All Fishermen Are Liars Read Free Page A

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    There are inevitable complications, but at its core, life is simple. At the desk it’s all about the luscious sense, sound and possibilities of language. On the water it’s all about the fish and the beautiful places they live. The only real difficulties you encounter are in getting from one place to the other.
    In the end, you fish as much as you want to and sometimes even a little more. You begin telling people, “I have to go fishing; it’s my job.” You don’t exactly mean that as a joke, but understand that’s how they’ll take it. Still, even on those rare days when you trudge off to a trout stream not so much because you want to, but because your livelihood depends on it, you have a better day at the office than most.

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    GREAT BEAR
    It’s sometime around midday and either Martin or I—I forget which—have just landed the five-pound lake trout that will be our lunch fish. Our guide, Craig Blackie, motors us to shore, digs out a blackened iron grate and props it off the ground on rocks while Martin and I hunt for firewood. We’re at the northern end of Great Bear Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories, above the Arctic Circle and near the northern tree line, so wood is scarce, but we need only enough for a quick twig fire.
    By the time Martin and I get back with our meager armloads of willow, Craig has the fish cleaned, slathered in seasoned olive oil and wrapped tightly in tin foil. Two herring gulls are down the shore picking at the guts. The three of us are dressed in wind pants, slickers and hats with earflaps. Craig is wearing fingerless gloves that his mother knitted out of musk ox wool. It’s the third week of August.
    We stand there talking shop in the way of men who don’t know each other well, but are comfortable together. Martin is a Scot who’s fished extensively in Europe and North America. Craig is studying for a doctoral degree in fisheries biology with a specialty in lake trout and is the most knowledgeable guide I’ve ever met. I contribute what I can.
    We’re in a starkly beautiful arctic landscape that not everyone gets to see, but instead of rubbernecking we gaze at steam escaping from the foil-wrapped fish while open cans of pork and beans and stewed tomatoes begin to bubble around the edges. The fishing here is good enough that no one even thought about bringing a backup lunch of sandwiches.
    Size can exert a kind of tyranny in fishing. As a lifelong trout fisherman, I refuse to think of our lunch fish as “little” when it’s about to feed three grown men and only half an hour earlier was pulling 8-weight line off a reel. On the other hand, in the hour before lunchtime we’d gone through at least a dozen bigger lake trout looking for one small enough to eat.
    My first and biggest fish that day wasn’t exactly an accident, but I can’t say I was ready for it. On the way out to a submerged rock bar to troll, we’d passed a small cove that Craig said could be good for grayling, and he asked if we wanted to rig up some lighter rods and try it. I’ve always had a soft spot for grayling, and Martin is a past president of the Grayling Society, so it wasn’t a hard sell.
    We’d been casting from shore for about twenty minutes without a take when Craig walked over and said, “Let’s give it a few moreminutes and then move.” (Grayling are usually easy enough to catch, but they’re not always where they’re supposed to be.) Right about then a large, grayish-green shape swam casually over to my fly and stopped. To Craig’s eternal credit, he didn’t yell, “Set!” but let me sink the hook myself. I was fishing a rig that was appropriate for grayling of maybe four pounds tops—a 5-weight rod with a size 8 Muddler Minnow on a 5x tippet—and this fish looked like it could be a yard long.
    Craig said, “I’ll go get the boat.”
    Once we were able to follow the fish, the situation didn’t seem quite so desperate, although I never got past wishing I’d hooked