Plenty of salt pond news, gossip, warnings and whispers in the mist of an early morning

4:43 was technically dark, but there was sufficient easterly light to remind me my first of two snooze button presses left me thirty minutes behind the bass. Point Judith Pond, Great Pond to some, was thankfully calm, a small reward in spite of my tardiness. With an ironic reminder in my rear-view mirror, I consoled myself that a smattering of distant sun made it easier to navigate backing into someone’s driveway before I rolled down to the ramp. It’s technically not appropriate to use a private driveway like that but over the years, knowing a few homeowners had no idea about my discretion, I had delivered hanging flower baskets as a pollinator apology with whispered thank you’s.

Sliding my kayak into the pond, a moderately early arrival earned me first crack at a new day’s news. The pond was alight with news, gossip, warnings and whispers. A three mile per hour breeze carried news from an oyster catcher that my presence near a small point with shallow water was the cause of some concern. She raised wings of alarm and moved along, although only to a salty maple branch some fifty feet north. Good soldiers keep steady eyes on visitors.

Sun was rising but not the fish

There was a brief moment when a crimson jellyfish, casually bridging the space between water and air, erased my focus on salt pond striped bass. It was early in the season; bass were scarce but pretty and silver and hungry. An April schoolie landed on fifteen-pound test weighs the same as a late August twenty pounder. Fooled by a classic pearl shad imitation, I caught and released one fish in the dark, on my third cast. Measuring 12″ at most, it was a giant fish to me, shaking like Samson, flipping salt water into my coffee, not conceding an inch of my small cockpit until she received the customary kiss and was released. A fish a week before, the first of the year, was a svelte 35″. The second fish was equally fantastic to me but the jellyfish got me thinking.

The salt pond was unseasonably calm. From two hundred feet I could see jellys rise and drift along the surface, sharing their open arms to anything which might drift by, precisely what I was doing. Mesmerized by their gentle flow with currents and a flood tide just getting its act together, I floated with one for a few minutes. Ospreys sang of a new day from two sides. One, possibly two gulls stretched their black tipped wings. On the verge of false dawn, there was little for them or me to see yet, except for a singular angler leaning over the side of a shallow kayak staring at jellyfish. Three times I was conned into paddling here or there, following striper rises ultimately proving to be gaggles of happily feeding peanut bunker who seemed amused by my repeated presence as they dispersed and regrouped a hundred feet west. And I followed them. In those fleeting moments, when it’s too dark to check a watch, we can be fooled by sights, observations and assumptions.

My salt pond news was that I found no other fish that morning. All my well-earned secret spots were investigated and proven to be free of bass. I considered texting my friend John in a southern pond section to petition for a hot cup of coffee but reconsidered as it was barely 6am. Good anglers know when the fish catching part is over. Good humans understand we are rarely in charge. But there, under a circling osprey, next to a darting tern, watching a mink scurry along the shoreline, over gray driftwood, abandoned plastic shellfish culture bags, broken dock pieces and glacial rocks crowned with green slime and white gull deposits, I came to grips with the passing of Gerry Engel.

Gerry was the precise type of character I love to meet and write about. Fly tyer, fly fisher, Alaskan lumber man, carpenter, father. All of that. Gerry passed after a few battles inherent to age and lifelong decisions. There but for the grace of God…Resting for a moment, absorbing some peace on a salt pond, I thought about the classic movie, Big Wednesday. No one surfs forever.

A little gossip never hurts…

Drifting east and around a small point, there was still more news to be shared on the surface of a new day. A blue heron, patiently stoic, stood in four inches of salt pond water, watching everything. Including me. Instinctively I give them, all shore birds really, ample room. Although I dragged my starboard paddle to glide towards deeper water, he straightened with a squawk, took flight in my direction, then banked to move to more peaceful hunting grounds. His tone belied his displeasure. Cottonwood trees of female persuasion were stretching their limbs at first light, setting free acres of downy puff balls to catch the slight southwest breeze. Off they went, settling in some small gatherings which, on two occasions, fooled me into thinking they were signs of fish. Most drifted along, a late spring snowball squall, a few weeks after male cottonwoods had distributed their pollen, casually carrying along over lawns, cars and pines displaying their new bright green tips. A pair of swallows darted overhead, possibly gossiping about the other side of the pond while clearly announcing my presence, so I dragged a paddle on the port side, moved north towards a wide and largely unproductive, from a fishing perspective anyway, cove with a few houses tucked into some trees. When I’m largemouth or smallmouth bass fishing, it’s common for swallows to zip along the water to gobble a bug or a quick drink. When striper fishing, I think they just like to keep an eye on me.

Someone or something is always watching a salt pond

On the cove’s west side is a bit of a bowl, a small area with muddy feet that occasionally holds a few stripers if there is something to eat. I approached carefully and silently as the swallows, which had alerted a mature white egret and who was now bobbing it head as raising a red flag for my presence, as I could. A few hundred feet forward and thirty feet up, a female osprey was clearly upset. Taking a sip of cool salty coffee, I paused to see the cause.

The wind in the willows played teases for two osprey beginning the day with a loud dispute. There was tension in a thick shaggy overhead osprey nest. The Mrs. screeched, clearly suffering some sunrise annoyance, which turned out to be her possible partner. A hundred feet south, perched in a barkless maple tree limb, a male casually stripped breakfast from a river herring slumped over at his feet. Even from a distance, some red flesh was clear on a skin draped on both branch sides. Her irritation, one might surmise, was a hungry stomach, likely pacing over her equally hungry nestlings. While I have no intel to determine if the two were or were not in a relationship, several mornings I have paddled along before first light, drawn along by the smokey siren of sizzling bacon from an unseen Saturday kitchen, so it was easy to appreciate the situation.

The bright egret inspected the wet sand for a prospect of breakfast, as the screeching continued, so I moved on. A half mile from north and west, another osprey pair caught my attention as one fluttered above my kayak. Knowing this was a sign of fish, I unhooked my lure and swapped it for a heavier, black and silver swimmer, given the deeper waters. The osprey paused, staying unbelievably in the same space overhead, then dove fifty feet but stopped and instantly flew parrelel to the pond. It was confusing, given their amazing eyesight and millennia-old hunting skills. The young bird returned, staying just south of her mother who flew in circles all the while. The younger bird hovered again, I kept my rod low to avoid distracting her as she dove and again, cancelled her move and flew south. Realizing I was watching a young osprey, under her mother’s tutelage, learn how to perfect that marvelous single space wing movement they do when hunting, then dive with wings tucked and tight, I understood my morning was complete.

Gerry Engel, RIP

As some lines of sun rose over white trimmed summer homes, I stowed the rod, unclipped the paddle and turned 180 degrees. I left as quietly as I arrived, with a fish picture to show my patient wife and two jellyfish gliding alongside. Hauling out, I tipped my hat to the day, the news and Gerry Engel.