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CELEBRATE THE SEASON:
Solemn Stillness
by Wayne Kelley
Winter Outings
By Snowmobile or Sleigh
A Christmas Tree Shoppers Glossary of Terms
by Walt Rockwood
Vermont's Top 10 Winter Events
IN THE FARMHOUSE KITCHEN:
Holiday Cookie Collection
EVERYTHING WOOD HEAT:
More Woodstove Magic
by Daryle Thomas
GARDENING:
Forcing Bulbs for Winter Bloom
by Leonard Perry
Winter Gardening Tips
by Vern Grubinger
INTO THE OUTDOORS:
Unfinished Stories in the Snow
by Jenna Guarino
Tracking Winter Wildlife
by Heather Behrens
Did You Ever Eat a Pine Tree?
by Euell Gibbons
 The River in Winter
by W.D. Wetherell
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My Dog's Brain
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Will Moses' Silent Night
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The River in Winter
by W.D. Wetherell
The alternate road out of town follows the river toward the mountains. There are a sawmill, a few old houses, then -- just before the comparatively rich soil of the valley gives out -- a last red farm, its back turned resolutely on the forest behind it. Beyond this is trout water, fifteen rushing yards from bank to bank, and as I drove along it one part of me tried to take in what I was actually seeing, while the other part raced back toward the summer and was caught up with swirling afternoon light and quick strikes and the feel of a trout trembling exhausted in my hand.
This is how it should be in winter. A river is a better metaphor than most, and half-frozen it becomes a blend of anticipation and recollection, flowing one moment toward the future, one moment toward the past. Proust, were he a trout fisher, might have summoned his remembrances in the Loire or some other French stream, finding its ripples and currents as evocative as the richest, most memory-laden of wines.
There is a cutoff by the first deep pool, and this is where I pulled over and got out. The previous May I had come here for the first time.
Wading against the steep current to a smaller pool between an island and a cliff, I had caught a trout on my first cast -- to a fisherman, never readier for miracles than on his initial try in new water, the most propitious of omens. The trout (admittedly, a small rainbow) went skipping across the surface as if to beach himself on the island, then changed his mind and headed straight for me as if to surrender. I am heretical in many angling habits, but none so much as in the landing of fish. By the time I've hooked a trout and controlled its first run, I begin to see things from its point of view, and after a few more minutes, have no particular desire to land it -- in fact, I'm rooting for it to break off. (Once on Long Island's Connetquot, I fought a ten-pound brown -- a world-class fish -- for forty-five minutes, and was positively relieved when, in trying to beach him, he slithered out of my arms.) This first rainbow, though, came to me like a puppy on a leash, and when I twisted the Muddler out of his lip, he hovered by my leg in the current as if reluctant to leave.
I walked down to the river through the snow, half-expecting to see that same trout swim up to me, wagging its dorsal fin in recognition.
But there was little chance of that. The pool where I caught him was now a jumbled mass of ice, resembling pictures I've seen of the Khumbu icefall on Everest. The entire channel on the far side of the island was frozen, and the only open water was the stronger current at my feet. The weather had turned dry after a stormy spell earlier in the month, and the river level had dropped dramatically, stranding the old ice. It was piled on the bank to a height of four or five feet, extending three or more yards back from the river, laying in glacier-like slabs and blocks, some square as tables, others all sharp edges and points. The plates nearest the river had debris embedded in their exposed edges: fallen leaves, sticks, even small logs. I stepped on one of the largest ice floes, and it immediately broke away downriver, carrying me with it like Little Eva, and I had to do some fancy boulder-hopping to get back to shore. Chastened, I climbed inland a few yards and paralleled the river upstream through the safer snow.
The banks get steeper here. Before long I was thirty feet above the river. Some of the trees had been marked with orange paint for cutting, but the blazes were old ones; the road crews had overlooked them, and I used their branches to brace myself from sliding down. At a point where the road curves right and climbs uphill is the most productive pool on the river: the Aquarium, a deep, lazy flow at the foot of a sharp rapid. In an afternoon's fishing I would catch upward of fifteen trout there without changing positions. Now, though I could peer right down into it, I saw no fish. The weak sunlight washed everything into an impenetrable gray.
Further upstream the banks level off, and I was able to cross an ice bridge over a small tributary and make my way to the water. The snow that covered the ice there had a puffy look to it, like the crust on a freshly baked pie. The river itself was half slush, half ice depending on where the sun hit it -- ice dissolved into slush where it was brightest; slush crystallized into ice in the shade. In the middle, where the current was strongest, the water flowed against the ice with the gentle slapping sound of a sailboat on a downwind reach.
There was little color in that landscape, and when my eye happened to catch something reddish-orange on the opposite shore, the effect was that of a match flaring suddenly in the dark. Determined to get closer, I picked out a spot where the river was widest and thinnest and started to cross, risking hypothermia with every step. The dash of color turned out to be a Mickey Finn streamer embedded neatly in the branch of a willow, its monofilament tag blowing in the breeze. It had to be mine -- I fished the Aquarium all season without seeing another flyfisherman -- and getting down on my hands and knees to penetrate the tangle, I quickly found three more flies, all broken off within a foot of each other: a bushy Bivisible, a tattered Light Hendrickson, a rusty Muddler. In order to fish the far end of the pool, it's necessary to wade chest deep, putting even a high back cast perilously close to the branches. At a dollar or more a fly, it's an expensive place to fish. I searched through the trees some more without success, then stuck the four salvaged flies in the wool of my ski hat.
Back to the car, through a wind sharp enough to bring tears to my eyes. I poured a mugful of hot tea from the thermos and sipped it as I drove upriver. Above the Aquarium, the river flattens out for three miles, a broad, rocky stretch reminiscent of the Housatonic Meadows.
The gentler grade had given the ice more leisure to do its work, and it was frozen solidly from bank to bank. Anticipation was becoming more urgent as I moved upriver; I resolved to come back to the flats during June when the insect hatches were at their peak -- in June and at night, when the browns would be on the rise.
Excerpted from Vermont River by W.D. Wetherell, with permission of the publisher.
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