The night before, friend Jackie and I sat at the bar at The Perfect Wife, a local pub, sipping cold cocktails while observing the concerted flutter of summer tourists. She had spent the day leading her brother and his friends on a kayak fishing trip, and I was dusty and smelling rather like a barn after a day spent covering the fifth Grand Prix at the local horse show.
The two girls, one clad in fishing gear and the other in barn gear, elicited curious glares from the promenading tourists and fast service from the local staff at the Wife.
Over crawfish poppers and curried eggplant wedges, we talked about our respective days, about work, about life. And—most exciting—about plans for the next day.
We were going fishing. On Lake Champlain. In a skiff.
Call me backwater, backwards, unsophisticated… whatever, but I was raised with drift boats and kayaks and other man-powered watercraft. The idea of a boat with a mounted motor is still kind of exciting, and after a marathon run of three weeks without fishing, I was freakin’ due.
Jackie and Pete (a pair you may well remember from this spring’s Martha’s Vineyard adventures) picked me up Sunday morning in Manchester. I live downtown (such as it is), and laughed as I ran across the street in fishing gear, camera bag and sling pack in tow. Ignoring the plaid-short-and-popped-polo-shirt-collar wearing tourists disconcertedly watching as we loaded up, we pointed the rig north and headed to Lake Champlain.
We put the boat in the water at the little town of Vergennes, the ramp nestled underneath a rather cosy waterfall, and motored down Otter Creek toward the lake. To this unfamiliar eye, the Otter looked remarkably swampy and pretty darn awesome; I could almost imagine snapping turtles hiding in the rushes and a gator sunning on the bank (note to self: get thee to the Gulf Coast and fish). Technically one can connect through the lochs and lakes all the way to the Atlantic, a fact that showed in some of the grand boats we encountered coming up the murky water. On the ride out, I found myself playing a funny little game of mental connect the dots, trying to envision how the route to the ocean would line up.
Popping out into the lake, we were greeted by summer haze and a mercifully calm wind. A massive 125 miles long, Champlain is long and skinny, with a maximum width of merely 14 miles. Out of the “no wake” zone of the Otter, we zipped to a cove and began to rig—one popper rod and one streamer rod. Not five minutes into casting, a Vermont game warden we had sighted on the river earlier motored up and asked the requisite licensing and life vest questions. We were all good; the warden was friendly and calm and talkative, and it was a good experience all around. First Vermont warden experience? Positive.
We cast for a while, hoping for a bass, to no avail. Desirous of a change of scenery, we powered up and zipped to another little cove, this one spotted nicely with lily pads and tall grasses along the shoreline. Visibility was clearer, and it just looked fishy. Pro Pete jumped up onto the platform and Jackie took point on the bow, ready to cast at any sign of fish. I hung in the middle, camera at the ready. We spooked a couple bowfin, not a rod length from the boat, and chased them around a bit, but never could draw any interest. A couple laps around the little cove, then we were off again.
Third time is the charm, as they say. The next shoreline was more open, and Jackie wanted to try her hand at poling the skiff. She ascended to the platform post, and Pete took the bow. After a few exploratory turns, we set off on a course along one bank.
And started seeing log-like forms, skinny and funky-looking, floating in the water.
Gar.
We had nothing aboard in the way of a traditional ropy gar fly, but Pete rigged a long, fluffy bait pattern and went to work. Here’s a hint: as one of the head casting instructors at Orvis, Pete can cast. He can cast a long, long way; wind-resistant fly be damned. Accuracy and distance, there it is.
With Jackie keeping us on course and Pete’s authoritative casting, he soon was getting nibbles from gar. The key was to let them nibble, then take, then chomp, and to then set. I know each of us pulled the fly right out of a gar’s mouth more than once. Visibility was good, and it was nothing short of weird to float the fly past the gar’s nose and tickle it… sometimes the fish would half-heartedly nibble, then decide to put more effort into the eat. Other times they’d slowly fin away—the fishy version of a middle finger.
But, true to form, Pete hooked up. And the fish was big. I’m no gar expert—this is the first time I’ve seen them in person, point of fact—but this was a big fish. High thirties, low forties. (The photo does it no justice, but realize the fly is a good eight / ten inches or so.) Early on in the fight, he gave us a nice show of tarpon-like tail walking; dancing across the surface of the northern lake as elegantly as any ballet dancer.
Miraculously the fish didn’t break off until it was at the boat, so we were able to all get a good look at it. The diamond-plating scale pattern was impressive, and the fish as a whole took on a very medieval look. Maybe luckily, before we really had to handle the fish (the only pair of gloves aboard were sun gloves, as we’d not set out with gar in mind) he broke off. We all let loose the breath we’d been collectively holding; I put down the net and pliers and picked up the camera once more, and Pete kept casting.
We made two more laps through that section; once for each of us. We all hooked up long enough to feel a tug before the gar’s impressive teeth either slipped through or shredded the ill-matched flies, and laughed our way across the water to murmurs of “garrrrrrr…” (Hint: somehow, everything seems a bit more funny on the water.) Finally, as the sun was filtering lower and lower through the summer haze, we decided to head back up the Otter, sipping beer and chatting idly about the day as we passed a mishmash of fancy homes and trailer houses.
After loading up we trekked back south, stopping in the little college town of Middlebury for a hot dinner at Two Brothers Tavern (I’m seriously enjoying the supply of cosy pubs on this side of the country). There’s a comforting quiet that settles after a good day on the water. The need to pursue conversation for the sake of conversation vanishes, and we were pretty darn happy to sit and eat and stare vacantly at the various sports on the television, listening to the night’s rain fall contentedly outside.
And then, back to southern Vermont for a shower and a short night of sleep before starting the work week all over again. Somehow Mondays are always easier to face after a day on the water.
