Sit inspired sobering thoughts

Among the occupational trials and tribulations endured by artists and writers, there is an annoyance referred to as a “creative block.” Specifically, the term describes the droughts of productivity that painters and writers deal with when their creative pools are drained. At least that’s what I’m told. Personally, I’ve yet to come up short of ideas to express in paint or print. The reason being, of course, that such inspirations are so plentiful in the outdoors that I often find them without actually searching for them. So it was that while salmon fishing in Canada early last summer I hooked onto the idea for this column. But before I could sort out my thoughts and get them stuck together I was inspired to write about the recent bear referendum, which at the time was far more important.

With that said, pour yourself a second cup of coffee before starting on this trail of words. Keep in mind, however, that although this column is fictitious, any resemblance to places or people you may know is entirely intentional.

Standing in the stable 22-foot river canoe, the angler mended his cast as soon as the fly struck the water. It took only a few seconds, though, for the straightened line to begin bellying in the eddy boiling between the canoe and the foam line marking the thread of the current. No good, the angler thought as he began reeling in. Fly’s not fishing right. Hard to hook a fish on a long line, too. After pausing to study a ragged spruce silhouetted against the evening sky, he turned and said to his fishing partner seated behind him, “It’s all up to you, Sport. There has to be a salmon in this run. And you know I’d rather see you catch it than me.”

“Well, in that case I’ll just keep fishing until I do,” came the quick retort, which brought a chuckle from the guide. When the angler settled into his seat without further comment, the guide hoisted the anchor and let the canoe drift – known as a “drop” in salmon-fishing parlance – to where the angler’s last cast ended in a straight-downstream “dangle.” With the canoe anchored at that point, his partner stood and began fishing and wishing.

While watching the lengthening casts sweep the current on both sides of the canoe, the angler’s mind wandered. But not to changing flies, as you’d expect, or to other nuances known to produce the heart-stopping takes and weighty tugs that are the soul and spirit of Atlantic salmon fishing. Oddly enough, he began thinking about his forthcoming annual “wellness exam,” emphasizing the modern euphemism for what was formerly referred to as a “physical.”

Assuming that his health hadn’t changed, the angler could hear his doctor or an assistant saying, “Your blood pressure and cholesterol are fine, heart’s strong, lungs are clear, everything else is normal. Are you getting enough exercise?” To which he’d reply, “Sure. I don’t work out at the gym or walk or run or ride a bike, but I do a lot of hunting and fishing. That keeps me moving. You know, paddling, rowing, lifting and lugging, chasing bird dogs and hounds. I don’t spend much time sitting around.” The verbal imagery no sooner left his mind, though, when the angler began having second thoughts about its veracity. Considering his sitting position, he started thinking about the sedentary aspects of hunting and fishing, which were sobering to say the least.

Not surprisingly, the first thoughts to cross his mind focused on the hours he had spent sitting in canoes during the past few days. Naturally, when two anglers fish alternately from a canoe, 50 percent of their time is spent sitting. In six hours of fishing, therefore, each angler spends about three hours on his derriere. The traditional fishing schedule in salmon camps is three hours in the morning and three in the evening.

While the anchor line strummed to the steady beat of the river, the angler thought of the hours he spends sitting and listening to the clock-like ticking of his trolled-down outboard while lake fishing for landlocked salmon and togue. Correspondingly, twice during the week before taking the trail to New Brunswick’s Upsalquitch River, where he was now fishing, the angler trolled and cast streamers and lures for striped bass on his “Home Pool,” the Penobscot River. On each of those outings, he fished – sat – through the falling tide’s six-hour flow. But he figured the subsequent stiffness in his backside was small payment for the fast fishing the sporty stripers provided. Thoughts of the reel cheering each time the rod did a backbend brought a smile to his face.

When a hen black duck towed her unfledged brood of nine from a bogan on the opposite side of the river, the angler’s musings turned to waterfowl hunting. By no stretch of his imagination, though, could he convince himself that the sport was other than sedentary. Unless, of course, it required slogging to and from back-of-beyond flowages and bogs festooned with feathers. Let’s face it, he thought, aside from the flexing of neck muscles while scanning the skies for approaching flocks, sitting in blinds offered nothing in the way of exercise. If the ducks cooperate, the dog gets a workout, but that’s as far as it goes.

Although the angler had never applied for a permit to hunt wild turkeys in Maine, he had bagged two big toms on trips to southern gunning grounds. But there again he hunted by sitting as still as a statue in palmetto blinds situated at the edges of steamy cypress swamps. Allowing that the physical activity attendant to those hunts amounted only to short walks from the truck to the blinds, the angler lengthened his mental casts. Directly he raised images of deer hunting. With a grimace he recalled the heart-pumping, lung-stretching exercise of dragging deer that taught him the meaning of dead weight. At the same time, however, he recalled that most of those deer were shot while he was sitting on stands overlooking fields, choppings and power lines. I suppose stalking or still-hunting provides some exercise, he thought, but those methods are a far cry from the brisk walks recommended for increasing cardiovascular rates. Until, of course, a buck whistles and bounds away in those thudding jumps that leave hunters hearing their heart beats.

Remembering his tag-along moose-hunting trips, the angler reckoned that the closest he came to exercise was getting in and out of vehicles. The same can be said for road hunting partridges. But when his thoughts turned to bird hunting behind dogs – bobbing and weaving through covers thick with briars and thorn apples, stretching and climbing over stone walls, straddling and ducking through barbed-wire fences, jumping over brooks, stumbling across grown-over, ankle-threatening furrows of abandoned fields – the veteran outdoorsman knew he wouldn’t be misleading his medical examiner by describing that sport as healthful exercise. Likewise, hunting with hounds provides workouts that leave hunters appreciating the anti-inflammatory effects of Ibuprofen. Well, older hunters anyway.

By the same token, trappers, especially beaver trappers, shouldn’t be bashful about listing their activities as exercise. Provided they don’t check their sets via snowmobiles. Try dragging a couple of blanket beaver out of a flowage sprawling between high hills and I’ll guarantee you’ll know you’ve been somewhere. Especially if Ol’ Man Winter dictates the snowshoe shuffle.

Dusk had shooed the shadows from the woods by the time the angler’s fishing partner made his last cast. “No luck,” he muttered while reeling in.

“No fish,” said the guide as he raised the anchor. “If there was a salmon here he’d have shown for sure. I think this run filled in some this spring. We had a heavy freshet of rain and snow-melt, lots of ice running and gouging, too. Fish don’t seem to be holding here like they did. But you never know,” he added through the chirping of the bow pulley. “You have to keep fishing … it only takes one cast to tighten your rigging.”

“That’s right,” the angler concurred enthusiastically, “and we’ll do that tomorrow. But right now I’m for hustling back to camp and landing a meaningful refreshment.” While the canoe glided through the gauzy mists veiling the river, the angler continued thinking about the hours hunters and fishermen spend broadening their buttocks: I sit while jump shooting ducks from a canoe and while gunning geese from pit blinds. Come to think of it, though, I do get some exercise when I hunt geese by covering myself with camo-cloth and lying among decoys set in fields of corn stubble. That way I get to do a few sit-ups when the Canadas cooperate. But on the other hand I sit for hours while tying flies and I pass the winter by sitting in ice shacks and stuffing my face with fried food. I’m sure that would impress my medical examiner. That and whittling away at wedges of fresh-baked apple pie or pizza while sitting through doubleheader NFL games on Sundays – and asking afterward, “What’s for supper?”

By the time the canoe was cozying up to the dock, the angler’s ruminations left him realizing that he would have to be more honest with his medical examiner. Truth is, he thought, the exercise that I said was part and parcel to hunting and fishing was more imagined than real. With that, the angler allowed that his lifetime of hunting, fishing and rummaging around in the outdoors was owed to his being blessed with a wealth of good health. Small wonder he felt rich as he and his fishing partner hurried along the darkened trail leading to the camp; where they would enjoy to the fullest a libation, a late lunch and the flaming warmth of the fireplace spilling into the sitting room.

Have a Merry Christmas filled with family and all the fixings!

Tom Hennessey’s columns and artwork can be accessed on the BDN Internet page at www.bangornews.com. Tom’s e-mail address is: thennessey@bangordailynews.net