing around until I
can finally grab her line and lip the bass. Five pounds is my guess, as
I hand her the fish to unhook and release. Not a giant but pretty darn
good. We quit while we’re ahead and make the dining room with 10 minutes
to spare.
Charcoal-grilled steaks arrive, and she raises a glass of Cabernet as
a toast. “Here’s to weekends,” she says. Then adds with an evil grin,
“And I think my fish was the biggest.”
The Perfect Post-Fishing Cocktail
Celebrate A Memorable Day On The Water
It even looks like the perfect summer drink. Tall, cold, and bubbly
with a slice of lime, a gin and tonic is a tropical tradition dating
back more than a century. British colonials in India and beyond mixed
quinine with carbonated water as an antimalarial medication. Adding gin
helped disguise quinine’s bitter taste. Modern tonic waters still
contain quinine, but in much smaller, nonmedicinal amounts. It still
works magic, though, when mixed with a proper London gin in an
ice-filled glass. Then as now, a gin and tonic doesn’t actually repel
mosquitoes. But after a couple you won’t mind the bites so much.
—J.M.
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