“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.“ – Jerome K. Jerome
The tractor came to us after my neighbor’s business went belly up, his divorce was near final, and he had decided that he, and the soon to be second trophy wife, would just leave the country life and move to the suburbs.
He had named the tractor Gus. I didn’t think naming a tractor was all that odd given his situation, but something as drastic as moving to the suburbs struck me as some kind of hysterically weird midlife crisis.
Gus and I were locked in mechanistic combat for at least the last three or four hours. The battle had forced me to lose track of both time and patience. I wasn’t really sure that victory had been actually been achieved, but I had finally declared victory.
Wearily, I blanketed the red, diesel fumed beast with an old tarp, and looked for some release from the tension that only a stubborn, inanimate, overly complex, mechanical object can produce.
Some folks are mechanically inclined and the rest of us are born with the DNA that results in a desire to live in the stone age. It was this inner, secret Neanderthal desire that resulted in my sense of dread when approaching confrontations with greasy machines. But, after hours of combat, there was sense of satisfaction in the fact that the mystery of a spinning solenoid had somehow been conquered.
The solenoid mystery hadn’t exactly been solved, but it was in fact, resolved by wildly banging away at the starter with a suitably sized, large pair of channel locks. I strongly recommend a heavy set of big channel locks for most hand to hand combat situations involving both indoor and outdoor machines. Many a great battle has been won with this ingenious, rubber handled, hardware design.
As the trusty, bent and dented pliers were being stowed away, my idle minds eye fell upon the nine foot graphite fly rod leaning in a corner of the barn hallway. The dusty rod looked as if was once again in mortal danger from being devoured by spider webs. Barn spiders have a tendency to do a tremendous amount of collateral turmoil to almost any design of fishing equipment.
After a quick review of the deer tail dragonfly imitation on the terminal end of the leader, the slender wand was gently removed from the deadly grip of the dreaded barn spiders.
I started trying to tie flies after all of my store bought flies were left in trees, bushes, or logs and I thought that I could literally save a ton of money if I just cut out the middle man and tied them myself. I saved feathers and tails off of just about everything I could shoot, or catch, or cut with a good pair of scissors. Here’s a hint for you aspiring young fly tiers: Don’t waste your time on the house cat or road killed skunks.
After years of tying flies, all of my attempts at good looking, counterfeit insects, had a strong tendency to turn out looking like a Drosophila Melangasters on steroids.
For those of you that failed Biology 101; a Drosophila Melangaster is a fruit fly. Here’s another free hint; fish don’t seem to want to eat imitation fruit flies on steroids.
My next conscious thought was the feel of the pasture grass that was in bad need of a visit from a bush-hog. The pollen literally jumped from the overgrown grass and covered the boots like a dry snow. The feel of the sticky pollen immediately created a reflex that caused me to nervously scan the cow trail for the huge snakes that were known to travel this field separating the barn from the pond.
The fact that snakes had not been seen on this trail in a year or so was totally irrelevant. The biggest and boldest snakes periodically deposited old, unneeded hides just about everywhere you’d least expect to find them. Some of these transparent and wrinkled hides were frighteningly thick.
Across a fence, around a few sinkholes, down a creek bank, and through another acre of sticky grass, and I glided almost effortlessly to the pond edge. The bank was an almost oozing mudslide filled with Coyote, Blue Herron and Raccoon tracks.
Frogs of all sizes launched themselves into the cool water like WWI trench mortars fired across some watery no-mans land.
The springy little frogs leapt to freedom among the slime and water weeds that grow near the transition of dark liquid and the tracked up mud lit by the spring sun.
Small bluegills pick off the smallest of the frogs at random as they struggle to freedom in the mossy slime. The deer hair dragonfly imitation is launched fifty or so feet, deposited with a dull slap on the smooth pond surface. The ripples from the poorly tied fly melt slowly away and the bug is manipulated in the manner of all swimming bugs designed to fly but suddenly find themselves drowning.
This is my best attempt to trick the one stupid bass in the pond into devouring a wounded and drowning dragonfly. The fish in this pond are exceptionally smart, or full, or the fly looks more like a mangled wad of dyed deer hair instead of the fifty or so, real dragonflies nervously buzzing about the oddly colored green pond’s surface.
To the left, an underwater predator moves the pond’s surface with a wake that can only be created by large shoulders. The large wake is quickly amplified by another short cast and almost instantly, the fly is again judged to be a phony.
I prowled the bank like the other creatures who left tell tale tracks, straining to see the big bass in the moss, the fish who stalk in the gloom, waiting for their daily ambush that sustains and grows them fat bellied, plump and dark green.
I managed to effectively forget about the tractor and the long, thick snakes and setting the hook.
The hungry fish swirled the ugly fly twice, and both times my reaction was as dull and slow as the tractor’s first gear.
Fifty, one hundred… who knows how many casts later, I reeled in the wet slime covered, wad of unraveled deer hair and moved through the fields, fences and past the tarp covered battle with Gus. The angst was gone now. A tattered tarp shrouded the red nemesis named Gus. The rod was safely stored in a web free corner of the barn where spiders had not yet taken to deer hair, imitation, dragon flies.
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Note from the WOMR; I have really appreciated the kind comments received from you all, the faithful readers. Most of those comments were positive, and some comments even came from friends that I had to call up on the phone and ask if they had even read the latest story. Most have said that they have been too busy fishing but they would get to it sooner than later. Please note that it is my humble opinion, that most of my friends are liars of the highest order. And more than a few have to have someone else read these renderings to them because they failed at remedial reading in the short time they endured compulsory education. Many are also incapable of accessing digital anything other than their fingers. I don’t believe in Facebook, or Twitter. Zuckerberg gives me the creeps like that evil, little pasty faced kid, who used to live in the neighborhood and always played with his chemistry set, and never managed to get dirty. Twitter reminds me of an older girl who I used to be profoundly fond of, but she kept yelling, “GO AWAY, PLEASE JUST GO AWAY, YOU LITTLE TWITT!” That’s what Twitter reminds me of, so I don’t Twitter either. But, I honestly would appreciate your feedback, so keep those cards and letters coming in. whiteoakmtnrange@gamil.com. Remember; “We hunt and fish because we can. Don’t lose that thought.”
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