On a recent mid-November afternoon, I was the only person on the pond aside from a paddleboarder barely visible in the distance. A week after election day, it was sunny and close to 70 degrees with a southwest wind strong enough to send oak leaves spinning erratically over the water’s surface. Much to the delight of Gull Pond’s more experienced trout, an occasional beetle, flying ant, or moth was also blown in off the tall trees along the pond’s steep slopes.
It was going to be one of those precious warm fall days. The signs of fish were promising. I heard the distinct splash of a rising trout — always a good sign. The slanting late afternoon sunlight revealed airborne insects dancing over the pond. In the calm, I saw the best omen of all: restless surface riffles made by large schools of two-inch herring fry swimming in the shallows. I saw in their nervousness the possibility that the school was being stalked by predatory trout on the other side of the decaying reed beds.
Fishermen are motivated by many different needs and passions. One day the inspiration might be a simple search for food. Another outing might be fueled by a need for the adventure and thrill of catching a big fish. On this day, my fishing goal was an escape from a post-election case of what psychologists refer to as “intolerance of uncertainty.” I was suffering from anxiety triggered by the looming unknown.
Success on such a day would not be measured in numbers of fish but by experiencing the calming normalcy of casting a line in one of Wellfleet’s most peaceful places. I needed to rest my psyche, not inflame it. There was no excitement or hunger in my body, only an overpowering need for an hour or two of news-free solitude.
I stepped in the water at one of my favorite spots, a well-worn strip of sand that runs through a particularly muddy section of the pond. It’s a path formed over many summers by a nearby cottage owner retrieving his Sunfish sailboat from its mooring.
After a few casts, a fish rose just beyond my range. I marveled at how much it seemed to reveal in its split second in the air. I knew from the size of its splash that it was a big fish and, from the flash of red, that it was a holdover rainbow trout. Prized over recently stocked fish for their size, coloring, and feistiness, these fish also boast culinary superiority. I smiled for the first time in days.
I have immense respect for holdover trout. Not only have they avoided capture from countless fishermen’s casts each season, but they’ve also learned how to survive long winters when food is scarce. In the summer, lack of oxygen exiles these fish to the cooler, more oxygenated, but virtually foodless depths. Survival is hard work for all creatures, I thought, losing my smile as I wondered how my body and spirit would survive the next four years. I took another cast.
The far shore was now bathed in the mellow golden light that in summer marks the cocktail hour. I swept my eyes around the sky just above the treetops, scanning for the pair of bald eagles that have frequented Gull Pond for the past two falls. The eagles must be moving to Canada, I thought. Or maybe even to Portugal. The encroaching gloom vanished, courtesy of the raucous honking of four Canada geese. Their boisterous voices echoed across the pond as they flew into the sky, forming a long loop over the water on their way south.
I continued casting in the general direction of the rising rainbow. A few steady minutes of fly-fishing later, my overoptimistic hope for a strike was replaced by the calm that comes from the repetitive act of casting.
I’ve been fly-casting long enough that I don’t have to think about the mechanics of it anymore. I began watching the graceful, flowing loops of fishing line above my head. They seemed to exist apart from any effort on my part. Suddenly, two mosquitoes landed on my hand and others were at my neck. Waist-deep in this familiar pond, I felt like a stranger in my own back yard. In what Cape Cod reality do mosquitoes swarm in mid-November?
I wound up my line and took a step toward shore. The water was simmering again with herring fry. Just six months earlier, I had stood in my waders in this same place, watching these herring’s forebears school and froth in their mating antics. Four years from now, it occurred to me, these same herring will return to Gull Pond to lay the eggs of a new generation. The pond, the herring, and nature itself are moving ahead without regard to our political turmoil. Like the trout, the herring are survivors and have been for millennia. In their close company, I could believe I was a survivor as well.
Out of instinct, I looked back once more to make sure I wasn’t missing a lurking holdover trout. Then I waded back to what was, once again, a recognizable shore.
