On our second day fishing in California, we fished on the McCloud River near Mount Shasta. I had heard that the Upper Sacramento was fishing really well, but that the McCloud was off-color and too high from late runoff. We had our choice, the Upper Sacramento that was fishing well or the McCloud that wasn’t, so of course we chose the McCloud.
Actually I chose the McCloud without asking Kris. Don’t tell her. We were fishing with Paul Leno from The Fly Shop. I had told Paul about fishing for McCloud River rainbows on Crane Creek in Missouri, and Paul agreed that we needed to see their source. Most of the world’s transplanted rainbows share McCloud River genetics, so not going would be like Christians skipping Bethlehem when they visited the Holy Land. A lot of North American fishing starts on the McCloud.
Google Earth
To get to the river we drove south from the town of McCloud and then turned left onto an unpaved forest road. The forest road descends, and then descends some more, and then descends some more, down into volcanic rubble, ruts, fallen rocks, and dust. I was following Paul’s truck, but if I got too close, say within 50 feet, I couldn’t see the road for the dust. You know those roadside signs, Beware Falling Rock? As a child I thought they meant watch the cliff face and be ready to dodge, but I guess they’re actually warning about the rock that’s already fallen. If you hit that rock hard enough it sure could mess up the rent car.
Anyway, that’s the kinda thing one contemplates on the creep down the forest service road to the McCloud River. That, and wondering if AAA would come get me when I popped a tire. The seven miles took about an hour. I didn’t have much faith that even if they came AAA could ever find us.
When we parked the rental car at the end of the road we still had to hike a mile or so to the Nature Conservancy’s Kerry Landreth Preserve, which lets in ten anglers at a time. There was one other angler already there somewhere, but we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Apparently it’s usually full, but it’s a hard place to get to, and even after we reached the river we had to crawl down the bank through riverside brush and rock to fish.
This was youngster’s fishing. At 16, or 26, or 36, I would have enjoyed the scramble. At 66, perched above the river, trying to get a fly to drift through a 10 foot pocket in a twist of rock garden 10 feet below me, I kind of regretted that I’d traded in my afternoon nap. It was hard, technical nymph fishing, and while it was certainly challenging, I haven’t yet convinced myself that it was fun.
Paul got us to the river, coached us, and at some point corrected the way I was mending my line. Mends are peculiar to fly fishing rivers. The idea is to get the fly to float down the current with no drags or skitters or whatnot that will look unnatural to fish. The problem is that between you and your fly the river has conflicting currents, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, that are put there solely to give the poor angler grief.
To avoid drag you have to mend your line: you force slack into the line between you and the fly, either upstream or downstream depending on the currents, so that the line slack lets the fly drift true. To force slack you lift the line from the water and move an arc of line up or down with the rod tip–down if the current between you and the fly is slower, up if faster. Ideally you move the line without jerking the fly and scaring all the fish for a couple of miles.
I’m pretty good at the theory of mends, but not so good at the application. I long ago gave up on not moving my fly when I mend, and had finally settled on not moving the fly a whole lot. I kinda figured that if I diverted my eyes the fish would be courteous enough to do the same. Paul watched me and said that I was trying to throw the line, and that what I should do is lift the line and set it down as if I was writing the letter C with my rod tip. And it worked.
Dammit, it worked. Here all this time I was content with ignorance, and I found that I didn’t really like being wrong. Worse, it was easy to do it right. Dammit.
I caught two fish (which is about par for my course). With all the creeping and crawling and scrambling involved, and with lunch–never forget lunch–we didn’t actually fish that long, maybe three or four hours. At lunch Paul asked me what I thought about the McCloud.
Paul really loves the place, and he was asking a deeper question than whether or not I had had a good day fishing. I had fished there for four hours on a difficult day. By July in California’s drought years, the McCloud would have been running hundreds of cfs slower. It would have been clear, and it would have reflected a Caribbean blue. We spent one day on the McCloud in a rare wet year when the water was high and cloudy, and for us old folk it was a very hard day.
Still.
Like a lot of dammed Western rivers, the McCloud pre-dam held migratory runs of salmon. It doesn’t anymore, and in my mind that’s tragic, but it’s the same tragedy shared by a lot of rivers, East and West. The McCloud is special though because it also has that strange history of being the site of the first federal fish hatchery, and its trout, the particular rainbow subspecies of McCloud River redbands, were transported everywhere, to New England and Montana and New Zealand and Argentina and Chile and, well, everywhere, even to Crane Creek in Missouri.
I guess I can’t answer Paul’s question. It was different. It was rugged. The fish that I saw were stunningly beautiful. Would I go back there? I don’t know. I’m still decompressing. Would I think about about the river? All the time. I will never forget it.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
We planned to fly out of Sacramento early on Monday, and we were only going to fish a half-day Sunday. Paul suggested that we meet in Redding and fish the Lower Sacramento in the city. We’d be fishing on a good-sized river roughly two football fields wide in the middle of a good-sized town of about 100,000 people, but when you float it the river still feels reasonably remote. More important, after our day on the McCloud, it was mighty comfortable. We were fishing from a drift boat. There were donut shops and paved roads. I could have napped if I’d wanted.
Google Earth
We were fishing under bobbers, with deep nymphs drifted alongside the boat. It is, I think, about as lazy as fly fishing gets, especially when someone else is doing all the rowing.
As usual though, I can find some way to screw things up. I could handle the floppy water haul cast we were using, and I don’t hardly remember getting tangled at all. I couldn’t get the hook set right though, and even though I got takes from time to time, Paul said that I was pulling the hook out of the fish’s mouth. I was at the back of the boat, between Paul in the row seat and the motor on the transom. Trout always feed into the upstream current, so they were facing towards us.
Whenever I tried to set the hook, I would unfailingly lift the rod to my right. I don’t know why, I’m far from right-leaning, but the bobber bobbled and I went right.
That was fine as long as I was fishing on the left side of the boat. I’d pull right and the hook would set upstream into the current, into the fish. On the right side though when I’d go right I’d pull away from the fish. It was stupid, and if I had a year or two I might work myself out of it.
Apparently I wasn’t going to work it out that morning. I caught a couple, one a tiny salmon, both on the left side of the boat, but mostly I just missed. That was ok though. I’d learned something, or at least I’d theoretically learned it.
Kris on the other hand was getting plenty of sets but then had trouble landing the fish. Sitting at the back of the boat I got to watch it all. Now mind, I lose about as many fish as I catch, and I always think that if I just had more practice, that if I only hooked more fish, that sooner or later I’d figure it out and get better. Part of the problem is that I’ve heard and read so many contradictory things about playing and landing fish, usually when I’m trying to land the fish, that I don’t really have a very clear picture of what I’m supposed to be doing. Hold the rod tip up, hold the rod tip low at 30 degrees so the backbone’s in the rod, hold the rod to the side to lead the fish and tire it, don’t lead the fish because you’ll wear a hole and the hook will flop out, tighten down the drag, don’t tighten down the drag, horse the fish in as fast as you can, let the fish run, don’t ever bother getting freshwater fish onto the reel . . .
I’ve never fished with a guide as certain or as precise in his directions as Paul. Hold the rod tip up, not back but up, with the butt of the rod in front of your face. Face the fish so that the spine of the rod is fighting the fish. Get the line on the reel so that the fish is fighting the reel, not you. It was a joy to watch him coach Kris, and to watch Kris become a much better angler in the in the time it took to land one fish, . If I had been fighting the fish I’d probably have garbled his directions in all the excitement, but since all I had to do was watch it was easier to ponder, and maybe even absorb. Some of it anyway.
Now if I could just get that hook set right I could practice.
We were in Delaware last Thursday to try again to catch American shad. We fished in Brandywine Creek in Brandywine Park, only a mile or so from downtown Wilmington, with two-handed rods, long 11-foot rods that don’t require a backcast. Shad are anadromous fish, just like Atlantic and Pacific salmon, only not so glamorous. From northern Florida to southern Canada, in rivers all along the East Coast, American shad migrate into freshwater rivers and streams to spawn. Each spring in Delaware the shad run into the Brandywine from the Atlantic. Unlike Pacific salmon, American shad don’t necessarily die after spawning, and most will return to saltwater. They’re not as big as spawning salmon, but in the Brandywine a hen might reach eight pounds.
At least according to those who know they are great fun to catch. I’m assured that there are those who know.
In the ocean shad are planktivorous, which is an extravagant way to say that they live on plankton with a smattering of insects and tiny fish and crustaceans. Like salmon, when shad reach freshwater what they eat doesn’t matter. They stop eating. They will take a fly, maybe out of anger, maybe habit, or maybe just to show off. Who knows? But they will take a fly.
At least I’ve heard they’ll take a fly. This is a spoiler. We didn’t catch shad again.
You know what though? We toss the dice every time we go someplace to fish. There’s always a chance we may not catch fish. That’s ok. With Delaware shad we’ve tried to hit a window when the fish are in the creek. Last time we went, in May 2021, it was still too cold, and the shad stayed out of the creek in deeper water. This spring Wilmington hasn’t had significant rain. Unlike salmon, shad don’t jump obstacles, and when the water’s low the remains of the first Brandywine dam block the shad. Last year when we didn’t go the migration was reportedly great, and someday soon the Wilmington forecast is for rain . . . . Last year. . . . Someday . . . . We can’t control this year, this week. You pays your money and you takes your chances.
There are now lots of states, Maryland, Florida, Kansas, Hawaii, Delaware, where we’ve gone back to catch fish. Next month we’ll make our third trip to Rhode Island, and not because the fish weren’t there. Rhode Island is purely user error. Some day we have to go back to North Dakota, but then who doesn’t want to go back to North Dakota?
What I’ve learned is that every time I go back to a place, there’s something I like more about it, there’s something more to be discovered, and there are always other things I wish I had seen, or done, or eaten, or fished for. There are plenty of places where I secretly half wish I hadn’t caught a fish, just so I’d have an excuse to return.
And this time I really enjoyed going back to Delaware. I liked fishing for shad again, even if I didn’t catch one. Standing in a river practicing my spey cast makes a pretty good day, with or without fish, and we were standing in the middle of Brandywine Park, a park designed in consultation with Frederick Law Olmstead. I would cast my line across the current, trying to remember to quarter down river about 45 degrees, then watch the line arc across where the shad should be. Half the time I’d make my cast, then spend the drift watching joggers and picnickers and dog walkers, or a group of adolescents up to minor mischief, or a man throwing sticks to a dog. It is a lovely place, and it was a joy to watch people take joy from it.
And good guides bring such knowledge to the table. When I called Terry Peach a few weeks ago to set up our day, it was like talking to an old friend. He remembered us from two years ago. He was happy to guide us again, and when we fished last Thursday Kris and I talked to Terry about most everything open to polite conversation, and only 90% or so of our conversation was about fishing. Before we left Houston, Terry called me twice to warn us about the low water flows, and talked us into moving our trip around so that we could fish in the evening.
Terry didn’t sound too hopeful, but he thought our best shot would be after the Atlantic tide pushed the lower Brandywine up two or three feet, and that maybe that push would be enough to get the fish upriver. That evening it wasn’t enough, but it was our best shot at shad.
I did catch one fish in the Brandywine, a small yellow perch, 8 or 9 inches. I don’t know much about perch. I’ve caught one other, in Connecticut, but apparently the Delaware perch spawn happens earlier, in March, and according to Terry it’s a big favorite for local fly fishers. While the fish are small, there’s a mass of ’em, and they’re aggressive. Finding my perch in the creek so late in the season was peculiar, and I was too surprised to take a picture. It was pretty though, bright yellow, with dark vertical bands.
Raver, Duane, Yellow Perch, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2016, public domain.
That yellow perch was enough to check off Delaware, but Terry had already taken care of that earlier in the day. Suburban Delaware may be one of the gentlest, prettiest places on earth. It’s pretty like Kentucky horse country, or the Connecticut second home region in full summer spate. It’s not wild, it’s in no manner rugged, it’s domestic and fat and happy. If you lived there you’d have to belong to a country club. You’d have to own a 1968 Chrysler Town and Country station wagon, or at least a Defender. You really wouldn’t be surprised to discover a mess of Hobbits living down by the Brandywine.
At the heart of suburban Delaware is the DuPont family, who began manufacturing gunpowder at a site on the Brandywine in 1804. There are numerous DuPont and DuPont kinfolk estates scattered here and about, with Winterthur being perhaps the most famous. Across the road from Winterthur is another passel of DuPont heirs–I never did get quite straight who or how they were all related. However they fit in, Terry had permission to take us there to fish their ponds, and before we went to Brandywine Creek we stopped off at a DuPont pond.
There are all sorts of exotic fly fishing destinations in the world, and all sorts of exotic fish, and for all of them I’m at best nothing but a duffer. Give me a pond, though, and I know how to fish. I may be one of the world’s premier bluegill fly anglers.
And during our hour or so on the pond we caught fish. We were fishing 6-weight single-handed rods with floating lines and various surface bass flies: poppers, sliders, gurglers . . . . Kris caught a crappie and a nice bass, maybe two pounds, or at least it might have been two pounds pre-spawn, and I caught a couple of crappie and a bluegill. Crappie, pronounced crop-ee, are what my parents loved to fish for, and the first fish I ever caught was almost certainly a crappie. Fishing a bass pond on a DuPont estate and catching crappie, I couldn’t have been happier. I may not have caught a shad, but I caught a crappie. I’m one of the world’s premier crappie fly anglers.
It’s been a few weeks and a trip to Cuba since we went to Missouri, but there are interesting things to add about Missouri, and by now the tornado is mostly forgotten.
Gear
We fished part of a day at Roaring River State Park. It’s a pretty Ozark mountain river, and it’s easy to wade. It was a bit crowded though. Why do I ever fish on a Saturday? Since Kris and I are both retired we don’t have to anymore, and having a place to ourselves is such a joy. Still, it was a pretty park, and we used typical trout set ups, 9′ 5-weight rods with floating lines. I caught two fish, both rainbow trout. We fished until the park trout permit pinned to my cap blew off and floated downriver.
The river is stocked from a nearby hatchery, and it was a mix of wild and stocked trout. For some folks stocked fish may seem like opportunity, but it’s always less desirable to fish for stocked fish than wild fish. I can’t usually catch much of either one, so I guess it’s not that one’s harder to catch than the other. Wild fish are just better.
I caught both trout on the Roaring River on a mop fly over a hare’s ear nymph, both fished under the surface. Mop flies are tied from one of those fuzzy mops, and are considered by some as a cheap trick. Don’t tell anyone that I used one.
I kinda like mop flies because you can get a lifetime supply of tying materials with a single trip to Walmart.
The next day we fished Crane Creek in Crane, Missouri, which is another pretty Ozark stream, and which is almost but not-quite famous. In the late 1800s, railroad workers dumped California McCloud River rainbow trout off of a railroad bridge into Crane Creek. Cane Creek hasn’t really been stocked much since, and the fish there today are the descendants of those original fish without significant interference. They may be the purest genetic strain of McCloud rainbows in the country, including those in the McCloud River.
Cane Creek
Stocking trout in rivers that support wild trout is controversial. It introduces non-native fish and diseases, and the stocked fish are just enough competition with the natives to hurt. The stockees don’t survive much either. The best-managed states, Montana for instance, have stopped stocking where there are wild trout, and a lot of the nation’s best rivers are never stocked. A creek that hasn’t been stocked, or a creek where stocking was abandoned, is a bit of a gem. That’s why a place like Crane Creek is someplace to look for.
We were there on a Sunday, and Crane Creek was also a little crowded, but I swear they were the nicest people I’ve ever come across on a river. We were at th park in the Town of Crane, population 1,495, and people invited me over to fish next to them. It was unnatural.
Crane Creek fish are small, and I fished with my tiniest rod. This is where I get goofy. Goofier. The truth is I buy fly rods and reels not because they’re better–almost every fly rod and reel is better than I am–but because they’re pretty. If I’m going to buy a reel, I don’t go in thinking that I want this reel because it has the very latest drag system and faster line retrieve, I buy it because I think it looks good. Of all the fly fishing gear I own–and I own a stupid amount of fly fishing gear–this is my prettiest rod and reel:
It’s an 8 1/2 foot Winston Boron IIIx 3-weight rod made in Montana, a rod that is way too lightweight for most of my fishing, and it’s just the loveliest shade of emerald green, with nickel silver fittings and a burled maple reel seat. The reel is a tiny Hardy Marquis 2/3 reel made in England. Are they appreciably better than any other 3-weight rod or reel? No. Could I have found a perfectly decent rod and reel for a third of the price? Absolutely. Are there any rods that look better? Well, maybe some custom classic bamboo. My goodness they’re pretty, and when the fish are small enough it just makes me idiotically happy to use them.
On Crane Creek I caught two small trout on a size 16 hare’s ear nymph under a size 14 royal Wulff, and Kris caught another. I picked the hare’s ear and royal Wulff because, well, they’re classic flies and I thought they matched that rod and reel. I’ve got standards, and I’m not fishing any mop flies with this rod.
Royal Wulff
Branson
I don’t like Branson. Am I being a snob? Of course. I have friends and family who love to go to Branson. I don’t.
There is a Trump Store, and there are shows.
I can’t think of anything worse than going to a show, unless it’s going to a Trump Store. You say the word show to me, and I feel queasy. Las Vegas? Oh lord, don’t make me go. I don’t gamble, and in Las Vegas there are shows. My daughter says the shopping is great in Las Vegas, but how can that be? I don’t think there’s a single fly fishing shop. Las Vegas at least has a minor league baseball team. I don’t think there’s any baseball in Branson.
The last show I went to voluntarily was Cirque de Soleil some 15 years ago, and I know those performers were miraculous, and that there are otherwise rational people who think that Cirque de Soleil is the best thing going. I know in my heart of hearts that that very show I went to was in all ways wonderful, but me? I was bored out of my mind. I’m still bored just thinking about it.
Maybe I need to go to a show with some mostly-naked ladies. At least I’d like the costumes.
In Branson, there are shows a-plenty, and what’s worse they’re all shows that revel in clean living. There’s Dolly Parton’s Stampede Dinner and Show, Hamners’ Unbelievable Magic Variety Show, WhoDunnit Hoedown and Murder Mystery Show, the Grand Jubilee Show, All Hands on Deck Show, Legends in Concert Show, Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Drama Show . . . The list just won’t stop. You think you’re on a river in the Ozark backcountry away from all the shows, and you come across a flier for the Amazing Acrobats of Shanghai Show.
I’ve got nothing against clean living, and I consider myself a reasonably clean liver. I know and love several devout Baptists, and even some vegetarians, but clean living commodified into a show? I can’t think of a less appealing combination. Branson is one of those rare places where a soupçon of depravity would improve the moral tone.
I guess they do fish with mop flies, and plenty of people consider that depraved.
Donuts
We found two donut shops, though I’m sure there were more.
Parlor Doughnuts was a bit off the beaten path in a strip center. They sold gourmet donuts,((I’ve created a donut shop classification system, and there are four categories. Traditional shops include Houston’s Shipley’s, Krispy Kreme’s, Dunkin’, or the very best donut shop in the world, Ocean Springs, Mississippi’s Tato-Nut Doughnut Shop. Parlor Doughnuts is a chain in the Gourmet Category, and gourmet donuts are a bit more creative, with upscale whatnots coming to the fore. Portland’s Blue Star or Albuquerque’s Rebel come to mind. Experiential donut shops have let creativity run amock, and they are my least favorite kind of donut shop–I’m talking to you, VooDoo. A Cambodian donut shop is a clean, well-lighted place that is almost certainly located in a strip center. Everything is basic but good enough, and the owners are at the counter. Cambodian donutries can have flashes of brilliance–the boudin kolache was invented in a Cambodian donut shop and that deserves a Michelin star, or at least a James Beard nomination. It’s fusion cuisine at its finest.)) and the donuts were a bit elaborate for my taste, but I’d go back. I’d certainly go back if the choice was the other place we tried, Hurts.
Hurts is experiential. It’s next door to the Trump Store on the main drag, and it’s huge for a donut shop. There was a long line for the donuts. There were flavors like cotton candy, and cookie monster, and dirt worms, and every donut seemed created for a 9-year old, which I’m not. When I got to the counter, they were out of plain glazed.
The donuts were cold and forgettable. Kris wanted to chuck them and go back to Parlor.
AirBnB
We stayed in a nice pet-friendly AirBnB on the lake on the edge of town. It was just far enough from Branson’s center to forget where we were, and the owner left us a plate of cookies. They were good home-made cookies, too. There was an old canoe and a beat up bamboo fly rod hung as decorations above the fireplace, and I took that as a good omen. I sat on the enclosed porch and read Huck Finn, and, notwithstanding the No Trespassing signs, took the dogs for walks down to the lake. I’m pretty certain those signs weren’t meant for me.
Fly Shops
There are at least a couple of fly shops in Branson, but we only went to one, River Run Outfitters. We were supposed to fish with guides from the shop, but they talked us out of going. It was cold, in the 40s, and all the floodgates on the dam were open. The wind was gusting up to 40 mph. It was dangerous, and what’s worse we weren’t likely to catch anything. They gave us free coffee and good advice on where to fish instead. I bought some mop flies.
Restaurants
Branson is not a restaurant town. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of restaurants, but they all seem to have names like Hungry Hunter or Pickin’ Porch Grill. There are lots of barbecue places, but I’ve made the mistake of eating Missouri barbecue once before, in Kansas City, and I won’t do that again. Those people eat melted cheese on brisket, which should only be done in leftover brisket enchiladas.
The Keeter Center at College of the Ozarks promised farm to table dining, and I guess it was, but mostly everything just seemed big. Big room, big appetizers, big iced tea. . . Big ideology. I don’t know, it just didn’t click.
See that dish right there? That’s the Brussels sprout nachos appetizer, which as i recall was a lot of chopped up Brussels sprouts and feta on a lot of fried wontons. Had they artfully arranged four or five of those on a plate and charged me $12, I would have eaten them and said that’s ok, but that pile of stuff for $12 was too daunting. All I could think was man-oh-man, that’s big.
All of the waiters at Keeter Center are students at College of the Ozarks, and the hostess told us all about it, and then the waiter told us all about it. It’s a free Christian college, well, free in exchange for work. I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t have gone there without lots of conversations with a dean.
The next night we played it safe and went to two of Branson’s sushi joints, Mitsu Neko and Wakyoto. They were fine, and there were no Brussels sprouts. There was some kale, but I think it was purely decorative.
Playlist
Missouri has produced some magnificent music, and I’m still listening to that playlist. Josephine Baker was from St. Louis, and maybe I might have enjoyed one of her shows. From Wikipedia:
Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in [Paris]. Her costume, consisting of only a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties.
Now that’s a costume, and there are some fun recordings of her singing jazzy French stuff.
Missouri had great jazz. You wouldn’t think it, would you? But in the 1920s, Prohibition wasn’t really enforced there, and 18th and Vine in Kansas City was as lively as anyplace in the country. The Kansas City Big Bands had their own style, blusier than New York or Chicago, with a frantic quality that makes you drive just a little faster if your foot’s on the peddle. There are great black big bands, Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra, Andy Kirk, George E. Lee, Count Basie . . . Two of the great jazz saxophonists, Lester Young and Charlie Parker, both came out of Kansas City.
There’s rock ‘n roll, too. Big Joe Turner is a joy, then there’s Chuck Berry, Ike and Tina Turner, Sheryl Crow, Michael McDonald, and T Bone Burnett. The Beatles went to Kansas City, or at least they were going.
St. Louis Blues has been covered by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Louis Prima, Doc Watson, Herbie Hancock, Eartha Kitt, Art Tatum, and Ella Fitzgerald, and if your name is Louis, you can still meet Judy Garland there.
Ojon Mill, Photograph of Lester Young, 1944, Time Magazine, Volume 17, Number 13, Public Domain.
Guitar
I took my old Kohno classical, and spent some time at night playing. I don’t remember what, but I’ve been working on an arrangement of Gershwin’s Somebody Loves Me. That’s likely.
Ok, ok, I know, it’s not one of the 50 states. It almost was, almost being a bit strong, but like the more successful annexation of the Republic of Texas, it was one of those bits of early American expansionism that seem so obvious if successful and so completely whacko if not. The annexation of Cuba is definitely in the completely whacko category, like those times we tried to invade Canada. The United States made offers twice to buy Cuba from Spain, once in 1848 under the Polk administration, and again in 1854 under Franklin Pierce. It wasn’t just a shopping spree either. There was a political motive for the Southern Democrats who supported the purchase. Adding Cuba would have added at least one and maybe more slave states and would have strengthened Southern interests–the preservation of slavery–in Congress.
We were not trying to buy Cuba in Support of the Cuban People.
After the 1898 Spanish-American War, Cuba was an American occupied protectorate, and for the first half of the 20th century the Cuban Constitution allowed the United States to intervene pretty much at will in Cuban affairs. Cubans resented U.S. authority, and that residual anger helped Castro turn the revolution anti-U.S.
The U.S. embargo against Cuba has now lasted 60+ years, with a brief period of better relations under President Obama. Currently there are 12 reasons a United States citizen can legally travel to Cuba, including journalism, religious missions, family, education, and support of the Cuban people. I went in support of the Cuban people. I fished a lot. Unlike President Polk I didn’t try to buy Cuba.
I did buy some cigars and a bottle of rum. I smoked some cigars. I drank some rum. Ok, I drank too much rum. We were in Cuba, and to support the Cuban people you have to buy some cigars and rum. Strictly speaking, you can’t bring cigars or rum home, so what can you do? You have to drink it and smoke ’em.
For most people, Cuban sport fishing brings to mind Ernest Hemingway’s drunken forays for marlin in the Gulf Stream. That’s deep sea fishing, well, that’s deep sea fishing and heavy drinking. That’s not what we did. We were on the Zapata Peninsula about two hours southwest of Havana, in the Ciénaga de Zapata National Park–the Shoe Swamp National Park. We stayed in a small private hotel, Casa Frank, in the village of Playa Larga on the edge of the Bay of Pigs.
Our rooms had air conditioning and were clean. There was no bedside table, or dresser, or water pressure, but the water was hot, and there was laundry service. The power went out every afternoon if it rained, and it rained most afternoons. Getting on the internet was hit or miss, mostly miss, but it wasn’t any worse than the camp where Kris and I had stayed in Alaska. There was no water pressure there, either, and the showers were alternately freezing and scalding, so all in all the Cuban showers were better.
Sometimes in Cuba I could get cellular service on my phone, but AT&T sent me the following:
AT&T Free Msg: Welcome to Cuba! Please note Cuba is not covered by your international roaming package. Your international rates in Cuba are: data $2.05/MB, talk $3.00/min, text $0.50/text msg sent, $1.30/photo or video msg sent. You may turn off data in your device Settings.
I use megabytes of data just breathing, so I turned off my cellular and would only turn it on once a day. I sent Kris and our kids some texts. I didn’t talk on the phone. I ignored any emails that smacked of business because I’m now retired and what the hell do they expect? I ignored my fantasy baseball team and they moved up from last place to 13th, but it’s ok. The Houston Grackles are back in last now that I’m actively managing.
We fished either in the saltwater flats at the bottom of the peninsula, skinny bits of water too shallow for anything but skiffs, or in a river, the Rio Hatiguanico, in a mangrove jungle deep in the park. There were 11 of us fly fishing the flats for bonefish, tarpon, and permit, and in the river for tarpon. Kris didn’t go. She said this sounded like a guy’s trip.
There was one non-angler in our group, the wife of one of the anglers, and she took great photos of birds. Birding and beaches are the other reasons tourists go to Playa Larga. There are 27 species of birds that live only in Cuba, and birders at our hotel told me that in the park they had seen 22 of the 27 species. That included the Cuban national bird, the tocororo. That’s how it sounds, tocororo, and when I heard it I asked if it was some kind of dove.
It’s not a dove. Its breast and head are the the colors of the Cuban flag.
Temminck, C.J. and Laugier, Meiffren, Baron de Chartrouse (1838), Nouveau Recueil de Planches Colorieés D’Oisseaux v. 3, Couroucou, plate 526, Paris, F.G. Levrault.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
The first day fishing, my guide, Julio, yelled at me. It was deserved, because I was yelling at the bonefish. He insisted they took offense. “Take the hook, dammit!” I yelled. They were offended and skittered away.
“Shut up!” Julio was getting to know me.
“I can’t shut up Julio, I’m a lawyer.”
That day I caught four bonefish. “It’s normal,” Julio told me. Julio also told me about all the fish that I was missing. The problem was that I couldn’t see the fish. For bonefish, the angler stands on the casting deck at the front of the boat and stares into the water, ready to cast. The guide stands on a platform at the back and poles the boat and stares into the water. When the guide sees a fish, he calls a clock direction and distance, 12 o’clock, 20 meters; 3 o’clock, five meters; 11 o’clock, 10 meters; whatever . . . ideally, the guide isn’t just messing with you and the angler looks in the right direction, spots the fish, and casts, hopefully leading the fish a bit and not putting the fly either behind it or on top of it’s head (or into the guide, which also happens).
Julio apparently saw fish a’plenty. I didn’t. Part of the problem is that the damned old fish don’t stand still. They don’t politely wait for me to see them. They don’t even just mosey. They move along with intent and determination. When everything works right though, the guide gives the position, the angler sees the fish, and the fish takes the fly.
I couldn’t see the fish. “It’s normal,” Julio kept telling me, right after he yelled “do you see it! Do you see it! Do you see it!” Of course I didn’t see it. Some of the fish I caught that first day I caught blind, just lucky enough to follow Julio’s directions.
Do you see that water? It’s about a foot deep and there are miles of it. Do you see that fish? That’s the problem. It’s hard to see those fish against that bottom. That’s how they’re designed. If God really loved my fishing he would put a bright orange stripe down each bonefish’s back
The second day something clicked and I could see the bonefish. I was seeing fish that the guide, José, hadn’t seen yet. I could make my casts. I could keep the fish on the hook. It was one of those days when I could do no wrong, and I thought that I was now almost certainly the greatest saltwater angler who ever cast a line. I caught fish after fish after fish. I could do no wrong.
The next day I fished for permit.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
I started getting ready to go to Cuba almost a year ago. I took Spanish lessons on Duolingo, and then took a Spanish course at Rice. I tied a bunch of flies. I had long discussions with Mike and Bob and Mark, my three friends who were also going, about what rods we were taking, and what reels, and what lines. We were going to Cuba, and if we didn’t bring it, we wouldn’t have it.
This gets a bit technical, but bear with me. There are going to be a lot of numbers, but they’re all about size variations. Just think of it as a discussion about buying a pair of pants. Look at the numbers as the equivalent of waist measurements and forge on through.
I first decided to take four rods, two 8-weights (in case one broke), a 10-weight, and an 11-weight. Then I started changing my mind, which over the course of the year’s preparations I did about 56 times. I finally settled on one 8-weight, two 10-weights, and an 11-weight, the 8 for bonefish, the 10s for river tarpon, permit, and barracuda, and the 11 for migratory tarpon.
Of course that’s not what I arrived with. I had switched out rods in my luggage so often I apparently lost track. I arrived with one 8 (the wrong one), one 10 (but no backup as planned), one 11, and one 12, a mix I had never in my wildest dreams imagined.
During the year the group of us would meet at lunch and discuss the trip, or we would meet with the Houston fly fishing writer Phil Shook (who’d made this trip last year). We’d discuss flies and leaders and fly lines and fly rods, and I would go home and tie a bunch more flies and imagine new variations of rods and lines to take. I spent hours searching the internet for a tropical 30-foot sink-tip line, and finally found one from AirFlo, a British fly line company. I never knew that there was such a need for tropical fly lines in British rivers.
The biggest controversy was tarpon leaders. Other kinds of leaders only set off fisticuffs, but tarpon leaders really whipped up the passions. Tarpon ain’t leader shy, and our outfitter, Jon Covich, said that the local guides recommended six feet or so of straight 60-pound fluorocarbon for tarpon leaders.
I know what you’re thinking, that’s easy. what’s the problem? Oh, you innocent. There is a well-known 302-page fly fishing book about tarpon obsession, Lords of the Fly (Get it? Get it?), about 30 pages of which are about interesting stuff like philandering and drug abuse and drinking and divorce, and 102 pages of which are about the far more engaging dramas of tarpon leaders. This is serious stuff.
We discussed them one night over after-dinner rum. You’d think with a bunch of guys on holiday we would have had salacious discussions about women and partying and whatnot, or at least with a bunch of old guys we would have discussed viagra and artificial joints, but no. We discussed tarpon leaders.
I posited that you had to have a break-off point somewhere in your rigging, and that meant tying a bit of 16-pound tippet between the 60-pound butt and the 60-pound bite guard. Otherwise the breaking point in your rig is going to be either your fly line (which I insisted had a 30-pound test and which cost somewheres north of $100 pesos, American), or your rod (which in my experience has the breaking strength of a slammed car door or a ceiling fan and costs upwards of $1000 pesos, American).
Ron disagreed. “Neil, you idiot,” see? He was getting to know me, “your fly line has a breaking strength of 180 pounds.”
Well, just like the Virgin I treasured up all these things and pondered them in my heart, and in that rare moment three days later when we had internet, did I call Kris or reset my fantasy baseball team lineup? No. I looked up the test strength of fly lines.
Of course I was wrong, but not completely wrong. The best information we could get was that the common breaking strength of freshwater fly lines is 30 pounds, and the common breaking strength of saltwater fly lines is 40 pounds. I was closer to right than Ron, not that I would gloat. Someone in the group rustled up the box for a Rio Leviathan billfish sink-tip, a big game saltwater line, and it promised a breaking strength greater than 50 pounds. I would have ever-so-diplomatically pointed this out to Ron, but the Castros were conducting a counter-revolutionary purge on his insides, and that evening he was otherwise disposed. After four days he finally felt well enough to fish. He had probably suffered enough, so I never mentioned it. And I never will.
Meanwhile I’ll stick with my bits of light leader tied between a butt section of 60 pounds and a bite guard of 60 pounds.
As a postscript, I’ll add that on the one day we fished the river, I used that sink-tip fly line I had ordered from AirFlo, with a leader with 25-pound tippet tied in as a breaking point. I got snagged on something on the river bottom and was going to break off the fly. I’m a pretty big guy, 190+, and reasonably strong, but I could not break that leader. I pulled. I yanked. I pulled and yanked when the boat was backing away. I wrapped the fly line around my reel and yanked and pulled, and I hollered which always helps. The leader won. I could not break 25-pound tippet. Next time I’m tying in some 5X trout leader as the class tippet. I can always break that.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Back to permit, which are a kind of pompano. My roommate for the trip, Ken, is permit-obsessed. I have never caught a permit. I’ve hooked two, in Belize, and lost them both. Ken says that over 20 years of fishing in the Florida Keys, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean he’s caught about 120 permit, but here’s the thing: six permit a year for even the most permit obsessed is a mighty fine batting average. For three days while Ron was dealing with the Castros the rest of us let Ken have his own boat. Fishing with a permit devotee ain’t exactly the very thing. Permit obsession is a lonely business for a reason.
Cuvier, M. le B.on and Valenciennes, M. (1828), Histoire Naturelle des Poissons v. 6, plate 209, Paris, F.G. Levrault. This may in fact be a common pompano and not a permit, or may be a mishmash of both. The yellow belly is all pompano, but the fins seem closer to permit. The 22-volume Histoire Naturelle des Poissons was the most ambitious treatment of fish of its time, and was the standard reference for ichthyologists for the nineteenth century, but it was compiled in Paris from specimens, and sometimes the results vary. It doesn’t matter. The plate is magnificent and for that reason alone it should be a permit.
There is a brilliant essay about permit obsession, the novelist Tom McGuane’s “The Longest Silence.” I wouldn’t have wanted to fish for permit with Tom McGuane, either.
I think that Ken said his biggest permit ever was about 40 pounds, but it’s not the weight of the thing or its length that matters, a permit is a permit, and if you’re permit obsessed every permit is a permit, though some permit may be more equal than others. Our companion Alan accidentally caught a small permit blind casting into a bit of muddy water. We all kidded him, Jeff quipped that Alan had caught a learner’s permit, and then it struck us that Alan had actually caught a permit, and we hadn’t. Then we all just sorta coveted our neighbor’s possessions. A permit is a permit.
Notwithstanding Ken’s over-the-top obsession, all saltwater fly fishers are just a little bit obsessed with permit. More than any other fish (except maybe Atlantic salmon), they’re our Holy Grail, our Great White Whale. Most folk wouldn’t know ’em from a dishwasher, and they should count their blessings. Permit are a curse.
I chased permit on this trip off and on for a couple of mornings, once with the guide José and once with Roberto. José is Cuba’s champion distance caster, which means that without much effort he can cast more than 100′, which is about 30′ further than I can cast when there are no fish around to mess up my game. José found me a school of permit, about 200 meters away–200 meters being a lot further than 100′, and a whole lot further than 70′. What we saw were wakes in the water and permit tails waving in the wakes. It is a stunning sight that for some people produces the exultation of the hunt, and for me produces waves of self-doubt.
José said that to get close I had to get out of the boat and wade. I was wearing socks but no shoes when he went over the gunnel, so sock-foot wading it was. After about ten miles he put me into position to cast, but all I could think about was that my passport in my pants pocket was getting soaked. I wrapped the fly line around my head. The permit moved off, laughing.
I moved my passport to my shirt pocket.
We waded another 15 miles and I got off one more cast. It wasn’t terrible, but the permit ignored my fly. They swam right over my damned fly, and sneered at it as they passed. I watched them, and I hated them. And then they went away, laughing.
Ken caught a permit this trip. One, and I’m pretty convinced that he even snuck out of our room at night to get in a little more permit fishing. He told me that I had brought the wrong permit flies–well of course I’d brought the wrong permit flies. I had barely had time to prepare for this trip. He gave me a flexo crab.
Ken was fishing with Roberto, who had only guided for a bit more than a month, but Ken said that Roberto spotted a school about 400 meters away–1200 feet. Ken finally saw the school at about 300 meters, and when they were in range he got off two casts that the permit ignored. Roberto told Ken to cast into the middle of the school, which Ken believed to be heresy, but he did it and he caught his permit.
It was Roberto’s first permit as a guide, and both Ken and Roberto kissed the fish before they let it go. I’d guess the fish didn’t care for being kissed any more than it cared for being caught, but I’m sure it was meant in kindness. The next day Ken gave Roberto a fly rod, and he said that he thought Roberto was going to cry.
Damn. I’m going to cry.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Roberto is 31 and new to guiding. His English is about as good as my Spanish, but his guide English is great. For other conversations we kept switching back and forth. At one point he told me that before guiding he had been a commercial fisherman, which paid too little and which kept him away from his family for three weeks at a time. Guiding was better because with tips it paid better. Now every day he could see his wife, his 3-year old son, and the “novio de mi esposa,” the boyfriend of his wife.
About the boyfriend, I was heartbroken for him. Later he told me that in Spanish the sharks we were seeing were tiburónes, and after working out that cousins were primos I tried to make a joke about abogados, tiburónes, and primos. When he didn’t laugh I asked him how to say joke, and he told me it was una broma, “like my line about the novio de mi esposa, but not that thing you tried to tell me about sharks being your cousins.” I felt a lot better, even if my joke was a failure.
With Roberto as guide on our last day, I shared the boat with Raymond, and at one point there were about 15 separate pods of permit spread across our flat. I was supposed to share a boat with Mike Green, but ended up fishing with Raymond. Raymond said that he had caught a permit once 20 years ago and he graciously let me stay on the casting deck, which was just as well because I’d otherwise have thrown him off the boat. I’m glad I was fishing with Raymond because Mike Green is bigger than me.
I could hear Roberto gasping while he worked to get me into position, but every time we started to get close the permit shied away. I got off one cast which the permit disdained. It was heartbreaking stuff, and I believe there would have been a movie in it, one of those stories of failure and redemption, if I could only have caught a permit.
No permit, no movie. I didn’t get to kiss the heroine.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Our drivers drove 20-year old Dodge vans with Russian diesel motors. We spent a lot of time in the taxis. It was two hours from Havana to our hotel in Playa Larga. To get to the river from Playa Larga took about an hour and a half, and then an hour and a half home. To get to the salt flats took about an hour each way. The drivers spoke very little English, so Alan and I practiced our Spanish a lot. Alan was more fluent than me, but both of us managed some. The drivers politely talked very slowly and with lots of explanatory hand gestures and repetitions. I’m still not sure though whether flamingos flock like chickens or taste like chickens.
I talked a lot to our driver Chino. I asked Chino about his family and he showed me a picture of his wife, a microbiologista, and his daughter. His daughter was stunningly pretty. I don’t mean just a normal sort of youthful pretty, I mean really, really beautiful, without any artifice or device. He told me she was 17, very smart, and would go the next year to University in Havana.
The next day our guide, Felipe, said that Chino was his neighbor. He told me that I had only seen his daughter’s face, and that all of her was beautiful, and that she was very very smart, and very good, and that all the young guides were in love with her. All I know is that proud papas everywhere are proud papas.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Mark Marmon had dragged me into this thing, but Mike Frankoff had put our trip together. He found the outfitter, rounded up the suspects, coerced Phil Shook into telling us in detail about his trip, and played a major leadership role in our collective agonizing over fly rods and flies. Mike and I both keep skiffs in Port O’Connor, and I got to know Mike pretty well over the past year.
I fished with Mike one day on the trip. Our guide was Felipe, who runs a free school to teach young Cubans how to guide. The guides work for the Cuban equivalent of Texas Parks and Wildlife, and get paid the standard $35 a week for their 60-hour weeks, but guides get tips, and the tips from fly fishers are a lifeline. Felipe trains all of the young guides in his school.
Mike made a Hail Mary cast to a bonefish that Felipe had spotted 65 feet away, and unlike what the rest of us mortals would have managed, Mike made the cast and the bonefish took the fly. Then the bonefish started messing with him. It wrapped Mike’s line around a mangrove. While I lay on the bow getting his line untangled from that mangrove the bonefish went through the roots of another, turned back and went underneath the boat, and then wrapped itself around a third mangrove. Mike went off the boat one direction, Felipe the other, and I stayed on the boat to laugh. Somebody had to do it.
They landed that fish. It was a good fish, too. And the boat didn’t drift away with me.
Late in the afternoon, Felipe poled us along a thick mangrove bank, and it was like visiting an aquarium. Along the roots there were snappers and a big brown and white striped grouper and tiny baitfish by the hundreds. Mike pulled out a big popper, and for once in my life I cast beautifully. We kept moving further and further from the mangroves, 55, 60, 65 feet, and I would lay every cast into the base of the trees.
Retrieving the popper, mangrove fish would slam it as if the defense of their homeland relied on their ferocity. I was catching small jacks and snappers, trash fish for most salt anglers, and they were magnificent. The day was perfect and full of joy. Did I go all the way to Cuba to catch jacks and snappers? You betcha. For that and for the cigars.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Last year the State Department reported that nearly 250,000 Cubans left Cuba for the United States, and that doesn’t include Cubans who left for other countries. It’s the largest out-migration from Cuba since the Revolution, fueled by a combination of deprivation, repression, and the internet. Many of the U.S.-bound Cubans are stuck at our Mexican border, not allowed into the U.S. Those 250,000 Cubans represent more than 2% of the total Cuban population, and it’s immigration of the young. The population left in Cuba is increasingly aging.
The combination of Covid travel restrictions and then-President Trump’s reinstatement of embargo restrictions have severely damaged tourism, which is now a mainstay of the Cuban economy. Since 2020, Cuba has suffered from electricity outages, food shortages, gas shortages, supply chain issues, and civil unrest. It’s hard to buy a bottle of aspirin, or a razor, or a sanitary napkin. To preserve his Senate Majority, President Biden hasn’t eased the Trump-imposed restrictions because it would offend New Jersey’s powerful Democratic senator, Robert Menendez. Meanwhile the average salary in Cuba is less than $150 a month, or less than $2000 a year. Government pension payments are about $10 a month.
Havana, especially Old Havana, is beautiful, with magnificent Colonial architecture, but there’s little money for restoration or preservation. A beautiful building may be half occupied and half collapsing. It’s easy to imagine that if relations were open there would be a massive influx of dollars and materials and machines to turn the wrecks into vacation condos, or hotels, or something, and that the economy would roar. The City has great bones.
There are hardly any stores, hardly even any tourist trinkets. I brought back no souvenirs. Now and then on our tour of Havana we’d pass a grocery store, or foreign luxury clothing stores in a tourist hotel, or a small tourist shop, but not many. The advertising is all for the Revolution.
Amnesty International reports that in 2022 food shortages and electricity outages were frequent. Hundreds of people were still in prison after 2021 protests. Human rights advocates are in prison for crimes like “insulting national symbols.” It’s almost as if they’d protested guns in the Tennessee legislature.
Cuba is a mess.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Cuba is beautiful. The people want you to be there, and the fishing is better than I am a fisherman, even with the Ernest Hemingway beard I grew for the trip.
We only spent one day on the river. The fishing was off, and apparently it was just as well. It was hard getting enough gas and diesel to send our group to two places.
I fished on the river with Alan, which was great because, after all, he’d caught a permit. With me, Alan also caught a tarpon, and he’s such a nice guy that I hardly even resented it. I hooked three but stupidly lost them all. From time to time our guide, Bryan, pronounced as Bree-on under Communism, had to remind us we were there to fish, not chat.
Bryan complimented us on our Spanish, which for me was really stretching it, and Alan mentioned the current flood of Cuban immigrants. Bryan told us that it was ok, that a lot of Americans were coming into Havana to work in the restaurants. He told us that with our Spanish the government would easily pay us $35 a month.
Skills.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Food was generally great during the trip, as long as you don’t count the lunches. They were supplied by the government hotel in Playa Larga, and consisted of meat and buns. The guides brought mustard and hot sauce, and sometimes fresh fruit and tomatoes and cucumbers. Otherwise it was meat and buns.
But other than the lunches, the food at the private restaurants was delicious. Mango and papaya with toast and eggs for breakfast, land crab cooked in tomato sauce, black bean and vegetable soups, gently stewed calimari and grilled spiny lobster, fresh snapper, steamed pumpkin, rice, cucumber . . . Why cucumber? I don’t know, but there was always cucumber. I ate everything. Well, everything but the lettuce. I didn’t want the Castro’s revenge.
On our last night the guides came to Casa Frank to join us for dinner. Ken gave a beautiful speech, and just like any good fisherman he expanded Roberto’s extraordinary spotting of his permit from 400 meters to 4000. I drank too much rum and tried to play guitar with the band, but I couldn’t remember anything to play. The guitarist tried to teach me La Bamba.
We had all brought stuff for the guides. Jeff had gone on a spree at Costco, Mark at Academy Sporting Goods. I think Alan had brought a spare suitcase full of stuff, and left the suitcase. Everybody brought something, and there were piles of stuff. Fishing pants, fishing shirts, coloring books and crayons and soccer balls, aspirin and Astros hats. . . Our friends needed everything. I was angry at myself for not bringing more, spare fishing pliers, spare rods and reels, socks and shirts and sun gloves. Spare watches. Pepto-bismol. Spare anything. They need everything and I could have done so much more.
They were so gracious and kind to us. They are so witty. They’re good people, Cubans, and good people to support. I would go to Cuba again in support of the Cuban people. If governments got out of the way and left it to people who love the salt flats, we’d all be fine.
