The Pulse Of Existence

There is a river rushing before me and she is undeniably alive.  Her audibly churning and rotating gyres, boiling upwelling currents, chaotically circulating surface convections, and eddying vortices of ink-black water surge endlessly, like the driving life-blood of a tireless animal, perpetually flowing past observers at an astounding rate of velocity and volume.  She breathes, so-to-speak, as the tidally-influenced surface of her aquatic empire rises and falls rhythmically each day just as lungs within a chest effortlessly expand and contract to faithfully induce respiration and spark the vigor that is life.  For countless moons these saline tidal waters of the Shrewsbury River have ebbed and flooded her ancient, meandering shorelines, nurturing a largely unseen saltwater ecosystem of finned, calcified, and feathered denizens.  Juvenile species of baitfish, crustaceans, bivalves, shorebirds, and young-of-the-year game fish claim the intermittent low-lying verdure islands, sod banks, and saltwater marshes fringing her outermost reaches of littoral contact as their home.  Tonight I choose to situate myself riverside along her most fast-moving and actively funneling waters at a location I hold dear and tops my list of favorite and rewarding fish-holds.  Like a lifelong friend, I have come to intimately learn her fluid personalities, knowing that each day her temperament and attitude change as she sinuously evolves into various whirling complexities.  More importantly, she offers a unique revelation for those who are carefully observant and receptive to an appreciation for natural bounty; for those whose eyes are fortunate to be visually immersed with her presence and ears devoted to listening carefully to her voice.  Shared is a confession spanning for miles and withstanding centuries of time.  It is here where I am reminded that special moments along her encompassing banks are not necessarily created; sometimes they are simply realized. 

The access to my coveted fishing retreat is cozily confined between the perimeter of an abundantly rusted, eight-foot-high chain-link, barbed-wire fence surrounding a humming, electrical substation, neighboring a more times than not, odorously-belching, brick-walled municipal pump-house situated adjacent and lurking length-wise to this fence.  It is between the private passageway of these two where I am privileged to advance over a green, borough-manicured grassy turf wielding an action-honored, ten-foot graphite surf rod in-hand, a slim supermodel of her kind, along with her indispensable counterpart, a nine-foot telescopic aluminum landing net.  A single-row surf bag packed with swimming plugs is straddled over my right shoulder and pressed against my lower back.  The plastic bodies and trebles of the swimmers rattle about in the tubes of the bag in a synchronized clattering to my gait.  I listen to the dull, yet soothing, stirring-sound of dense, week-old mowed grass brushing around the rubber toe trim of my encroaching footsteps.  The ensemble of blades and seeded stems rustle as thought they were hundreds of thousands of cheering cohorts welcoming my arrival, their soft, collective undertone advocating my anticipation as I step closer towards the flowing sheet of water.  I’m still more than one-hundred-feet away from the river’s edge and its full-view is obscured yet by the outcropping of a ragged juniper bush and an aged, unsightly pitch pine (Pinus rigida) not more than twenty-feet in height and bleeding sap from its twisted trunk and scraggy skin of flaking bark. 

As I crest the grassy knoll’s entranceway, the sight of its fifty-three-foot, silver-colored galvanized steel bulkhead lying unattended in the still of night refreshes my spirit in an elated instant of inner-exclamation, spoiled greater with the decadent confection of a saturating reception of serenity.  The exhilaration that incites inside is much like laying eyes for the first time upon a beautiful woman who you have longed-for greatly and haven’t seen in weeks; you just cannot wait another second to embrace her tightly in your arms once more.  My anxieties of happening upon other fishermen who, in a way, would have robbed me of this secluded tranquility immediately vanish.  I smile as I inhale deeply, rejoicing in my intimate and snug surroundings, pausing in my tracks to take in the familiar sights, in part I suppose, to honor a storied, striped-past, but more so to acknowledge the untold opportunity of the present and indulge a favored sense of belonging.  Tonight, she is all mine.  My hopes could not ascend any higher.  I will have full-access to utilize all I have learned from the mounting years of time put-in, the knowledge won which only experience adamantly imparts, my lessons learned from victorious nights, as well as the frustrating episodes where temptations to abandon the sport foolishly, but temporarily, pervade the mind, clouding sensible judgment.  From my perspective, it is a lookout atop a vast, black, seemingly unrelenting conductor of seawater, a momentous marching waterway governed by lunar and planetary forces, a channel where all of the river’s tidal energy converges into a fast-moving bottle-neck.  From my quarry’s perspective, it is their aqueous nighttime world where the unseen, scaly striped denizens glide furtively and effortlessly amongst one another in the tidal currents, eagerly alert for any opportunities to feed.

The time is nearing midnight. A pleasantly-mild southeast breeze in the mid-seventies shears over the surface of the river, caressing the exposed skin of my arms and face as it gently blows.  I feel the wind combing through my hair.  The breeze comforts me. It’s a physical connection to my nighttime surroundings, feeling the atmosphere that I breathe as a dynamic, moving force.  The air temperature feels perfect.  Surreal.  Not a degree too warm.  It’s that nighttime summer breeze one rarely gets to experience but only a few times a year.  Not only does this compliment the allure of fishing here this evening, invigorating my spirit, soothing my body and encouraging my mind to drift away and relax, its directional blow couldn’t be any more optimal for my rendezvous with this tide.  So with my back positioned directly into the wind, I creep as close as possible to the edge of the cantilevered embankment capping its sufficiently-corroded, rust-colored, corrugated steel sheet piles flanking the river’s running water to determine where I want the radius of my cast to end.  In order for the lure to sweep near the bottom in the most desirable areas, I must cast up-current so that the lure may have time to descend in the ebbing flow, sinking down-current to a preferred strike-zone along the bottom.  In a wide-legged, firm-footed stance, I click-open the spinning reel’s bail, and in a careful undertaking of finesse, coax the green-colored line leading from the countless waiting wraps of the spool onto the inside tip of my index finger, all the while raising the cork-griping spread of my hands above shoulder.  Then, in a calculated instant, as if I were delivering a fastball from a pitcher’s mound, I swiftly lever the rod against the fulcrum of my right arm, dropping my left to the hip, as the drawing weight of my crouching and twisting body-motion heaves, pivoting on the soles of my shoes, springing forward with the abruptness of a stalking Cheetah erupting from stillness to give chase.  A fluid, habitual movement of memory.  I’ve aimed the fully-loaded sleekness of my carbon-composed weapon for a strategic landing-point about the surface of this moving sheet of water.  The energetic contortion of her parabolically-shaped, flexing composite-body groans, letting out a brisk “whoosh” sound as it slices through the emptiness of night without any reserve to the attendant serenity of silence, catapulting the single-hooked lure aerially across the width of the wide river.  I am pleased with the considerable distance of my cast.  It’s further than I normally could have placed.  The warm, leeward wind assisted the reach my cast, allowing it to rocket nearly clear across the channel as a result of minimized drag through any impeding air current.  My offering to the seagoing abyss, a soft-bodied, one-and-a-half ounce rubber paddle-tailed lure known as a swim shad, makes a crashing entry about the water’s surface.  A compelling presentation to offer foraging fishes holding in these waters, I use a tried-and-true personal favorite, that which is a six-inch, black-back imitation of finned-life accentuated by an internal, reflective iridescent-patterned sheet of foil.

At times, there is a loud sounding “slap” like that of a whip cracking, as the lure lands flush upon its side and breaks the river’s surface, momentarily interrupting the stillness of the night and acting as a pronouncement to any other fishermen lurking in the darkness that they are not alone.  There is a visual, upward splash of water as ensuing ovate rings attempt to expand against the fluttering wind-driven surface of the animated tide, rippling steadily across this obsidian-colored veil of my quarry’s underwater world as they are transported down-current, and then vanish as the river’s kinetic shimmering surface quickly predominates and flows unbroken once again.  The lure’s smashing arrival is erased from further perception, swallowed into the river. Now enveloped by the current, the submerged shad descends into blackness in a sweeping arch fueled by the moving current, sinking generously until striking the bottom seconds later.  I work this rubber-bodied decoy to prevent it from snagging along any number of the fouled riverbed’s dreaded holdups, and possibly becoming claimed altogether, as an angler’s mainline commonly reaches its breaking point in attempting to free an embedded hook from obstruction.  There is a submerged water main crossing resting along the bottom, seemingly unbreakable strands of snapped-off fishing line weaved along the riverbed, an odd sponge-like plant which anchors to the aggregate base of rock, silt, and mud, commonly challenging any lure that collides with it, and with this year in particular, any unknown amount of man-made debris consequently deposited during the deluge of Hurricane Sandy.

I awaken the shad’s baitfish-molded body, bringing its wiggling tail to life, summoning it to swim with upward pumps of the pliant rod tip and occasional cranks of the reel until I feel the lure swimming naturally, suspended in the ebbing current and emanating a vibration back through the forty-pound-test braided mainline to my right hand, but most importantly to the surrounding water it is now brought alive within and fighting against.  The sweep of my lure will now pass over a desirable area of the river I refer to as the “honey hole,” a section which has a subtle drop-off along its bottom contour and features a high-angled rock-strewn wall ascending back up the riverbank to my side.  It has consistently produced fish in the past, as opposed to blindly casting elsewhere from this spot.  By swimming my presentation within this specific region, I know my chances of enticing a migratory Striped Bass, the famously elusive and legendary Morone Saxatilis, are best.  I have been dreaming all winter-long of a drag-screaming battle with Sax and the type of fishing conditions I face tonight to favorably befall me. 

Within the raining reaches of an audible shower of strummed strings and fingered keys, I hear a live-band playing music from somewhere across the river. For twenty-minutes or so, the spilling sounds of once-popular record chart hits dating from the 50’s faintly suffuse with the nighttime air, flowering in amplitude, combing through a silhouette of sleeping leaves, ringing off a neighborhood of locked doors, and echoing from the rough-hewn wood-grains of cedar-shake houses to the chasms of my listening ears.  As I slowly rotate the loose clutch of my left hand on the reel’s satiny egg-knob handle, retrieving my taut line through the opposing current, I find that I'm drawn-in to this overflow of  music much like a winged insect is to the nocturnal enchantment of a luminous tungsten filament, daydreaming for a moment, imagining the scores of backyard summer revelers clustered in close company, care-free, fellow family and friends volleying toothy smiles between outbursts of laughter, dancing to the drowsy and shy, nonjudgmental white-glow of suspended string lights dangling in a weave above, with cocktails clinking and glasses of wine swaying under the lofty, stretched skin of serrated-shaped spires and drooping sashes of a rented white party tent held secure with metal spikes hammered deep into the lush green lawn of a hosting waterfront home. They’ve each found their escape for the night, just as I’ve discovered mine.  On any other occasion, I’d likely be jealous of missing a party such as that, but such a thought doesn’t even appeal to the solicitation of my mind tonight.  This is prime nighttime fishing during the spring striper run!

Assembled across the river, constructed directly in my line-of-sight, are a number of ostentatious waterfront homes valued in the seven-digit range.  Beams of blaring white light from these mansions’ exterior floodlights obnoxiously dare to illuminate the nighttime’s drenching darkness, reflecting wide and skittering across the glazed surface of the timeless tide, aiming their acute, yet smudged rays towards the obscurity of my opposing presence, diffusing in the ripples of the ebbing water below my footing, posing as a pretentious challenger to the eclipse of night’s fallen blanket of cover.  Closed curtains standing watch behind the blackened glass of windows suggest her inhabitants have called it a day.  I think to myself, wondering what it was that they chose to do with their lives during the daylight, if it’s anything different than I normally find myself doing, or what they plan to do when the ensuing sunrise will soon greet us, showering light upon a new day.  Surely they’re not fishing the river that is their own backyard!  Perhaps they will awaken a dream later in their unconscious states, finding themselves helplessly engrossed within the sleeping mind’s cascading torrent of kaleidoscopic cogitations consisting of prior hour’s happenings.  Fishing here beside the river, I feel as though I’m living my dream, or I should say, experiencing my waking dream, a conscious reflection of myriad wandering thoughts and serene sensual enrichment augmented by the grace and gestures of Nature, her bounty, and her children.  It is undoubtedly peaceful beyond compare.  Some people elect to travel thousands of miles to seek solitude.  I am grateful that I have access to this small plot of unassuming paradise nestled within my own hometown, a sanctum for my soul, and consider myself lucky to realize what opportunities I have pursuing my interests from this locale, building fond memories to reflect upon throughout the far-off cold months, sharing late-night laughs and cherished one-on-one’s with fellow fishermen and friends, and always admiring the beauty that is life which my surroundings enliven within myself.  When a tide proves to be absent of fish, or begins to run too fast to effectively work lures, there are nights when I’ve sat down afterwards, dissolving into one of the most comfortable Adirondack chairs I can ever remember sitting in, peacefully observing the terraqueous scenery set before my outstretched feet brooming through grass and a mind curiously admiring the pinholes of a star-studded nighttime sky, relaxing further as this river rushes past me on its cyclic journey to sea and back, ebbing and flooding her ecosystem’s nursery nearly four times each day.  It is in these moments of silent reverence that the magnificence of an ever-changing seascape reveals herself.

Across the river a small, quivering orange glow catches the attention of my gazing eyes. An unattended wood-fire strains to respire, expelling its dwindling, spiraling embers skyward from one of the backyard lawns of a white-colored, waterfront cottage. It looks to be a lovely little house.  The owner of the home has since deserted the fire, retreating inside I imagine as the alluring call for sleep triumphed.  The second-floor bedroom walls inside an adjacent house are glowing and flickering in a light-blue color.  I consider the comfort of lying supine, sunken motionless into my pillow-top mattress at an hour such as this with a TV remote in my hand, battling leaden eyelids as they struggle to remain open through another round of mindless late-night commercial breaks.  No way! I proclaim.  I am here to fish.  The tide waits for no one, and the fish I am here to pursue are no different.  The joy of being here with the possibility of catching a striper far outweighs anything I can think of right now.  I get a warm, cozy feeling on the inside when I’m here.  I choose to be here in the middle of the night.  I’m pursuing an interest I’ve grown increasingly passionate for with each passing season.  To my discern, the experience is priceless; I couldn’t find “this” anywhere else that I know of.  For these reasons, I must take advantage of this open window of opportunity, I must seize the moment, for the flowing tide and spinning hands of time will invariably fall forward, only offering this time-frame during limited and particular intervals of idle-hour darkness.  Back home later, I know I’ll instantly fall asleep as soon as my head sinks into the pillow, and with any luck, I’ll be doing so with a broad grin glued to my face.  This is what I think to myself out here, all the while, as my mind drifts, I must at least be alert that I do not misstep my footing along the bulkhead and regrettably fall six-feet below into the cloudy, dark water.  I’m lucky that I have never lived that nightmare, but I’ve come alarmingly close in the past.

The tides ebbing water produces a lapping sound as its continuous flow to sea is interrupted by a ninety-degree, three-foot projection of the steel bulkhead into the body of the river.  At the opposing end of this platform is the corner where I position myself, directly above the corkscrew-spiraling current ripping clockwise in the turbulent slipstream.  By far, it is the most strategic parcel of the grassy knoll to fish from.  From this vantage, it offers a miles-long view north stretching the entire length of the river, the arching concrete spans of two roadway bridges marrying mainland to this barrier island, the sprawling foreland of Sandy Hook National Park, and the illuminated spire of the Empire State Building emerging to accent the Manhattan skyline at the outermost visibility of all else, much like a lighthouse would to a vessel far-off at sea.  I rest my gear within reach on an area of the plot’s verdant, lush grass.  This year, much of her pristine width is fouled with sizeable spreads of beige-colored sand, which was stripped from the beachfront and carried in a slurry of enraged seawater, debris, and mangled, man-made manufactures for hundreds of feet across town where it was eventually deposited by Hurricane Sandy’s merciless floodwaters.  Its estranged accumulation serves to remind me of what were the storm’s unyielding forces and the consequential struggles the residents of my town have suffered and endure as a result.  For ruminating reference, even the height of my head would have been submerged under rushing water from where I stand tonight.  I’m feeling quite grateful to have the opportunity to fish my favorite haunt once again.  What this town once was, it is no longer, but the green grass of the knoll, threatened after having been covered in beach sand, has prevailed, growing feverishly and springing upright from this impediment towards the kissing-sunlight which nourishes it with vitality, offering me hope and encouragement, that when pressed with a hardship, life will always fight with a tenacity to flourish, to endure a given struggle, and when granted the favor of time, to return with renewed spirit and vigor. Nothing willingly chooses to perish.

The surface of the sable-colored water gently trembles over itself as though the southern breeze is encouraging with a nudge for its harried egress from the flooded river system. The blinking navigation and anti-collision strobe lights of aircraft in their flight patterns streaming in the sky above the NY-metro area clutter the nearby horizon and a fully upright tilt of my head broadens a familiar cosmic blanket of glimmering stars into my field of vision.  At times, I’ll witness the fleeting streak of a meteor trail penetrating the atmosphere in the west or a satellite orbiting far above, a minuscule white dot tracking in a straight path, seemingly nestled amongst the stars, but detectable as ancient sunlight reflects from its icy-cold solar panel array down to my scanning eyes hundreds of miles below.  It appears alone in the vastness of outer space, as I too appear here on the riverbank, but I know it is busily serving as a communications device for mankind on Earth, just as I stand over this river serving to communicate a presence to what lurks under the lowering waterline.  Tonight, the sky is exceptionally clear. There is no ambient moonlight.  The slanted ladle forming the constellation of the Big Dipper readily appears before me, scooping low to the beset horizon of roof and treetops, serving as a cosmic portend I fancy, symbolically pouring its starry bounty from the heavens into my realm. The features of my face gleam, hopeful of the suspenseful possibilities which may surface when fishing these familiar, productive waters, and oftentimes becoming revealed during an outgoing tide such as this.  I am content to be here along with the company of the night, wielding nothing more than an intangible sword of faith.  Everything, is perfect.

The potential for a sudden strike from a fish swimming deep down below now increases with every minute that passes.  The current is easing, and as a result the surface of the river begins to smoothen-out like an immense sheet of blackened glass. As the tidal cycle enters this brief period of respite, scattered schools of full-grown Menhaden become easily visible, having been drawn from the deepest reaches of the river by the falling tide, nervously flipping their tails and dorsal fins by the hundreds about the surface, producing a symphony of watery sounds.  Seeing an abundance of baitfish like this is always a good sign.  Where there are schools of Bunker, Striped Bass are usually not far off.  This is the moment I have anxiously been waiting for.  As the ebbing tides aquatic cycle nears slack, my lure will become easily susceptible to a stealthy, seeking striper waiting head-first in the black tide with all of her senses finely-tuned to her surroundings. 

Sax’s wide mouth and protruding mandible opens and closes methodically, forming a small slit which sucks in oncoming water to squeeze over her gill filaments, but in the next few minutes as the tide approaches slack, her movements and behavior are also a biologic response in anticipation of a sudden and deadly full-on assault of prey unfortunate enough to enter her field of detection.  As an opportunistic ambush predator, she is without reserve when motivated to devour helpless fare.  She will tend to expend the least amount of effort for the highest caloric benefit in context.  Nothing that may fit within her crushing mouth can be considered safe.  Nature has equipped this nocturnal apex predator many physiological advantages over her quarry and now under the cover of complete darkness, stealth tips the scales that much further to her comfortable advantage.  Her senses of sound, touch, and taste will be artfully utilized in detecting prey.  Hunting in zero-light conditions is second-nature to Sax.  She is in her element, anxiously anticipating an unsuspecting finned-meal to inevitably swim her way.  Her large caudal fin slowly sways against the tide with just enough force to counteract the oncoming water as she remains in a nearly stationary position, head-first along the bottom contour of the river in complete darkness.  Sax’s vision is of little value in conditions as these.  Instead, she will rely on her other highly-developed senses to track prey, of which touch and sound are paramount.  The otoliths deep within her inner ears carefully listen for nearby acoustic environmental cues; these auditory capabilities being further enhanced by physical relation to her swim bladder, which acts as a transducer, amplifying the reverberation of sound generated in the water through its air-filled sac.  She is trained to follow and hone-in on familiar sound signatures, as they are often gustatory rewards. It is in these deepest depths where she is most comfortable in masking her presence from potential prey.  She will continue to hunt in this manner, repositioning herself within a narrowly-defined area along the riverbed in hope of sensing an easy target before the ebbing tide expires. At slack tide she knows the aqueous conveyer belt which is her world, delivering sustenance in all forms, will reverse, flooding the river system again and freely transport her back into the deepest reaches of the river’s estuaries and salt marshes all over again.

With each repeated cast I make, the pulsing tail and wiggling vibration of the shad's nose digging steadfast in the current is transmitted instantaneously through the mainline to my right hands' finger tips.  As my concentration drifts and I begin to wonder whether I may have missed the opportunity of encountering Sax, I am unexpectedly jarred awake with a sudden and surging bend of my rod, the crushing thud of the shad is felt as quickly as I can blink my eyes. The vibrational pressure-wave generated by the rubber shad’s paddle-tail undulating underwater has been sensed by Sax’s pressure-sensitive lateral line, her mechanoreceptor that is lined with pores which allow water to contact sensory cells, enabling her to “touch” the surrounding water, discerning via an oscillation in this medium the physical movement of prey, allowing her to effectively hunt in blinding conditions.  Having honed into the shad’s location, she systematically responded, swimming quickly to the prey from underneath, engulfing it in a calculated, vacuum-like inhalation. Now, all ten-feet of my graphite-composite rod arches splendidly to showcase a curvature only a strong fish can evoke from it.  My lethargic body abruptly jolts to life, as if shocked with electricity.  Without hesitation, I firmly clench my right-hand to the cork-wrapped handle, raising its backbone as the tip is commanded downward, summoned towards the waterline.  My eyes widen in excitement as adrenaline courses through my veins, amplifying the exhilaration of battle.  I am overjoyed, knowing that I have successfully convinced Sax to strike; relieved that she is here tonight, prowling the river below my feet.  This is why I am here! I have been granted an encounter with this special fish, gloriously gifted by her unassuming presence in the still of the night.

My line is immediately drawn taut, stretching straight as an arrow for well over one-hundred-feet from the very last ceramic eyelet on my rod tip to the black surface of the river, where it is being swallowed deeper into her fathoms.  I am physically connected to this fish by a mere 13/1000^th of an inch diameter mainline, the comparative width of only ten human hairs; however spiritually, the bond is beyond any means measurable. The ensuing struggle between man and beast erupts into existence, with the night we share alone as our stage. Fighting this fish is not enough; I need to see her, I need to hold her in my hands to feel that real, visceral sense of accomplishment.  I realize this is never a bestowed guarantee, especially as I fish a barbless hook, one that is easily dislodged during a fight if line-tension eases, among other things.  To best prevent this, I twist the stance of my body, reposition my feet, and arch my back to stabilize myself against the mighty force pulling from the depths of the river.  My abdomen, arms, and shoulders all flex to overpower this strong, fast-running fish.  I feel Sax’s caudal fin thrusting powerfully, as she feverishly strips line from the spool of my reel in repeated, zinging bursts, her head shaking side-to-side underwater as she struggles for unrestrained freedom. 

During this moment, as I am ecstatically engrossed in a determining match of strength, skill, and endurance with Sax, my spirit rejoices in what I see as the encompassing beauty of the night. I feel as though I am the prismatic paint trailing from Nature’s masterful brush stokes, becoming fundamentally united at the molecular level, the intrinsic common denominator within my element, through conscious action and reaction with this ethereal nighttime masterpiece of creation.  She effortlessly transforms a black, blank canvas, inciting the overlooked ordinary into an invigorating and vividly colorful palette of extraordinary perfection. Just as the shad’s vibration through water initiated this rendezvous between fins and fingers, it is now my own soul’s vibration which awakens my mind to the perfection that is life surrounding me, saturating all of my senses.  There are billions of light-years to the farthest stars and less than ten feet that separate me from the black-colored river that is home to Sax, but defining relative distances is futile for I am not removed from any one point.  In my frame-of-reference, I am standing at an epicenter; I am connected to the pulse of existence.  This seemingly empty, dark night is furiously alive.

This otherwise unrivaled, supremely-successful stalker of the blackened, underwater kingdom of the sea is frantically engaged in a fight for her life.  She makes repeated attempts to free herself from what I can only imagine as bouts of unexplainable confusion threatening her continued existence.  Her unconditional range of movement is now severely limited and becoming overpowered from a single, steady, pulling direction.  The ceiling to her aqueous nighttime world draws nearer during this alien encounter.  If there is one place in her world she does not willingly go, it is beyond the surface of the water, her uniform tidal boundary.  Naturally, this is not a condition she esteems to be the ingredient of.  Having been raised from her depths to the sub-surface, her wide, fanning caudal fin thrusts loudly across the calm, still night, displacing water in thrashing, sweet-sounding splashes as unanswered attempts to alter the desperate circumstances she is now restrained and ultimately free herself of this abduction from the flow of tide.  Simply put, to pump her tail is for her to exist.  Due to her advanced age, there is a probability that she has encountered this similar, life-threatening predicament with mankind as a younger fish.  Fate may have dictated her survival back then, whether through prudent observance of fisheries regulation, tackle failure, a spit hook, good fortune, or perhaps benevolence at the hand of man.  For her entire existence, she predicated ultimate authority over her every movement underwater.  The temperature gradients to seek, the depths to swim, the structures to surround herself near, the prey to chase, the prey to bypass, the predators to avoid, the water clarity to scout, the water turbidity to pursue, the tides to prowl, the instinctive impulse to spawn, the resulting thousands of migratory miles swam, the involuntary movements of her fins and innate respiration of her gills, the autonomous bodily functions, and even conscious actions.  The only truth now is that not one of her guiding realities substantiates any merit.  Her world is up-side down.  Sax’s independent, unhindered, and subconsciously executed gift of free will is no longer her habitual possession.  In a rare occurrence, predator has become prey. 

In theory, there is little difference between what I may exhibit as free will, and what this fish experiences as free will.  Without a thought, there is absolutely no similarity to be outlined between the incomparable physical aspects of the two species, let alone their respective hierarchy of achievements.  Mankind has unabashedly conquered his environment, raised civilizations, split atoms, and walked on the lunar surface, while fish, as highly specialized and adapted as they may be, are only fish; inhabiting the ocean and ultimately serving to provide man as a reliable food source.  This element of domination is one of the decisively unique attributes with fishing, that as hunter, as the fisherman, I take command of a living organism’s free will, whether permanently or not, that option becomes my choice.  This god-like contingency over life, the determining power we possess when holding a live fish, is a dominion which cannot be defined simply in terms black-and-white, as there is often a caveat; the plight we initiate is often entirely reversible.  A fish may be released alive, intentionally admitted back into its oceanic home.  The almighty control over the miracle of life and its determination of continuity becomes a game to play.  There exists no other sport where the element of life itself lies core on a fulcrum of continuation or sudden death.

At this very late hour, as the world surrounding me is sound asleep, and the fishing in this river is best, I always consider myself blessed whenever I’m suddenly startled out of a progressively delirious and somniferous state of mind to that of instant, animated excitement. Sometimes I’ll feel as though I have become one with the universe for a brief, but glorious, fleeting period of time.  However minuscule in duration, its effects are like that of experiencing goose bumps; there is a riveting, uncontrollable sensation hijacking the mind.  And without question, there is an overwhelming sense of joy realized during the final moments of battle with a Striped Bass.  It can be quite nerve-wracking, as sudden, frantic movements of the fish could easily spell disaster when last-attempt rolls and ditches made beside unforgiving, abrasive, structure could perilously chaff the leader or sever the mainline, ending the contest without warning.  Thus far, all has favored this fisherman, and the chances of grasping the fish with the flesh of my hands are nearing.  Watching her glide along the surface of the water, listing sideways to display her dark, lateral stripes will put a beaming smile on any saltwater angler’s face. I quickly click on the swaying, mini-flashlight suspended from a lanyard around my neck and position it between my biting teeth.  Straining with a dancing rod in my right hand, and lowering my knees to rest on the steely bulkhead, I prepare to lower the wide-mouthed landing net to the water with my left hand.  This is no easy task when alone at night, but it’s a part of the challenge.  It is always rewarding when all goes well.  I’ve learned it’s best to capture the fish head-first so that she enters the net on the first attempt, minimizing her incentive to struggle frantically as fish cannot swim backwards to avoid the swoop.  This efficient method ensures victory for the adrenaline-fueled angler.  Luckily for me, I’ve had practice at this over the years.  I estimate the fish to be in excess of thirty-four inches, a fine, keeper-sized bass, and this is evident to me as her entire body will be incapable of being enmeshed within the black, nylon webbing.  My rod is now fluttering uncontrollably with only six-feet of line separating the rod tip and the feverishly thrashing fish at the surface.  It has served its purpose well.  I gently place the rod down after hastily grasping a hold of the mainline, twisting it over my rolling right hand, and quickly lower the net vertically to the waterline, firmly gripping the very end of the aluminum handle, directing the fish into the mouth of the net, and finally raise her hulking mass upward, slowly, over the bulkhead and onto the awaiting grass.  “Success is mine!” I scream in my mind.  With a solid thud one only hears as a large fish is placed down on the lawn of the knoll, the fish “behaves,” lying motionless as I effortlessly unhook the barbless swim shad from the corner of her jaw.  Portraits of my prize immediately follow.

Sax’s distinctively unique eye, infused with a golden-colored iris and adorned with a large, irregularly-shaped black pupil, rolls to make direct contact with my own, an otherwise impossibility by all means natural as two separate beings from two separate worlds find themselves vis-à-vis.  It is at this juncture, as I carefully suspend her sleek, healthy frame outright in my bare wet hands, that I admire her stunning appearance and marvelous form.  A moss-green colored back highlighted with golden-flaked scales is where the first of seven distinctive black lines which run parallel her body length-wise, and are the distinguished designation to her exalted and legendary name among saltwater anglers, originates.  The light from my flashlight shimmers off her slick protective armor of enamel-hardened scales, wet yet from the water and her protective slimy layer, accenting a lavender-colored, iridescent tinge along her lateral region and extending downward to her protruding white belly.  This epidermis of cycloid-shaped scales are tightly aligned and arranged atop one another in a head-to-tail fashion, overlapping like roof tiles. They cover her entire length in a matrix pattern, emanating from the top of her head, much like that of the variegated pattern found on the head of a sunflower, flowing lengthwise in a laterally-fusiform manner down her body, mirrored in a bilateral symmetry along the spine, melding seamlessly atop the other as they perpetuate downward along her body, terminating at the peduncle base of the tail.  Upon meticulous inspection, one will discover dozens of tiny black dots which speckle each of the diaphanous scale’s surfaces, and a blotted, light-green hue adds color to its center.  Those that form her unmistakable lateral stripes are a dark brown.  When viewed from afar, these minute details coalesce to comprise the colors and linear distinctions painted along the fish’s profile, and form the observable identifications with which we associate her phenotype.  Her unscathed, ray-reinforced pectoral, pelvic, dorsal and ventral fins stand fully erect, exposing the collagenous membranes with which they are composed of and serve to govern her movements in an underwater 3-D world.  The large, trembling, tapered caudal fin, her locus of thrust and undulating forward motion, appears flawless.  The tail’s edges are sharp and it is not tattered, unlike those I have seen on a number of past catches.  This is a healthy ocean-going fish, a quintessential representation of her species, foraging tonight in this river on her months-long journey north to familiar over-summering grounds.  When one is to envision a Striped Bass, this fish I hold is surely the paradigm of perfection.

This fish is approximately ten years of age.  She has endured countless challenges and overcome both daily and arduous, seasonally-recurring endeavors in an unregulated underwater domain which only rewards those fittest enough to survive, to advance another day’s existence. I watch her struggle fiercely for the fervent desire to continue living, opening her mouth agape in successive contractions as if to breathe in water, animating her gill plates, attempting to respire in a vacuous environ, thrashing her tail and twisting body on the bed of grass she now lays upon.  Surely, Sax must realize that death lies eminent, or at the very least that she is not in a desirable situation.  She literally embodies the sensation as a “fish out of water.”  It is times such as these when I swear fright or hopelessness appears dreadfully exhibited, screaming from their eyes casting back at mine.  Emphatically, I can understand her plight as a result of this alien experience with man. Naturally, she responds in a panicked bemusement for the only impulse she knows; to return to her black aqueous world and exist under the surface, to breath autonomously again, to feel the cool liquid that is home encompass her scaly body and rush freely through her mouth, passing over her gills, invigorating the life-force with which she pursues these endeavors, and seek the paths unseen to mankind which she is biologically hard-wired to perform and resultantly seasoned, having successfully withstood a decade of predation and thousands of miles of accumulated migration.  Simply put, it is a survival adaptation she is destined to follow. 

In each of our steering voyages across the fluid surface of life, we must occasionally rise to crest the collapsing waves of a fouled, storming sea of compromise, bracing for the swirling, splashing, spraying, and subducting forces that are of uncontrollable influence acting to overpower, breach, and cascade over the gunwales of our motivations.  We may feel as though we are momentarily without reference, tumbling within swells of disorientation, but it is here where I am without a vestige of vacillation, where I withdraw from the sprawling fabric of a congestive, suburban clutch, to then fall immersed along the lapping nighttime reaches of the riverbank for a buoyant, relieving sense of renewal that is always there to cast for and reel-in.  One simply awaiting for my attendance.  I’m able to form a better appreciation of who I am and desire to mature as, bearing witness to esteemed inspirations, and sometime after, walk away a renewed spirit.  The retreat acts as a curing medicine to any daily ailments I may be afflicted with.  Everyone has something to rely upon for an escape.  For me, hooking into a fish tonight was ultimately my goal, but secondary to the indulging rewards offered by interconnecting with Nature and dodging the stale routine of everyday life.  It was Thoreau who wisely recognized that “many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” Nevertheless, we are engaged in fishing, and some will hunt Sax for the kill.  For me, there is nothing more satisfying than the thrill of the hunt, its planned execution, the jarring thud of a striking fish, the ensuing fight with a powerful contestant, and eventual, if not hopeful, submission. 

We are all comprised of the same basic elements from the palette Nature gracefully holds in her creative, fertile arms; complex, carbon-based arrangements of a soupy plethora of organic compounds, hormones, bones, muscle tissue, and a surging, salty circulating plasma generating and sustaining life in one form or another.  While our unmatched prowess, functionalities, anatomical and intellectual capabilities, and ultimately our souls, separate the form of man from lowly Sax, defining what we are, there is a universality flexing our muscle tissue, beating our hearts, firing billions of nerve endings to continually communicate within our harsh environments, and correspondingly requiring an articulation of primal cognitive behaviors rooted deep within the brain, serving to guide our existence and act as our survival compass on this planet’s obstacle course of life.  Fundamentally, we are both the same, both breathing, living children of Nature, highly-refined products of millions of years of evolutionary development.  We are far-removed brother and sister in a world which exists nowhere else in the entire Universe.  Our destinies even trace similar inclination in that we both campaign with each waking minute to reign supreme in our respective spheres of consequence.  To exercise complete control.

I realize a simple, yet remarkable gift was granted to me tonight; a single fish.  She is the net gain of countless hours spent casting a line, reading seemingly endless and diverse subject matter at home, studying her migratory patterns and behaviors, analyzing and comparing past catch results throughout the seasons, fastidiously preparing tackle during the winter months over a weathered workbench, juggling limited and precious time around a job schedule, honoring a patient girlfriend, planning excursions at the mercy of capricious weather, and seeking to structure such outings within the timeframe of opportune tides have all lead to this electrifying moment for my mind to burn permanently in its memory and rejoice in upon recall.  All said variables have aligned in conjunction here tonight, altogether acting as the nurturing and rich surrounding soil to a germinating seed whose first pale-green colored leaves of life have burst through the ground’s surface, proclaiming an existence amongst a vast, wild world.  This fish I now hold, representing my sprouting green leaves of interminable effort, is proof of my perseverance.  I continue to smile at her in the darkness, as I have during prior engagements with Sax, purposefully and unapologetically placing a small kiss atop her head, an impromptu send-off as I cradle her underside with my hands and forearms while crouching lower to the waterline, aiming the eighteen-pound predator head-first to the water’s surface, dropping her streamlined body like a fired torpedo.  With a clean entry, she responds immediately to her liquid home and with one swiping thrust of her mighty caudal, the fish instantly disappears out of sight, returning to her deep black reaches on this dark summer night.

I’ve come to realize that after spending enough time observing others in their daily rhythms, you will soon realize that we are all searching for something, whatever that may be.  Sometimes we easily find what it is that we are searching for, acquiring comfort in the associated happiness.  Other times, after arduous efforts, we may get so razor-close that our hands may quiver in an over-joyous anxiety, sensing its presence or eminent revelation, a silhouette of dawning clarity.  It was during a primal moment here tonight where I became locked-in to my otherwise suppressed, but continually guiding undercurrent of basic biologic brain functions, that which stokes the fire burning deeply within my soul, my hunger to confront Nature head-on and be challenged with all her personalities as I search for fulfillment to an even deeper, atavistic primal urge; that foaming effervescence, which is to seek conquest from within her aquatic landscape of challenges in the ever-persistent craze to exhaustively engage in a recurring pursuit of Morone Saxatilis.  It’s a devotion which enables me to treasure this jolting, euphoric, and all-too-soon of a fleeting moment. In my case, it occurred tonight, atop the dark, wide riverbank of the Shrewsbury, alone, waterside in the quiet air of a wanderlust waterway, a haven known colloquially as the grassy knoll, where Sax’s stripes, they call to me. 

After proudly savoring the distinctive, resultant aromatic fish-scent permeating from my dampened hands, and wiping all excess from the vermilion, bow-shaped contour below my nose using the backside of my hand, I abandon all action, pausing to inhale deeply and slowly, committing to olfactive memory the fishy scent blanketing my fingers as a gratifying grin takes root on my face, lifting my cheeks higher.  For a striper fisherman, this is the sweet aroma of victory, a resounding exclamation from the rarefied mountaintop, a circle of achievement now fully drawn complete.  I relish in the resplendently rewarding outcome which I have just borrowed from the still dark waters of the night.  She reminds me that although we may be mortals, humbled in our seasonal pursuit of Sax, the precious nights spent here on the knoll are where our souls will live timeless in immortality.

Afterword

All that we are is the maturation of what we have thought.  Our life is a creation of our mind, and resultantly, what we think, we become.  When man acts with a pure thought, happiness is destined to follow.  As a fisherman, the trellis of happiness under which I pass is conceived with a deep reverence for a fish I pursue each year, an admiration of her environment, her saltwater home, and a coveted connection to Nature expressed in all her seasons, colors, and personalities.  Every encounter is unique.  Every burning sunrise, every hopeful sunset, every movement of the relentless tide, deep inhalation of the salty air, and shocking spray from a crashing wave enriches my experience and expands my appreciation for this fragile breath of life we are granted during our short-lived chronicle of time allotted in this world.  Realizing this, I believe it dutifully becomes our responsibility, our obligation, for those right-minded and conscientious, to fervently grab the reigns of righteousness, to guide a course in a positive, noble direction, to command a meaningful ambition which makes life richer for those we encounter and influence, for we are only granted one chance at this testing trial of experience.  As a species, we are bestowed supreme influence over our actions on this planet.  Nothing ever exists entirely alone; every thing is in relation to everything else.  We are gifted with this physical capability and powerful foresight.  When, and if, one can summon the virtuous power to exercise a determination of deference among fellow man, and aspire to include our ancient brothers and sisters, the fish we revere, respect, and share this planet with, when our inevitable meditated actions and momentary conduct compel the meeting between man and beast, when a live fish is held in hand, one will come to realize that there is no greater power to exhibit and exert, if only once, than that which grants life.  With mankind’s benevolence, this bedrock of sound morality and action will judiciously serve as the fecund and necessary fountainhead for future generations of migratory Striped Bass to reign forth throughout the sea, proliferating their presence in the oceanic residence they know as home.

A striped inhabitant of the Shrewsbury River lies on the grassy knoll.  Not in vain do we watch the ebbing and flooding of the tides. 

 The band of Bass are coming back to town!  This is a layout I conceived shortly after fishing amid the rare circumstance of a wide-open frenzied October night on the Shrewsbury River, imaginatively depicted as a film poster with the use of Photoshop. Stripers in the 40-inch range fed on pods of terrorized Menhaden for over an hour during the flooding, slack, and subsequent ebbing tidal shifts.  It proved an epic night to encounter.

The catch & release mentality: words and actions to fish by.