Huxley’s Run It’s a tough assignment to write of September fishing at the beginning of July. The difficulty is to outline thoughts of a September river, the September ocean or a September lake, when all that is July consumes me. First there is the initial arrival of summer steelhead in the Campbell River and other points northward on this great Island. Second is the weather: Heat of sun, despite the wind; dryness of air, despite the rain; and the scents of full summer – quiet yet pervasive, solid and yet permeable to an old nose that has waited twelve long months for them. And then there is my garden. Not much really – beets, peas, raspberries and my sunflowers. When I took up gardening, I was jealous of the time it stole away from the time I spent on stream and ocean and lake. It took time from the real important task of angling. Yet it persisted and addicted me and I think now I have an idea why. The garden is seeded in spring. Yet it is thought of through the cold, grey months of the year’s beginning. It is planned somewhat gallantly, with dreams of larger, better harvests. It is planted and waited upon with all the anxiousness of, well, angling. In comparison, the salmon emerg e in the spring and begin their descent down the river. To them come the cutthroats, a truly bolder and stronger fish always to be found higher in the river. They will drop to the estuary with their smaller cousins and join those cutthroats who have been fattening and getting more wary in their mixture of salt and fresh water grazing. In spring, too, fishing thoughts of September come easily. The same v-shaped follow on a retrieved fly will then be just as easily a coho of 10-pounds instead of a cutthroat of 18-inches. Such is the beauty of dreaming of the water garden; such is the beauty of the earth’s garden. As I watch my garden grow, I watch, too, the subtle changes in the plants. They green stem and leaf and fill out, ready for their spawning - ready for their harvest –just like the salmon preparing for net, hook or spawning gravel, or the jaws of some hungry creature whose very survival depends on the bounty in either garden. While thoughts of September come easy then, they also come reluctantly. For September means summer’s end. It means shorter days and air that whispers quietly, secreting to you thoughts that it intends to get colder and wetter, but it expects you to be there, to hang in and to love it as much as you do the warm wafts of July. That is the difficult thing about September in July. Both months love the garden and the salmon with the same unerring devotion. Both months mean so much to the beginning and the ending of gardens. They both mean so much to the angling. How does one choose the other? One cannot. One must accept that July will give in to September, and September will cycle again into July. The many months between have their own beauty, but none with so much unfettered expectancy of mind or heart then July and September will bring on this west coast. Tonight I will check the deer fence around my peas. I will pull some beets and check their growth. I will, perhaps, water with a glass of single malt in one hand for me and water for the garden in the other. And as those drops fall upon my garden, my mind will wander and realize that rod, line and hook are really quite similar to a garden hose.
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