Waiting In Plain Sight, Spring Provides

There’s this small salt pond I like to fish from my kayak, in the spring and occasionally the fall. It’s a timeless, hidden in plain sight affair; spring’s secret striper cove. Through a fading worm moon, striped bass stage in places to greet and feast on newly arrived river herring, corraling them along tight shallow coves where neither prefers lingering if not for such annual circumstances. Hunger rules; one for calories, one for prodginy. I follow their dance as best I can until summer’s advance. By Fall, a few bass may return to lay in wait, curled around sunken glacial till, hopeful like me. Some winters, when schooling white perch have grown plump, bass will defy migratory calls, minding their calories through hard months which toughen the cove’s surface to rebuke my visits. Then I can only drive by, craning for sprite glances at a secret, exposed now for trees lacking green comforters. Spring again will unlatch my recharged, hope-filled year; when winds are fair, there will be a need to make time for paddling east then north.

Arrivals to this provisional feeding ground require the best timing. Given our devolving culture leaning on overindulgences of technology, some last vestiges of old school smarts are required under willows where smart phones provide no counsel. Easing silently into its slender sliver through weepy oaks, I pass over remains of fallen smooth boulders, resting two feet below on both sides of a now imaginary line. Chatty visitors who stumble upon this overgrown ditch may not notice nor sadly not appreciate other soldier stones marbled into eroding banks east and west, evidence of hard times for clever fishermen with families to feed. Back in the day, white perch, Morone americanus, striper’s close first cousin, would be caught in stretched nets then towed to such a secluded cove for release. While caloused hands relieved fish of close quarter captivity, others restacked that rock wall, ensuring a second, larger internment, until markets came calling. I have no interest in describing where that slight cut is, as it remains shaded by shady phototropisms and meandering rhodedendruns, but it is the lovely beginning to my fishing year. Too close to either tide, water is at a minimum. I paddle silently to appreciate, I ease over shallows where the narrow entrance relinquishes some ground, moving my paddle sparingly to propel me just a few feet at a time, to focus on slight ripples which may be marks from fins or drifting light leaves. Many big adventures begin in small moments, be they fresh or salt, but spring trips are all the more intoxicating.

“All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare, said a wise man,” Edward Abbey

Interestingly, there is nothing to hear here, in spring’s secret striper cove. Some other proven spots are sparodically alive with splashes or slapping fins telegraphing opportunity to the wise. This cove offers nothing easily. Crows and ravens watch always. Oyster catchers cry when my movements test their protective patience. Sparrows look down on me as they work the brush, unconcerned for my recreation or plans. It’s the rare place in my life where I move cautiously, pacing motions with time that doesn’t show on a watch, watching everything. In bright sunlight, exuguous rings sliding around barely visible glacial debris are rare but true. Under clouds, I watch for just a push, just a rise. I understand bass understand depth and thier own exposure so strikes seem to occur magically in slow motion. Peaceful in my seat, it is more hunting than fishing.

Through cheerful repetition, log book entries and countless hours just floating about, I have learned much of the whens and wheres for salt pond striper fishing, especially in my secret striper cove. I understand bass may be hiding in silent shadows just below my boat, invisible, quite near our secret enterance, watching as I do, as spring smudges everything and opportunity grows by the day. When this secret is empty of fish or my skills prove paltry laid against their eons of evasions, I move. There is a quiet, camoflagued fresh water tributary a half mile north, where a small pond empties without celebration, through a slight, flexuous path around stones scarred with calicified remains of sadly rare wild Eastern oysters. It’s a mental finger trap, choosing to scope for oysters or watch for feeding bass as each requres time away from the other. Opting for fish, there I might find 24″ bass in 10″ of water, cautiously optomistic about an ambitious alewife slinking west to breed, or I might not.

Some Stripers Prefer To Stay Secret

Fishing Spring’s secret striper cove requires me to prepare well as moments will be easily spooked and spoiled here, from the vantage of an angler. The pond remains the same, regardless of my intentions. I pack small pearl plastics with 1/8 and 1/4 oz jig heads in Mardis Gras colors. Patience is my first choice. Casts are easy, efficient even, as noise is a negative and poor balance leads to a trip overboard; a terminal mistake. Spring fish are hesitant, peckish, sometimes cautiously eager. Go-to lures don’t deliver consistently in chilly waters so my Eddyline floor is littered with options: small bright Kastmasters, Swim Shads, Rapala’s with scratches and broken backs. I like bubblegum Albie Snax when they work; history says when they don’t, it’s the fish not the lure. Short casts, slow retrieves with necessary pauses then twitches. Every few feet I offer a pause, a sly sinking sliding towards a pond floor, a mirage of mortal failure meant to key in on the mightiest of striped bass’ inherent laziness. It will be a great day when someone creates bubblegum lures, which often expire while polluting stomachs and pond floors, from biodegradable oils so we can pitch and put them in tight spots without guilt accompanying waste.

As spring relaxes and summer flexes, enabling warm waters and green blossoms above and below this pond, fish and I go out and deep, where I may, on occasion, see another floating angler. We likely will not talk as we take our rounds of edges and kettles, which means we will not relate what we have seen, or share some slice of experience based on air and water temperatures or at minimum, even exchange pleasantries. We may wave, as those are delivered and received with courtesy but without invitation for more contact. More frequently we will continue on, aware of everything but the need to connect with others in a time of great division.

My best spring mornings begin loading rods into my truck on a dark driveway littered with clamshells and bottle caps and easily percolate with our sun. Driving in the dark, I savor the power of taciturn moments. Speed has no currency through a brisk April false dawn. Paddling efficiently before any sun has unlatched a new day, when even gulls rest, when I spy ivory tips of ospreys curled overhead in tan grass baskets carefully woven, when Great blue herons are partially revealed as frozen prehistoric shadows, when scoters and teals care only enough to swim, not fly, from my rhythymic advances, I have already achieved success without ever untethering my American Beauty rod.

Come spring, we will have our secret plans to make and secret places to discover, where we go to hunt and fish for what makes us the happiest. Spring approaches now. I am ready to paddle and share the news of the hunt and release. Perhaps this year, fish will cooperate with my old school smarts.

“Behold my friends, the spring is come, the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of thier love!” Sitting Bull.