Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Time has shown that there are basically five of my friends who comprise this group of anglers who have gone each spring to the semi-wilds of New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesauke. All of this in search of the lowly landlocked salmon. We would gather on the last Wednesday in April and stay until the following Sunday. In no particular order I would like to introduce the Players.
Frank, "Abe", or at times "Boat Ride"
Abe, or Frank Bell, is our host and has been so since 1968, the first year. That year, he and his father co-hosted me, so it was no big thing. We went just to prove that there were really salmon in the lake and more importantly that we could catch them.
Abe and I graduated High School together. He went on to college at Colgate and then to Penn Dental , followed by a hitch in the army as a dentist. I recall visiting he and his lovely wife at Fort Leonard Wood, in Missouri. At that time, I was working for Merrill Lynch in my first two years of training to become a commodities broker. I was in Chicago where I had gone for a two week training period, a brief stint which turned into six months. When I finally left the windy city, I and my wife took a detour to visit with the young dentist "Captain" and wife in Missouri. We then drove back to our New Jersey home through some of the more scenic back roads of W. Virginia and Virginia. Sometime around then a book was written about the "Blue Highways" and we followed the same on the map from old Miss to Westfield, NJ.
After discharge, Abe started a dental practice in Oldwick, NJ which is central to that state in Hunterdon County. We, at the time lived in Gladston, NJ, which was only a few miles from his office and home. Needless to say he became our family dentist and remained so until to his retirement. Since the beginning just about every tooth in my mouth has fallen out, but I don't think he had much to do with that.
The two of us roamed around hunting most of the farms around his home in Bissel, NJ, and became members of the Black River Road and Gun Club in Pottersville, NJ. My late father in law introduced us to the club and we were subsequently offered membership. The club maintained a couple hundred acres of prime hunting land and over two miles of one of the most pristine trout streams in the state. It was one of the few streams in New Jersey which still has a natural spawn of brook trout. Abe and I would each go on to preside over the club some years later. It was on this water that we each honed our fly fishing skills.
Abe is the consummate fly fisherman. He has wetted a fly in some of the most famous streams from the Yellowstone to New Zealand.
The lake property and house in New Hampshire was owned by his grandmother, Louise Strubin. With her passing, Abe's father, Frank Bell, Sr. and sister owned the place. Finally, as in most families, the property went to the offspring, Abe and his sister, and now to their children. The property was some hundred acres of deep woods and probably 200-300 yards of shore line.
Nicknames have stuck since high school but some more important ones added on our trips north. "Boat Ride" stems from the fact that Abe owned the boats and drove them most of the time. But when we did'nt catch fish, he lost the title of captain and became simply "Boat Ride". All the nicknames are used in a friendly derogatory manner, I might add.
He was then labled as driving the tour bus and not performing his duties of guide. It's tough living with our crowd. If you perform, you are one thing and if you don't, your another. I think you will discover that there is no such thing as a winning hand in this group.
"The House Magpie" on the left and our host, "Boat Ride" on the right.
In his role as "Captain", he generally calls the shots are regards the rules of fishing and our daily pool. He is downright scornful of;
1.) an extra rod in the boat---called a boat rod and that absolutely does not count in the pool.
2). All lures must be predominately single or tandem hooks tied with feathers----metal lures do not count.
3) And lake trout do not count in the pool Bill! Hell, we can't even convince him to allow Rainbow trout in the pool.
4) And don't even talk to me about bait!
John, "Green", or the "House Magpie"
John, AKA John Greenfield, was Abe's room mate at Penn Dental. Yep another dentist! A very nice guy who started out using a spinning rod and a plastic lure called a "Rapala".
Now remember the rest of us are purists. That is, when angles for trout or salmon, nothing rises to the level of a well tied artificial fly, on a leader, on a fly line, cast or held by a fly rod and reel. So one of Abe's best friends shows up with a "Wall Mart" spinning rod and reel, and a "Rapala". A "Rapala"! A Rapala is a plastic thing made to swim just under the surface of the water and imitate a three or four inch minnow. The thing has two or three treble hooks hanging. I think in his second year he showed up with a "Wall Mart" (green fiberglass I think) fly rod. He now became a full member of the club.....but. He insisted upon using a huge ghastly yellow fly called a "Barns Special". This fly is meant to imitate a young perch, which is about the fifth most tasty bait on a salmon's shopping list. It is designed to catch fishermen at the tackle store. The rest of us use flies that approximate the most prevalent fish in the lake and number one on the shopping list, a smelt. To the best of my knowledge, he has used that fly on every trip for forty years.
Over the years, John began to get the message and changed his ways to include other fly patterns such as the Red Grey Ghost. That fly has caught more salmon on our trip than any other single fly. So John went from trip goat in the early years pretty consistently to only a modest goat in our later years. Don't get me wrong. We all have been goats. Your humble writer himself being one for a solid two and half years. There is nothing wrong with that other than it is painful as hell when it happens. And the "Friends" make sure the pain is real.
"Green" shows how to troll a Rapala on a green Wall Mart fly rod
John is of the opinion that the slower one plays poker, the better or more successful he will be. He also holds his cards tightly and very, very slowly opens the hand one card at a time. He does succeed in driving the other players from the table to do some minor chore or other and be back in time for him to bet. His success is also inversely proportionate to the amount of adult beverages consumed. Or course that could be said of any of us at the table, although two of us went through AA along the way and are still sober. The title of "House Magpie" was they result of way too much Vodka one night. He got very talkative and played his cards a lot faster as a result. That trip does test one's resolve.
John is also the only one to suffer a heart attack while on the trip. He felt ill, but was not diagnosed until he returned home. Thank God. He is in good company though as one of us has had a blood clot, another a stint in the chest, and the third a triple or quad by-pass. None of which are good enough excuse to miss a fishing trip, but amazingly we are all still on the green side of the dirt. I mean if you can't physically fish, you can at least drive the boat.
Bill, "Willy the Cape", or the "Bead Merchant"
As in any group of men who at seventy something years, and still consider themselves to be in high school, nicknames have a tendency to stick. Bill's is no exception and his refers to his physical appearance to a chicken or capon. I think this name, not the least humorous to the reader, was probably created back when copious amounts of adult beverages consumed by the group.
"Willey the Cape" displays his professional angling style.
Bill lived in Hunterdon County, NJ and was introduced to me by another member of the group a few years after our first trip north. He ran a Christmas shop in Hunterdon County, just outside of Oldwick. The shop sold all sorts of decorations including beads and hence the "Bead Merchant" moniker.
Bill is a tad bit older than the rest of us, has had a couple of wives but is the last one would think of when one conjured up the dashing, Hollywood, concept of a ladies man. But, who knew! He is a consummate fisherman with almost as much experience in salt water as fresh. Bill loves to analyze why the fish are biting or not biting, which drives the rest of us nuts.
Consider this.
A backwoods cabin, deep in the New Hampshire woods, six men all sleeping in sleeping bags, in their long underwear (for at least three days), and Bill has to have sheets on his bed. Pajamas and bathrobe with slippers. That's Bill.
This is the man who never learned, in some forty two years, how to play poker! We would have to explain the rules with each deal, each year! If anyone could bluff at our card table and win, it would be he! We play nickel, dime, quarter, dealer's choice......All the time! If the ante is a nickel or dime, top bet is a quarter. We don't look to make money at this game, just have fun. If Bill bets a quarter....everyone folds. Everyone. He never bets, let alone raises. He could have a royal flush and still bet only a nickel. But that's bill.
He has had more real and imaginary physical problems up there than anyone. Too cold was his excuse for not fishing. His hands would get too cold. Or his feet. The rest of us would just layer up and not complain. Poor circulation I guess.
One of his wives tried to keep his diet on the straight and narrow (this is not the place to do that) and put him on a low cholesterol regime. He showed up at the lake one year with a dinner comprised of a turkey sausage dish. Abe, upon seeing what he was expected to eat, reacted at the top of his lungs in the way only one of us could. "Cape, what is this ....? Insert any crass term referring to excrement. I have to admit it was pretty bad, but we never went hungry.
Three guys would bring a dinner, one breakfasts, and one lunch materials. One night we ate leftovers. Needless to say there is enough cholesterol to stop up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels combined. One year every one of the dinner people brought the same green vegetable.......Canned pees. We ate those things all week long!
And who of us could forget the call from the bathroom to the one who was making a run to town for something (Probably more beer). It is a call that compares in the north woods to that of a lonely loon. You know that long sound one hears during the night from over a calm water surrounded by echo. Plaintive, pleading as only an old horny bird can make, in the still of the night, when looking for his mate. "Don't forget Feenamint!"
Paul, "Pauley", "Fuzz", DC or "Dumb Cop"
Not such a dumb cop when he was working. He became one of the three or four NJ State Policemen to become Captain. But to us he will always affectionately be the "The Dumb Cop". Paul lived across the street from "Boat Ride" in Bissel, NJ. He has been part of the NJ crowd for years. The town where they lived was nothing more than three roads coming together, but they were the prominent citizens. Like the rest of us they were always sawing and cutting wood for wood stoves in the winter, growing vegetables in a garden, and raising animals which eventually made it to the freezers. Real, gentrified, country folk. I think he in fact, was the one to find one of the "Capes" wives in Abe's swimming pool naked with a local judge. But we are not completely sure of all of those facts.
Paul's a big guy and in fact once at the lake picked me up in his arms and dumped me unceremoniously in the lake. Ahhhh, the good old days and an abundance of beer and scotch.
Deal Pauley
Paul is at the end of the breakfast, lunch, dinner, and poker table. He is probably the most avid poker enthusiast in the group. No naps....."Let's just turn a few!" I think that quote has been uttered a thousand time by him. He caught on to fly fishing rather early after hanging out with Abe and I, and also took up golf. In my opinion golf is down there, as a sport, right next to "Bait" fishing. But we have three in the group who do it all the time and are fairly good. This photo also reminds me that most of us smoked at one time or another. This photo was taken back,,,I say back,,,,,when we were younger and thought we would live forever. Today. the only ones who do smoke do so only on this trip. I cannot understand that at all, having been a two pack a day guy myself long ago. That is also not a milk carton on the table....probably Cheez-its or some other health food.
Paul is probably the one of the men most easily teased. He takes it so well, but only up to a point. Which is the point. Caught one yet Pauley? Here smell my hands. This is what we're up here for. Or perhaps it was the night at the card game when Paul so annoyed his host that Abe took Paul's watch and threw it against the wall. Took a couple of days for everybody to get over that one. But still remembered.
The one good thing about having him along on the trip was because he was a cop. That meant we could drive at just about any speed we wished. If stopped....."Paul get your badge out"! One trip somewhere along the highway in Massachusetts, the gumball machine behind us went off and the trooper pulled us over. His immediate commend to us, instead of license and registration please, was "You guys look like a bunch of cops going on a fishing trip". Honestly, that was the opening line. Paul flashed his badge and we sat and talked about the NJ State Police Picnic for fifteen minutes. He never once commented about our speeding. Good to know people in high places.
He also gave each one of us his business card. Said to use it as a get out of jail free card if ever pulled over. I tried it once in Maryland and the trooper asked me for my badge. I told him to forget it as he probably never got the memo. I guess he was too young to understand reciprocity.
Pauley is probably one of the hardest workers when it came time for "Chores". On certain years we had to do such things as a group as chop firewood, paint the porch, or build an outdoor shower.
DC is on the left with the St. Pauley Girl non-alcoholic beer. Abe's too sons are center and rear center. Green left middle and the Cape middle right. I took the photo and Boat Ride is on the right with the evening or noon cocktail. Not pertinent. We are not a bad crew. Please notice the fact that the right wall of the newly constructed shower is parallel with the door. This is an extremely modern convenience as proven by the hook upon which to hang one's underwear. Perhaps a towel.
Dave, "Davey", or "Tumbler"
"Tumbler" lived in Hunterdon County NJ, and like most of us was a country gentleman. He lived in a completely renovated old field stone barn, which was an incredible treat just to see. He was a later addition to the crowd, but was one of the most creative people I have ever met. His vocation was basically in New York, as was mine, which meant a two hour commute each way. We lived at the end of the train line so it made no difference if we overslept going either way. To this day I will never forget those old seats on the Erie Lackawana line with a bar car thick with smoke. From the outside that car looked like it had window shades, so thick the smoke. There was always a card game where hundreds of dollars changed hands each night.
Again nicknames stick. This one came from a night of sipping wine. Well, it's a little hard to justify sipping when one uses a tumbler to drink his wine. Generally somebody has a little too much fun and earns some kind of recognition. In this case the quote is "Hey Davey, want another tumbler?" And of course the nickname. It is all so much more descriptive than Dave.
This man in another of one of the most consumate fishermen in the group. One year he tied his own flies because he felt that the comercial ones were too full or bushey. Smelt are slim or svelt fish, not fat little chums. Hence the tied an bunch of flies which we all used for a number of years and had amazing success.
Please ignore the ant in the photo, but afterall I am a nature photographer. The top fly is one of the five or so patterns Davey tied and we are still using some years later. The bottom is the famed "Red Grey Ghost" pattern tied by Jim Warner of Wolfeboro, NH. These Warner flies are classic and renouned all over New England. Dave's flies, while not as well known, are certainly just as effective.
Dave was also the owner of Miss Saigon, a Ducker boat he carried on the top of the car from Georgia to New Hampshire many years.
This is a blog entry I wrote upon the listing of the boat for sale
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Au revoir Miss Siagon!
As most of my more intelligent and informed readers are aware, I travel to New Hampshire each spring fishing with a bunch of cronies who have been doing this for to 42 years.
If your not aware of that or don't fit into one of the two categories above.....you need to follow me more closely!
My friend from Hilton Head has for years carried his boat from Hilton Head to Wolfeboro, NH (2131 miles) and used it as his personal fishing craft.
The images here show the last voyage, 2008, of "Miss Siagon".
She is an antique and for sale.
Here is the proof of the boat's effectiveness in a photo entitled "Rainbow over Miss Saigon"
You cannot pass on this investment opportunity! Well, you can but I can't keep my used car salesman attitude hidden for that long!
The Boat
1. 3136 Ducker’s were produced
2. Built from 1947-1969
3. This one is serial number D2427 was built in 1957
4. Ducker D2427 was built by the Alumacraft Corp. in Minneapolis, MN.
She is for sale and any offer over $4000 will greedily be accepted. You also have to pay shipping and of course I have other pertinent photos of said boat. She originally was built as a boat used to hunt waterfowl. Two hunters would venture forth in this thing and because of it's low profile was a pretty good hunting tool. Trust me....two people is crowded. And.....the recoil from one shotgun alone would move the boat three feet on a calm day!
"Tumbler" and I have spent many a day on the water together either, just being quiet and absorbing the nature all around us, or discussing what's going on in the world in which we have absolutely no control. Good company when I can get him off Miss Saigon. He puts more hours in on the water than any of the rest of us and can catch fish. Myself excluded.
One year, when fishing was great but catching slow, he decided that we needed to chum for salmon. Now that is a salt water fishing trick used to lure predator fish to the boat. One chops up smaller fish and throws the mess overboard to form a slick on the top of the water and chunks just under the surface. All year long whenever he made tuna fish for salads or sandwiches, he saved the oil from the can. He must have had a pint of the stuff. They evidently ate a lot of tuna fish! Now you know where I am going with this.
Bear in mind that we "Purists" would never reduce ourselves to such a coarse attractor as "Chuming", but when nothing else works......well who knows. He and I went out in the middle afternoon in "Putt" to do some serious fishing. I don't think that we had caught as many as four legal size salmon all week, it was Friday, and a real morose attitude prevailed within the group. So, we armed ourselves with ample snacks and drinks (this may have been the day he earned the Tumbler name), three flyrods and a spinning rod with (Gasp) metal.
There is a narrow spot between Cow Island and the shore line where we have had a modicum of succcess in the past. Place is called the "Barber's Pole", because the post used to mark the shoal is painted like a barber's pole. I would guess the spot is somewhere around two or three hundred yards wide, a half mile long, and offers depths from a few feet to around 30 or 40. At any rate, the wind generally does not blow too hard in that cut, and a chum slick would stay put instead of blowing up on shore. With all the lines out, Dave pulls out the magical elixir. I could smell it from fifteen feet away. Not good but we were alone and no one would no the difference unless I were to say something. And you know I did.
After a pint of the stuff was dumped on the water, we started to troll around it in reasonably consistent circles. Now for you earstwhile salmon fishers, this is not the silver bullet. We did catch a couple of fish just over the 16 inch legal length. Unbelievable. But the good part was when we once again met the rest at the cocktail table. I of course had to tell the rest what he did and we spent an hour or two discussing the legalities of chumming up a landlocked salmon. The end result was that neither fish counted in the pool which had, because of our lack of luck all week, had grown to substantial levels. Too bad because I would have shared some of that cash. We have a first, biggest, most pool each day for two dollars each. Hence it is six bucks per man and one fish can be as much as thirty dollars per day to the catcher of same.
Skip, "Willy", myself
This is the tough one. How does one write about oneself. With humor? Autobiographically? With tongue in cheek? In all seriousness? In something akin to reverance?
Yes.
As I have stated here before, Abe and I go back to high school. You know when the wagons were still crossing the country. Or at least it seems. We have hunted together. Dated together. Played pool together (his parents bought him a pool table). And of course fished together. Well live near enough that we could see each other weekly either in school or in young adulthood. We both married girls named Sue. He had two sons and I a daughter and son. Grand children now. He is still married but I messed it up and am divorced. There were not too many years that I did not attend the trip to the Big Lake and when I did not, it was torture.
I am not really sure what the big draw or devotion to that place is for me. I recall my current better half and I visited the lake in off the season and I very nearly quietly came to tears. Why? I am not sure, but it is the memory that place represents. Not just the five days each year or the five very good friends that partake. It basically has been a distinct part of my life for 42 years and represents where I have been in my journey and where I have not been. Everything is connected it seems. I recall having to take vacations just prior to making the annual pilgramage, just to keep the peace. Planning what I would bring in the form of my assigned food chore. In some weeks before the end of April each year, getting the fishing equipment ready. This includes taking each of the tandem streamer flies out and passing them through steam from the tea kettle. That steam sets up the feathers like new and they seem to last longer, look fresher, and stir the adrenlin. My steam is this visit to New Hampshire each spring.
I am still astonished that after all these years all six of us are still alive. When I was in my mid twenties or early thirties, and in my quiet times, all alone, I just hoped to live to the age of forty. Now I want to live to a hundred so that I can act the way people think appropriate for an old man like me. "Oh well, look at his age. What do you expect".... age. Only the good Lord knows how much I or the other five have left, but I can say this.......life has been richer, more interesting, and a lot more fun with those guys and that trip.
As I am generally behind the camera, this is one of the few images in my files in which I am a member. From left to right......Tumbler, Boat Ride, the House Magpie, Willy, Willy the Cape, and Pauley. The unholy six. I repeat, now you know where they get all those stern portraits from at the "Cracker Barrell".
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