Young angler had problems landing striper on rainy day

Wednesday’s rain reminded me of a day spent striper fishing at Bald Hill Cove in the lower reaches of the Penobscot River. I had finished my junior year in high school and was the proud owner of an old square-stern canoe I bought from Carrol Soucy for $10. Making the 16-footer even more of a bargain was the fact that it was rigged for rowing. The oarlocks I bought second hand, the oars were given to me by “Bootch” Jamieson. They were long enough to row a Grand Banks dory, one was warped, the other was bowed and had about two inches split off one edge of the blade. But what the heck, beggars can’t be choosers.

After the canoe was patched and painted and its bottom shielded with orange shellac, my grandfather transported it to the South Orrington shore of the Penobscot atop his car. There was no public landing there at the time, only a dirt road that wandered through a field and ended in a grassy cove. The canoe spent the summer there. With oars and oarlocks contained, it was left turned over behind a makeshift boat cradle that comforted an aging hull.

Because I didn’t have a driver’s license, my grandfather made quite a few trips to South Orrington that summer. On that particular morning, the umbrella elms of the village were dripping rain when he dropped me off at about 6 o’clock. All the better. In addition to believing that fishing was best on rainy days, I recently had purchased a poncho at the surplus store. With that hooded cape-like raingear covering most of my hip boots, I figured I could stay dry standing under Niagara Falls.

With tackle box in one hand and fly rod in the other, I trudged down the muddied road to the river wondering why anyone would let a little rain rob them of a day’s fishing. No sooner had I rowed out of the cove when the leaking canopy of sky split a seam. In seconds, the ensuing downpour erased the shoreline reflections from the slate-gray river.

You’ve seen days like that; first it pours, then the sky brightens as though it were clearing, then it pours harder. Several times I went ashore and dumped water out of the canoe. But the tide was rising, the stripers – school fish from 2 to 5 pounds or so – were swatting my trolled streamer fly, and I was as dry as a duck – or so I thought.

Along about noon, however, I rowed into a shallow cove, shipped the oars and reached for the sandwich stuffed into the poncho’s inner pocket. To my surprise, I discovered I was steamy with sweat. The poncho, nearly as wet inside as it was outside, had trapped body heat generated by rowing. Needless to say, the sandwich was somewhat soggy, even the waxed paper had wilted.

Nevertheless, it was a lesson learned. By the time I enlisted in the Army I was well prepared for ponchos. Sitting there eating my sandwich, I watched a shag swallow an eel. Between swallows, the bird would dip its bill and the flopping fish into the water. Then tilting its head upward, the shag swallowed with quick forward movements of its neck. The eel was consumed in less than a minute. Apparently, the shag dipped its bill in the water to facilitate swallowing.

The shores had taken all of the tide’s shoving they could stand when I rowed back onto the river. Directly, I set a course for the spindle buoy that marked a ledge below Bald Hill Cove. Approaching to within a few yards of the towering red beacon, I cast the streamer toward it and set the rod down. My “rod holder” was a stick jammed between the starboard gunnel and inner rail. With the rod propped against the stick and the reel butted against the tackle box between my feet, a striper usually hooked itself when it struck.

So help me, I hadn’t taken more than three or four pulls on the oars when a fan-like dorsal fin appeared and a striper, let’s say a bulky striper, took the fly in a bulge of water that I can still see. When I grabbed the bucking rod, which today hangs in my den, the reel was humming my favorite song. Unlike a school fish, the striper’s run wasn’t swift. Instead, it was strong, steady, and unstoppable.

At the upper end of the ledge the fish sounded, and there it stayed. During the next half hour or so, I rowed above it, below it, and around it; trying everything I ever heard of or could think of to move it, without results. Eventually I rowed out into the river, letting out all the fly line and most of the backing, and tried to tow the striper off its lie.

No such luck. The fish either was wrapped around a rock or had its fins braced in a crevice of the ledge. Thoughts of waiting for low tide were running through my mind when a blast that sounded like the fire horn at the Eastern Paper Mill took me about two feet off the seat. Emerging from the sheets of rain shrouding the river, an oil tanker was rounding the bend only a short distance upriver. Unloaded, it wasn’t wasting any time heading out to sea. Let’s just say that I didn’t display any boyish bravado as the canoe towed a wake toward the Winterport shore. So long striper.

By the time my grandfather picked me up that afternoon, I was convinced that the fish I lost weighed more than all those I caught. When I told him about hooking and losing it he replied, “What a hell of note!” Then, consummate gambler that he was, he added, “What do you suppose the chances would be of that happening?”

As I shedded the clinging clammy-wet poncho, I allowed that I didn’t have the foggiest idea. I was wondering, though, what the chances would be of him driving me back to Bald Hill Cove the next morning.