Binary Dances with Trout

What? Did I really not post a single post since New Zealand? Lame. For there has decidedly been some fine fishing in between: a super-sweet trip to Baja that rendered fresh hamachi sashimi and a grilled collar to remember; a driven bass-fishin mission in Maine that lured dozens of smallmouths (and larges) to the surface and subsequently alongside a kayak; and, just the other night, a typically magical night of shad silliness on the Sacramento during one of those looooong summer evenings that ends with a watchspring-thin crescent moon in the pink June sky.

I think I can guess why there was no documentation of all this. I'm in the middle of my life's second serious sabbatical, and in six months time have settled deep into a little comfortable cocoon made up of country living, sweet fishing, and a life of the mind that is so increasingly inner-directed that it does not even allow self-indulgent blogging. Why should I write about what I experience, as long as I experience it?

Besides the obvious answer -- "you are not, and do not actually want to be, alone in this world, as much as you may think it, DUDE" -- there is the simple fact that writing about something, or photographing it, or painting it, gives it a shape that you can turn over much more tangibly in memory. It gives me a little hook that I can go back to and get caught up in memory, again and again. And I do like that.

I would stress the shape. In the past, it has given me great pleasure to create sonata-shaped trips made up of three distinct parts. My 2007 and 2008 trips to Alaska, for instance, were beautiful, fishy sonatas. 2009, a single, all-to-short presto! But for this year, for the final act of my non-employment, I have written out (or planned) what is best described as a binary dance -- you know, like all those priceless little bits of which Bach's sonatas and partitas are made. For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L05xsjRvFEw

To be brief (as I must, since there is World Cup soccer to watch before I head to the airport tomorrow), my dance has these two parts: 1) a sea-kayak fishing stint on and around Naknek Lake; and 2) a river-kayak stint that takes me down Moraine Creek, across Kukaklek Lake, and down into the Lower Alagnak for the fourth time in my increasingly rich life. It would be nice to think I can do repeats of each part (as most of the performances of Bach do), but it will be a through-composed performance. Unless I drown or am eaten by a bear, that is. I know from experience now that such morbid outcomes are less likely than a lightning strike.

Within these nicely-shaped parts, there is of course a fair amount of complexity. I'll hang out first at Brooks Camp, drinking beer and drinking in the coolness of that place. I may do the portage over to Grovesenor Lake and continue on around the Savonoski Loop, or I may decide to stick to fishy water and just backtrack to Brooks after visiting Colville and American Creek. Hell, I might even be as lazy as before, and not do the portage at all! I have proven myself all too easy to entertain in and around the Bay of Islands, where the trout run to 34 inches, where pike swarm in backwaters, and where arctic grayling make a visit to Idavain Creek into a small side-trip into fish nirvana.

The second part is the really heterogenous deal, though. Moraine Creek is smallish water (I bet it will be Lower Sac-sized) where guides still "guarantee" a 10-pound trout to their clients. It is that full of big fish! And I trust that floating it will get me some solitude there, despite the fly-in fame of this small creek. Then, the crossing of Kukaklek Lake is the big question mark: will high winds make it a dreadful, three-day chore? Or will I cross it in one day and pick off dozens of fat rainbows at the outlet? Assuming I get through the Kukaklek rapids below -- not entirely guaranteed, though I hear it is a low-water year -- things get more predictable, but essentially more variable, with chums and kings joining the sockeye and rainbows, and even a fair chance at some pike in the sloughs. Perhaps another sea-licey 25 pounder to finish up the trip, like in 2005? We shall see.

So yes, I am stoked! The day after tomorrow, the dance begins . . . .