Ghost Fish (Part 6 of a Story for My Son)

Me, in a boat, obviously still
excited after almost stepping on a
sleeping 1,000-pound class brown (grizzly)
bear on Admiralty Island, Alaska

Conclusion

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

On a trip to Canada, in August 2000, I stopped to fly-fish a small stream while my hiking companions trekked back to camp. I was catching and releasing trout on a Royal Wulff dry fly when what looked to be maybe a 350-pound grizzly materialized out of the brush and stood less than 20 feet away, just across the narrow creek. We had been in the area several days without seeing any sign of black or grizzly bears, so I had carelessly left my can of bear pepper spray in my backpack, which was leaning against a tree several strides behind me. The bear could get to me before I could get to the pack, so I tried to stay calm and develop a plan. As luck would have it, I had just made a cast when the bear showed up, and a trout struck the fly, hooked itself, and jumped into the air. The bear became animated and jumped into the creek, same as the Chesapeake Bay Retrievers I used to raise would dive in and try to land fish for me. With the bear now barely 10 feet away, and its wet hair clinging to its ribs, I noticed it had a surprisingly rangy build: it looked and acted hungry. I landed the trout and heaved it across the creek; the bear spun, clambered back up the far bank, pounced on the flopping fish, and quickly devoured it.

Ghost Fish (Part 5 of a Story for My Son)

Uncle Carl, age 93, after a recent trip
to Quebec, on what turned out to be our
last trip to the family “camp” (cabin,
we would call it here) at Tug Hill, NY.
He was still walking – carefully
– and casting a flyrod on this trip,
but he would die within two months

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

It took me 40 years to realize that it wasn’t just a fish I was chasing, it was the life I had created in my mind that I would have lived if only: if only my family hadn’t moved south, if only I had lived closer to my aunt and uncle, if only I could have traded the really not too bad life I had grown up with in Virginia for the unproven but dreamed of much better life I might have had Upstate. By then, my father had been dead 20 years, my mother and my uncle Carl had died four years previous, and I had put my life and businesses on hold to assure that my ailing aunt died in her home, as I had promised Carl I would.

Ghost Fish (Part 4 of a Story for My Son)

Sunset where Grindstone Creek flows into
Lake Ontario at Selkirk Shores State Park,
about 5 miles south of my family's old
NY farm. If you are going to waste
countless hours hopelessly casting a fly
to a wraith of a fish, the epic
sunsets are at least a wonderful reward.

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

Back home in Virginia, after that first trip to Upstate New York, despondent over all I was missing by not being raised there, life was a slow burn. If we had a foot of snow, local people cowered; Upstate, my uncle called that “a skiff of snow, a dusting.” That was the life, I thought, especially in summer, when our front porch thermometer soared toward 95 degrees, and my uncle would confirm by letter that it was only 75 there.

Ghost Fish (Part 3 of a Story for My Son)

Carl & Emma, in their 90s,
four decades after I met them
on my first trip to NY as a kid

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

The day after I released the fish, we went to see my mother’s brother, Carl, and his wife, Emma.
    “So you’re the kid from down South who is using a Rebel lure to teach us how to fish, eh?”
    That was the introduction from my Uncle Carl, and I was swept away. He was a legend of an outdoorsman and a famed regional stone mason, yet he and my Aunt Emma were also well read and interested in just about everything. From the beginning I was in awe of them, of their combination of blue-collar livelihood and professorial intellects, and the constant humor.

Ghost Fish (Part 2 of a Story for My Son)

A scene a couple of miles from
where my family had a farm near Sandy Creek,
New York, before they moved to Virginia.
Even though I try not to, every time I look
at this photo I still resent that I was
raised 600 miles south of Beaver Meadow,
instead of less than 2 miles south of it.

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

A couple of years after my family moved from Upstate New York to southwest Virginia, I was born. My first, most vivid memories of childhood were that something wasn’t right, that I didn’t fit. Summers were awful and winter was wonderful, the more snow the better; I was born in the South but I wasn’t of the South.
    On that first trip Upstate, at age 11, I found home. It was my mother’s first trip back since the move south; even at my young age I noticed her change, a sparkle came to her eye: she too was home. It was only for a week, but it changed us forever.

Ghost Fish (Part 1 of a Story for my Son)

Full moon rising over the Salmon River,
less than 2 miles upstream from
where it pours into Lake Ontario
at Port Ontario, NY. This photo
was taken a few yards from where
I caught Ghost Fish – and Ghost Fish
hooked me – more than 40 years ago.

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

The dream always begins the same. The moon has risen barely above the horizon, turning the gently riffled current a soft, undulating gold. The fish materializes, wraithlike, mouth agape, moonlight reflecting from its broad sides; it appears huge and menacing as it surges through the shallow water directly at me.