"Charles Manson" Goes Salmon Fishing

 
By Capt. Tony Petrella

 

Imagine, if you dare, Charles Manson on steroids. Seven feet tall, with thick, curly, wild hair descending into a long, flowing John Brown beard. And those piercing Manson   eyes. The kind that are at once troubled and intense. The whole persona  riveted upon one focus, one vision, one quest.

 

Meet my cousin Paul. The most wannabe chinook salmon fisherman I have ever met in more than 30 years of casting over water.

 

Actually, Paul was married to my cousin Cathy at the time. They had just been discharged from the Army (she being only slightly smaller than Paul, they had been the ultimate boy/girl MP team), and moved to Michigan so that Cathy could be close to her family. Paul had been around, and he figured Michigan was as good a place to settle as anywhere. Especially better than Neeewww Joiiiiiissssseee, where he had grown (and grown, and grown) up.

 

“So, when are you gonna take me salmon fishin.”  It was a statement, not a question. Since my eye level was about even with his navel, my head rocked backward to an astonishingly painful angle until I was staring at the ceiling. Which is approximately where his eyes were located. “Well, uh, Paul, see, this is the Fourth of  July and the salmon don’t run up into the rivers until September or October.”

 

“So, gimme a date!” His eyes bored into my forehead (my neck already had developed a more or less permanent crick from looking up and I’d had to lower my eyes). “Guys have been telling me about how awesome these fish are and I’ve just gotta catch some. When can we go? Name the day and time and I’m THERE!”

 

My neck was ready for a cervical collar by now, so I eased backward and told him, “Sit down, so we can have a drink and work out the schedule.” He plopped down like a puppet whose strings had been cut and looked out the window. “Cathy,” he yelled across the yard, “bring us a coupla beers. We’re gonna talk fishin.” Our Uncle Sonny, who always ended up hosting the Family Party, lifted four out of the icy water and stuck two in each of Cathy’s hands. “I’ve seen them drink,” he told her. “Save yourself a quick trip back to the cooler.”

 

Cut to the Pere Marquette River. Three months to the day have elapsed, and Paul and I are rigging up at the Green Cottage access. It’s a brisk morning, and the chinook are in. Paul hadn’t slept at all that night, and looked even wilder than usual. He was in a frenzy in the dawn’s half-light. He pulled a stout ocean-caliber rod out of his impossibly small car and started tightening on an automatic reel. “Uh, buddy,” I said, “I’ve got spare equipment you can use. I don’t think that setup’s quite right for these fish.” He shook that huge shaggy mane. “My uncle gave this gear to me,” he almost whispered in that distinctive Jersey accent that’s almost a cross between a New York twang and a North Carolina drawl. “I really want to catch my first salmon on it.” I simply nodded as I quietly slipped a spare reel into the bellows pocket of my vest. How do you argue tackle tips with a grizzly bear?

 

A short walk in the gloom found us at water’s edge just below Winery’s Bend. I could just make out the white gravel of a salmon redd through the leaden water, and two fish hovering over their love nest. I couldn’t help myself.

 

“There’s a couple of fish right there, Paul. Do you see them?”  He leaned over my shoulder like a windfall poplar tree. “No, no. Where are they?” He was frantic. I stuck out my rod tip like a pointer, then quickly flipped my fly upstream. Paul had been so intent on the fish that he’d never even heard me quietly stripping  line off the reel. My first cast was inhaled by a big brooding he-fish. After it broke off with a wild splash just a couple of seconds later, I casually said to Paul, “Well, I just wanted you to see how it was done.” (When I told my wife about it that evening, she rolled her eyes and looked momentarily pained. “You know,” Kate said, “that you could never do that again if your life depended upon it?” I agreed. “And,” she added, “you DO know what a BSer you are?”  I simply smiled and shrugged. I knew.)

 

Anyway, Paul was apoplectic. “My gawwwwwwd,” he hissed, as the big king unpinned the tippet from his jaw and crashed back into the water. “I GOTTA catch one of those!”

 

In the long run below Bidwell’s, he got his chance. There was a big pod of males jockeying for position around what must have been the Marilyn Monroe of chinook. Fish were slashing everywhere, looking for a date. It looked like Rush Street in Chicago on Saturday night.  Paul was beside himself with excitement. His eyes glowed. His bear paws trembled. That enormous beard twitched spasmodically. I thought he was going to launch himself into the river, perhaps even to wrestle one like an alligator. “Paul,” I yelled. “Wait! I’ll wade out with you and make sure you’re in the right spot to make the cast. Don’t risk spooking all those beautiful fish.” His head bobbed like a toy beagle in the back window of a Buick. “Okay, okay. But cummon and let’s go catch some!”

 

When we got the right setup, I told Paul to pull some line off of that old coffee grinder he’d insisted on using. It crackled like a bag of potato chips as the line came free, and I just knew we were in trouble.

 

Marilyn Monroe was still wriggling seductively and flapping her tail to create the penultimate breeding bed. Meanwhile, a whole conga line of eager male chinook were  twirling around madly, butting each other and generally acting like teenagers at their first sock-hop. Hormones were rampant.

 

“Swing your rod back and flip that mess of split shot and black streamer right into the middle of that fishy zoo,” I advised. Paul immediately obliged. A moment after a loud PLOOOP! announced his intentions, the reel went zzzzzzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing and then BAM!!!!! Pieces of metal were flying off that old automatic as if a Claymore mine had just exploded. “Gaaaaaaawwwwwwwwd DAMN!” he yelled. Those Manson eyes were like saucers. “Strip line,” I yelled. He stared back dumbly, so I motioned with my left hand. Instantly, his tree-limb-sized left arm became a piston. And after the third huge sweep of his fist, the fly slammed into that salmon and the fish rocketed downstream as if it had been goosed with a cattle prod. I was dumbstruck when that powerful surge pulled the rod out of Paul’s right hand.

 

With a shriek convulsing his face into a maniacal mask, Paul dove his right arm four feet into the Pere Marquette’s icy water and snatched back his rod before the chinook could  carry it downstream into The Whirlpool. Rising back up, with his whole upper body dripping water, Paul went into overdrive, stripping line wildly. Swish, swish, swish, swish. Line flew backward through the air. Then it suddenly came tight and the hook drove home like a root canal by a bad dentist. Far in the distance, rising from the water like a ballistic missile, that big fish posed just long enough for us to get a mental photograph. Then you could almost hear the tippet PING! as he went looking for a new girlfriend.

 

I looked over at Paul and saw an utterly defeated man. His giant shoulders slumped. His face was slack. His eyes were glazed.  I saw his lips move, and strained to hear him whisper,  over and over, “oh, my gawwwd, oh, my gawwwd...”

 

I tugged him toward the bank. We sat down and I handed him my flask of warm-up juice. He drank deeply, handed it back and stared accusingly at the remains of Uncle Joe’s automatic. He sighed. Then I pulled that spare single-action reel out of my vest and put it in his hand. “Here. Now go catch one.”