Month: March 2020

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Fish in the Time of Cholera. Arkansas.

The largest trout I’ve caught was in Arkansas, in the Ozarks on the Little Red River in the northwest part of the state, on a root-beer colored streamer called a meat whistle. Whoever named that fly wasn’t subtle, but neither is the fly.

I caught that trout three years ago, and I considered including it in our list and skipping another trip to Arkansas. For some reason that seemed wrong–if I included Arkansas where would it end? North Carolina 20 years back? That trip to Wyoming 30 years’ ago? So a month ago we booked a weekend trip back to the Little Red on April 4. Then came Coronavirus.

The Little Red is a tributary to the more-famous White River, and like the White it’s known for its trout. It once held the world all-tackle record for brown trout, over 40 pounds. Since the 1980s, the browns are always wild, never stocked. It’s a pretty river, to my eye prettier than the White, and we fished it from a flat-bottomed, jet-motored sled-boat Nothing says Arkansas like a flat-bottomed, jet-motored sled-boat.

Parts of the Little Red are lined with vacation homes, but its banks are heavily wooded and the houses don’t intrude except when your fly gets hung on a dock. There’s always something for flies to get hung on. The Little Red and the White are tailwaters, and while trout aren’t native to Arkansas, water is discharged from the dams at 40-50 degrees, cold enough to dissuade the native black bass and catfish. Trout thrive.

My great-grandfather, Henry Louis Thomas, was born July 17, 1850, in Ozan, Arkansas, two counties northwest of the corner where Texas and Arkansas meet. His father, William Louis Thomas, was born I-don’t-know-where and died in Ozan in 1849. He was 38. Because of problems with a stepfather, as boys Henry and his older brother, James Jasper, left Arkansas on a donkey and came to Bowie County near Texarkana. It seems pretty desperate, but I suspect these were pretty desperate people.

All William Louis left behind was a marriage license, a denied dram shop license application, and two sons. I doubt that my great grandfather Henry could read, or at least that he could read much, and wonder what it must have been like for Amanda Adeline to be widowed and poor and pregnant in Arkansas in 1850. She was born in 1834, two years before statehood, in Argenta, Arkansas, now North Little Rock. She was 16 when Henry was born. She died in 1864 in Bois d’Arc. She was 30.

Bois d’Arc, by the way, is pronounced bow dark.

When I was a boy, my grandmother’s house was a few blocks south, the Texas side, of State Line Boulevard in Texarkana. The Texas side was dry, meaning that alcohol sales were banned. The Arkansas side was wet, evidencing a wildness that I suspected was typical of the other side of the street. The federal post office sits on the line, part in Texas, part in Arkansas. Near the post office is a peculiarly elaborate Confederate memorial dedicated in part to the women of the Confederacy, or at least the white women of the Confederacy.

“O great Confederate mothers, we would paint your names on monuments, that men may read them as the years go by and tribute pay to you, who bore and nurtured hero-sons and gave them solace on that darkest day, when they came home, with broken swords and guns!”

I don’t think there’s a corresponding monument for Southern women who weren’t Confederate mothers.

I doubt my family history is uncommon. I expect that lots of early immigrants to Texas came through Arkansas: white, black, or brown they could only have come through Arkansas, Louisiana, Mexico, or the Gulf. Maybe there were a rare few souls from New Mexico. My family history is probably only nuanced by the time some of my ancestors actually stayed in Arkansas.

Henry Schenck Tanner, Arkansas, A New Universal Atlas Containing Maps of the various Empires, Kingdoms, States and Republics Of The World, 1836.

Since Thursday I’m home, self-isolating. A colleague in Dallas may have the virus, and there is a feeling of inevitability about the spread of Covid-19. Fifteen days ago I went to a breakfast for the Harris County Community College system with about 500 others, and after the breakfast I stood in the foyer for an hour discussing local politics with a friend, the wife of a Harris County commissioner, and greeted passers-by. That evening I stood with our mayor in a crowded room for a reception for Cory Booker, and then left for a dinner at a Chinese restaurant with about half of the Harris County state representatives–the purpose was to advertise the plight of Asian Town restaurants. At all those events we were still shaking hands, hugging, standing closer than six feet.

Now of course our mayor has ordered all Houston dining room service closed, and I’m at home. Everything’s canceled. Everything’s ground to a halt.

I haven’t canceled our trip to Arkansas yet, and haven’t discussed canceling with Kris. I should go ahead and cancel, I’m pretty sure we won’t be going, but part of me wants to stock the van with groceries and sleeping bags and drive, to see deserted highways, to make Henry’s trip on that donkey in reverse. We wouldn’t have to interact with anyone except the fishing guide, and that would be outdoors. We could sleep in the van in WalMart parking lots, right? There are WalMarts in Arkansas, right? It would be a small rebellion against our current paralysis. At some point life must go on, or maybe not.

I need to spend a day outside. And I’ve only been home since Thursday.

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American Shad (Alosa sapidissima)

Hugh M. Smith, Shad (Alosa sapidissima), Fishes of North Carolina, Plate 5, North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey, Vol II, E.M. Uzzell & Co., 1907, Raleigh, N.C., Freshwater and Marine Image Bank, University of Washington.

Like the glamorous salmon, American Shad are anadromous–when shad spawn they migrate from salt water back to their natal river. Unlike the glamorous salmon, American shad are potbellied algae eaters. To my eye they are decidedly unglamorous, but shad anglers are devoted. There is a fine blog dedicated to fly fishing for shad, Shad on the Fly, and plenty of other information on the web, and of course John McPhee, our greatest nonfiction writer, wrote The Founding Fish because of his devotion to shad on the fly rod. Shad on the fly is a thing. Maybe not the biggest thing, maybe it doesn’t rival tarpon or steelhead or bluegill, but it’s at least as much of a thing as standing on a ladder in Pyramid Lake for Lahontan cutthroat.

Have you ever seen a picture of John McPhee? I’d read plenty of McPhee, off and on, and will certainly read more, but I don’t know that I’d ever seen his picture. I hold him in such esteem that I kinda expected Paul Newman, or maybe James Stewart.

John McPhee. From http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/media/resources/pictures.xml. I stole this from Wikipedia, which stole it from Princeton, which seems to say if you aren’t using the photo for commercial purposes you can steal their photos. Hope so.

That picture actually makes me happy. McPhee, notwithstanding his Princeton and Oxford education, his professorship at Princeton, his Pulitzer, and more than anything his lifetime’s worth of essential writing about the natural world, looks a lot less like Paul Newman than a guy who fishes for shad. That’s satisfying.

Unlike Pacific salmon, American shad can return to the Atlantic after spawning, and in northern climes can spawn and return for several seasons. Their US Atlantic range, and the range of their smaller also-fishable cousin, the hickory shad, covers much of the East Coast, from the St. John’s River in Florida to Maine. There are also shad in the Pacific Northwest, imported by that other cross-country migrant, Americans. They are fished commercially in both the Atlantic and Pacific, but it’s in rivers that they are a sport fish.

Photo of a Plankton Fly, Robert Rauschenburg, White Painting, 1951, Robert Rauschenburg Foundation, https://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/art/series/white-painting.

Why shad bite is kind of a mystery, though it’s likely either territorial aggression or sexual frustration. Shad are mostly filter feeders, planktivores, so they aren’t a traditional fly fishing target. The photo of my favorite plankton fly has a lot in common with Robert Rauscheburg’s white paintings. It’s an easy fly to tie, but hard to fish. It’s not clear that shad feed at all in freshwater, but in saltwater they also feed on small shrimp and fish, so shad flies tend to remind me of bonefish flies, which usually imitate small shrimp or fish.

In Colonial America shad were so common on the East Coast that they were a major component of the Colonial springtime diet. They were generally thought delicious:

The Shad is held in greater estimation by the epicure than by the angler. When properly in season, it is considered by many the most delicious fish that can be eaten. Fresh Salmon, or a Spanish Mackerel, or a Pompano may possibly equal it; but who can forget the delicate flavor and juicy sweetness of a fresh Shad, broiled or ‘planked;’ hot from the fire; opened, salted and peppered, and spread lightly with fresh May butter.

Norris, Thad, The American Angler’s Book, 171, E.H. Butler & Co., Philadelphia, 1864.
Map of US American Shad Distribution, USGS

Apparently they are also extraordinarily, difficultly, perversely bony, and nothing short of uncommon skill or nuclear annihilation can handle the bones. The current literature suggests that they may have been less the Founding Fathers’ favorite fish than, salted and preserved in barrels for year-round consumption, the Founding Fathers’ slaves’ necessary fish. It’s probably some of both, but in any case shad consumption has fallen out of favor.

The hen’s roe is also eaten. I can find, for instance, relatively recent shad roe and bacon recipes online from Food and Wine, Martha Stewart, and the New York Times. Martha Stewart has a video, and watching Martha separating a shad roe sack is . . . memorable, and creepy. The roe is usually prepared wrapped in bacon, so one wonders whether the appeal is the roe or the bacon. Everything’s better with bacon. Since we will theoretically be in the shad’s territory during the run, I’ll try to find someplace to eat shad, though I’m not sure Kris is convinced, and I’m squeamish about the roe. In 1864, Thad Norris (whose quote about the most-excellent deliciousness of shad appears above) said nothing about eating the roe, but reported that it makes good bait.

Shad’s population decline probably explains shad’s eating decline as much as anything. Damn, Dams. Shad declined not from over-fishing, not sport fishing, not climate change, but dams. If all goes well we will fish the Brandywine in Wilmington, near Bullroarer Took’s old place, and until 2019 the Brandywine dams had stopped much of the Creek’s shad run for more than a century. In 2019 the 115-year old Brandywine Creek dam, first in line from the Christina River and ultimately the Atlantic, was breached in Wilmington. That should help, but the City Dam, a mile further along, is next in line. Wilmington depends on the City Dam for its water supply, so it’s not going away. There’s discussion of ladders, and of rock ramps, but apparently nothing is happening. Imagine building a dam today without provision for fish migration? Even upstream beyond City Dam there are eight additional dams on the Brandywine, some dating back 200 years. There’s not much call for water-powered gristmills in these late days, but demand is apparently enough to stop the shad migration.

Brandywine Creek, Wilmington, Delaware near Tookville, Google Middle Earth.

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Yesterday I fished for largemouth for the first time this year. It was windy, as windy as I can remember fishing, but for whatever reason it didn’t bother me. I fished an olive pine squirrel leach, cast across a back channel at Damon’s Seven Lakes, and caught four bass, three small, one about two pounds. They were pretty; dark and fat, ready for the spring spawn. Kris fished for a few minutes, but then got her binoculars out of the car and looked for birds. She said there were coots, but I didn’t take it personally.

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Delaware

Aaron Arrowsmith and Samuel Lewis, Arrowsmith’s 1804 Map of Delaware, 1804.

Delaware has a population of less than 1 million people, but at only 1,982 square miles, it has 469 people per square mile. That’s a lot. It is the sixth densest state. Montana, which has a few more people, has only seven people per square mile. Standing in your mile of Delaware you can rub elbows with 462 people you’d never meet in Montana.

All of the states denser than Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maryland, are its neighbors. There are other states with more people, but crammed into that northeast corridor are the densest states with the most people and the least land per person. One doesn’t choose Delaware for a wilderness experience.

Delaware ranks 49th in total area–I suppose Rhode Island must be last. There are three counties in Delaware, New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. That’s it. Its largest city, Wilmington, is in the far north, with over half the state’s population and a population density of 1,312 people per square mile. Blacks make up 23% of Delaware’s population, whites 69.5%, Asians 4.1%, and everybody else the rest. About 8% of the whites are Hispanic.

Delaware is not a poor state. Its median annual income per household ranks 17th, at $64,805. Wealth though is tied to race. In Wilmington the median annual white household income is $60,772. The black median annual household income is about $47,500.

From Wikimedia Commons, User Golbez, Map of the Slave States 1861.

On December 7, 1787, Delaware, then a slave state, was the first state to ratify the Constitution. In 1790 in Delaware there were 8,887 slaves, and 3,899 free blacks. The 1860 census listed only 1,798 slaves, of a total black population of 21,677, of a total Delaware population of 112,266. Delaware had not freed its slaves when the Civil War began, though attempts had been made in its legislature and there was a strong abolition movement in the state. Its slaves were finally freed when the 13th Amendment ending slavery was ratified in 1865, after the Civil War.

Gratuitous Photograph of Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman, from Ingmar Bergman’s Persona.

How did slavery get to Delaware? The Dutch of course. Delaware was originally a Swedish colony, founded in 1636. Just think what we’d have gained if the Swedes had held on. We’d own Volvos. We’d have an excuse to post gratuitous photographs of Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman. We’d all be tall and blonde. The Dutch (who still controlled New York) kicked out the Swedes in 1655. The Dutch thought African slavery was the very thing, and had already established slavery in what would be New York, which finally outlawed slavery in the 1820s.

The Dutch conquered the New World Swedes in 1655, and were in turn conquered by the English in 1664. There was some fussing over whether Delaware belonged to Lord Baltimore as part of Maryland, or the Duke of York who deeded it to William Penn, but ultimately it went to Penn. The Delawarians and the Pennsylvanians weren’t well-suited for a long-term relationship, and by 1701 Penn had agreed to a separation, though they continued to share a governor.

Contemporary Portrait, Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr 1577-1618. Baron De La Warr was English, not Native American.

A good name like Delaware should be Native American, but no. The Delaware Native Americans were the Leni Lenape, part of the Algonquins, and were also located in New Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania. They apparently didn’t observe state lines. By 1670 the Lenape were mostly gone, absorbed, killed by disease or otherwise, or pushed west. The Tribes of the Delaware Nation are now in Oklahoma. There were also Nanticoke people, who either moved west with the Lenape or north to Canada, but some remained in Delaware, and settled near the Indian River. The Nanticoke Indian Association is recognized as a nonprofit corporation by the state, which likes nothing better than a good corporation.

The Delaware Tribe in Oklahoma sports the same name as the state, the river, and the bay, and all of ’em were named for the first governor of Virginia, Thomas West, the Third Baron De La Warr. Delaware Indians must possess a finely honed sense of irony.

Physically Delaware is flat, coastal, and temperate. It has about 45 inches of rain a year, with average temperatures ranging from 76 degrees in summer to 32 degrees in winter, with winter temperatures along the Atlantic Coast averaging 10 degrees warmer in winter and l0 degrees cooler in summer.

Delaware Geological Survey.

Delaware is the 6th flattest state, one flatter than Kansas. The highest point in the state, the Ebright Azimuth, is 447.85 feet above sea level, or at least it was before the seas started rising. I guess now either all things are relative or the point from which we measure sea level is underwater..

Delawarians tend to vote Democratic, it is Joe Biden’s state and both senators and its congresswoman are Democratic, but even in Delaware there is a rural/urban divide. In 2016 the more urban New Castle County voted for Clinton; the less populous southern counties voted for President Trump. Like I said, all things are relative. It’s not like Sussex County’s 165 people per square mile qualifies as ranch land.

We were going to lump our trip to Delaware together with our trip to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but getting ready we both read John McPhee’s The Founding Fish, which is McPhee’s paean to shad. Terry Peach at A Marblehead Flyfisher said that the shad most reliably run in the Brandywine River for the two weeks surrounding Mother’s Day, this year May 10, so now we’re going May 17. After all, who wouldn’t want to fish the Brandywine? Of course it doesn’t run through Hobbiton until somewhat further north than where we’re fishing. We’ll probably manage two breakfasts anyway.

Shad. If everything works we’re going to fish for shad.