We are captivated by trout. And we wonder why. Trout don't love us, they don't love each other, and they don't do anything for their fellow trout, except by accident or by instinct.
But the same could be said of art. We appreciate art for maybe the same reason we love trout. Let's see if the words — art and trout — are interchangeable.
Wynetka Ann Reynolds might have said,
“Anyone who says you can't see a thought simply doesn't know trout.”
For two summers, I spent afternoons and weekends exploring back roads, backcountry, and backwaters in streams and lakes down the flanks of Wy'East for a book we called Fishing Mount Hood Country. My co-author, Robert Campbell, covered most of the western water, and I fished more of the east side.
Early in the project, Campbell began to send close-ups of trout — Veda Lake cutthroats, Timothy Lake brookies, Salmon River rainbows — in hand, going back into the water. The imagery seeped into my consciousness, and when I brought East Fork Hood River cutts, or Boulder Lake brooks, or Badger Creek rainbows to the bank, I began to look at each one as a piece of art, at each scale as a stroke of a brush.
We seldom fished the same water twice during the two summers on and off the mountain. We caught bass, sturgeon, steelhead, and salmon, but the fish that defined the effort was the coastal cutthroat. There are many variations. The Clackamas watershed fish were different in coloration from Zigzag River fish, and in bigger lakes, trout coloration varied due to the micro-environments they frequented.
We might put the distinct differences down to genetics, habitat, food sources, and light penetration.
Hood River wild fish, where there are fewer trees above the water and the bottom is light, are bright and shiny. Fish in west-sloping rivers with darker streambeds are often tinted, an adaptation that helps them survive.
While there are a few resident rainbows near the mouth, Campbell's exploration of the upper Clackamas turned up big rainbows, part of a remnant strain that can grow to several pounds in that mountain water. I plan to research that water again soon.
If Goethe had been born to a fly-fishing family rather than to German drama, he might have written:
“There is no surer method of evading the world than by following trout, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by trout.”
We caught hatchery planters, of course, and the further they were removed from the raceways, the better they looked. Holdovers — fish that had made it through a winter and gained inches and pounds — were the prettiest. We might call them modern trout and appreciate them in that regard.
John Anthony Ciardi could have said:
“Modern trout is what happens when fishermen stop looking at girls and persuade themselves they have a better idea.”
For me, one stream and one fish defined the project. A Still Creek cutthroat, about nine inches long, took a dry fly and threw the hook. The next fish was a bit smaller, but it shone in hand like treasure. I sent a picture to my friend Tye Krueger, and he drew it in every detail — a wild cutt with white tips on its fins and parr marks still visible on its sides.
Kojiro Tomita might have written it thus:
“It has been said that trout is a tryst, for in the joy of it, maker and beholder meet.”
Conditions seem to force beauty to the surface. Up toward the timberline, an angler finds the most striking examples — wild trout that in other environs would grow to be measured in pounds, not inches. Here, an eight-inch rainbow is mature, with white tips on the edges of his fins and a tint of rose in his gill plates, dark spots all the way to the tail.
G.K. Chesterton might have put it this way:
“Trout consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.”
Here in the Northwest, we have the run of an ancient gallery. The price of admission is a fishing license and the will to seek it.
“All trout requires courage,”
with apologies to Anne Tucker.
In the passage of time, we become collectors of art, the images stored in digital files and memories. And sometimes we make that beauty part of ourselves with brook trout grilled over a campfire.
If Scott Adams had been consulted, he might have offered:
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Trout is knowing which ones to keep.”
