ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

 
CATFISH FRIDAY
by Ron P. Swegman


Memorial Day Weekend was a washout. Three days of steady rain made it impossible to ride or to fish. The river resembled a coffee with two creamers. I felt the itch to twitch a wet fly more than ever, but I sat in a café and read a book instead.

The following three workdays passed with no rain, light winds. I could wait no longer. Why not fish before work? I figured the Schuylkill River below the falls of the Fairmount Water Works would be running low and clear, the kind of conditions that would give me, a small stream angler, a fair first attempt at fly-fishing this nearby stretch of wide, big city water. I set my alarm clock for five a.m.

The early morning streets were clean, quiet, and empty as I rode my mountain bike along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in the direction of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. On some autumn and spring days there is an exceptionally clear, short-lived quality of light at this time. This was the first day of June, a Friday, and the sky displayed an infinite range of blue. The hues, combined with the deep green foliage and the glowing low on the eastern horizon, gave the city's skyline a sharp, gemlike appearance.

Cardinals, robins, and sparrows began to sing their morning songs. The sound of my bike was low and steady. There was no traffic to drown out these soft sounds: sounds always there, yet frequently underheard.

I merged onto West River Drive a few moments later, passed the PMA, dipped under the Spring Garden Avenue Bridge. To my delight, the river ahead was way down. Several rocky islands dotted the water, and a flat strip of small stones projected ten to twenty feet from the base of the steep green hillside that marked the river's average height. My timing, unwittingly, had been excellent --

It was low tide.

The Schuylkill is actually two rivers in one. The neoclassical Water Works, constructed in the Greek Revival style during the first half of the 19th century, marks the point where the "Two Schuylkills" segue. Above the falls, it is an inland, freestone river. Below, it is the tidal Schuylkill, part of the Delaware River estuary that drains into the Chesapeake Bay. The tidal river can rise or fall as much as six or seven feet, depending on the tide. The fluctuation affects the feeding patterns of the fish and makes the biting times more predictable. A greater variety of fish can be found, too, including anadromous species such as eels, shad, and striped bass.

I locked my bike onto the black metal guardrail and hustled down the hillside to the stones: brown, not quite dry, a little slippery. I set up my tackle on a stretch of shore that lay directly across from a long, narrow island. A swift, smoothly flowing channel separated me from the outcrop. Ducks, geese, gulls, and cormorants were perched there, slowly waking up themselves.

I tied on a size 8 Muddler Minnow, a brown, soft hackle streamer that can imitate a minnow or a crayfish, depending on how it is fished. I began to cast along the tail end of the channel, where it once again became wide, slow-moving river. Soon after, something weird happened: My fly disappeared! Two or three casts into the fishing I found no fly at the end of my tippet, although a close inspection revealed the knot was still intact. No explanation, strange and frustrating, but the beauty and freshness of my solitary early morning along the river kept my temper in check.

My clear plastic flybox provided me with several other options. I decided on my size 10 Olive Woolly Bugger. This is a dark, fuzzy streamer designed to look like a leech, or a hellgrammite, the larval form of the dobsonfly. I tied it on very carefully and made a few quick casts, again at the tail end.

Nothing.

I walked back over the rocks for about fifty yards to the head of the channel. I stopped beside a willow oak, standing on my left, spreading itself over the water. I made a sidearm cast beneath its branches. The fly drifted back down.

Nothing.

I next made a two o'clock cast in the direction of the island. I let the Olive Woolly Bugger wash down until my fly rod and floating yellow fly line formed a 90-degree angle, then I started to retrieve it against the current, parallel to the bank, along the drop-off that began six or seven feet out. On my first cast I tried an erratic, two fast/one slow retrieve. On the second cast I started to use a slow, steady, swimming retrieve, and TUGGA-TUGGA --

Fish on line!

The hard hit occurred twenty feet down from my position, and the fish immediately rocketed toward the outcrop. My rod held weight: heavy, living weight. The weight began to speed up and move upriver in my direction. I stripped in line to keep up, but my rod would not stay high. The fish dove, fast, steady, and strong, headlong into the current.

I began to talk: "If you're a smallmouth bass, you must be just as heavy as the big brown trout I caught two weeks ago!" Next I said: "Are you a striped bass?"

. . .

The fish was getting closer to me now, but as it neared shore, KABOOOOOM! -- She reignited. I had to give back every inch of line I had taken. There would be no other way. The bend of my rod resembled the arch of a bridge at this point. The tip dipped into the river! This deep-water battle continued for two or three minutes before I finally got a flashing glimpse of the long, bronze side of a fish just beneath the surface.

"WHAT ARE YOU?!?" I wondered.

The fish kept its secret. It dove again, upriver, out of sight. I reminded myself that big freshwater fish tend not to jump. So, I kept up, started to strip in line when I could, when she would let me. I prayed my knots would hold. She eventually came back down, hugging the shoreline on my left. The clear leader emerged from the water. I raised my rod tip a little more, and "HOWDY!" -- I was greeted by an enormous channel catfish.

I netted the big girl and saw my Olive Woolly Bugger lodged snugly in the left corner of her thick upper lip. I dipped my right hand into the river, then carefully grasped her body behind the stiff, potentially dangerous, dorsal and pectoral fins. I unhooked her, lifted her out of the net, and admired her silver gray color, peppered with a few irregular black spots. From her whiskers to her deeply forked tail, she was as long as my forearm and outstretched hand. She began to talk, uttering low, air bladder grunts, reminding me she belonged in the river, not my hand. I recalled the advice from an old wife's tale, kissed her lightly on the forehead for luck, and let her back into the water. She bolted, healthy and strong.

I stood up, happy and successful. The sun rose with me, spilling its warm light over the top of the golden sandstone body of the PMA. Good morning, world. No rain today.

I noticed then that the river was rising, fast. The ankle-deep water had come halfway up the height of my rubber knee boots during the battle. The tide told me it was time to leave. I was happy to go, even though my next destination, after a shower and breakfast, was the office.