answers the Prof, chewing on his corncob pipe.
"Never!"
The late '90s was a great time to be alive in the North Country, and as the old Chevy pickup putted along, transporting the two friends cross country to their favorite fishing place, they passed the brightest colors of spring as newly emerged leaves of poplars and birch and sugar maples lined the dirt roads in an infinite variety of green. Sunlight arched through the clouds of dust kicked up by the tires, and a slight breeze washed lacelike shadows from the canopy over the gravel.
The Prof was always content to let Don do the driving and to lean back in the seat, arm out the open window, chewing his pipe stem and daydreaming of the fishing ecstasy that was sure to follow.
Catching smallies with Don was a given . It was the one sure thing in an uncertain universe, and it gave him immense satisfaction, even if he was only the sidekick, the second banana.
The truck went over county trunk and narrow bridge, over rural roads and through National Forest, not far -- perhaps 20 miles -- to a rather large flowage near Crivitz with a large, undeveloped shoreline, via snakelike fire lanes, over various mud holes, and past overhanging growth, that eventually led you to a deadfall-blocked terminus, which made you get out and walk.
The fishing buddies gathered their gear with a loving, respectful touch, donning slouch hats, vests and leaky waders well past their prime, and their psychological state grew almost to feverish proportion as they walked up the trail, holding their precious 3-weight fly rods backwards and safe from snags, seeing the first glimmerings of water sparkling through the foliage.
It was here, by the shore, that they grew real sneaky, Don holding a forefinger to his lips, reminding the klutzy Prof, to be careful, to be quiet.
Then, like two little boys gazing wide-eyed through the window of the hardware store at a brand new shipment of Red Ryder BB-guns, the men could hardly contain themselves as they looked out over a shallow, gravelly bay that was squeezed off from boats by a severe outcrop of two rocky points. There, in the sunlit shallows, were the spawning beds -- dozens of them -- and on each one, sat a feisty male smallmouth, the very epitome of aggression, angst unchained, guarding the nest, just looking for a fight.
They slowly backed away.
Don had an intense grin on his face, that the Prof only saw, at moments like this. It was evil in a humorous way, devilish, an uncanny weird light coming from the normally stoical Postmaster.
He glowed, like the consummate angling "arteeest."
"The time isn't quite right!" whispered Don.
And they waited, and waited, and waited. Hours, munching on venison salami and Super-Value rye bread and sipping on a plastic gallon jug of A&W till Don deemed the angle of setting sun was just right , and their shadows would fall long and harmless behind them. It was a kind of ritual, coaxing maximum anticipation.
They waited 'til the first whippoorwill sang.
Finally, the moment came, when the two fly fishermen stepped out into the water.
The sun was going down bright red in the west, and the last motorboat had been heard in the distance long ago, and these men were not only casting long shadows and light fly lines but were standing within that rare and cosmic moment of angling glory.
Perfection, few of the living ever know.
Don and the Prof looked at one another like Butch and Sundance in their last instant of life, and held out in their palms, the secret weapon ...
A hand-tied 1 ½ inch long wet fly that looked so remarkably like a real crayfish, and was so well engineered over years of persistent improvement, that when you jerked it along the bottom, it see-sawed back and forth exactly like the fleeing crustation.
It was deadly. A smallmouth bass covets the humble crayfish for food, more than any other edible thing on the planet earth, and the faux ballet of jerking movement tuned to an art form by the angler sets off an instinct to frenzied feed in the fish that goes back to the ancient Pliocene.
