Wednesday, May 22, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
Let it run
I took some time off from
working the colt, writing,
and fixing the myriad things
around the Figure 8 that broke
in the last big snowstorm. I
put all that away for a three-
day fishing trip down the
Lower Deschutes. I went with
my friend, neighbor, and leg-
endary guide Steve Erickson,
and an old cop colleague who
has spent much of his adult
life working violent crimes 4
a grueling career that has left
his armor severely dented by
the sword- and axe-blows of
human behavior.
But an early season trip
down the Deschutes, away
from madding humanity,
and away from the keyboard
where I sit long hours and
bleed, can go a long way to
repairing the soul and trans-
fusing the body. We had 36
miles of the river virtually to
ourselves, the weather was
perfect, the canyon grasses
were in an Irish pique, the
eagles, ospreys, sheep, and
beaver were all out and busy
with their lives, and a small
advance party of salmonflies
made a tantalizing appearance.
And we caught a lot of
fish.
Fishing, like horses,
attracts all kinds of people.
I9m usually drawn toward
those folks in either pursuit
who can put their pride aside
and admit they don9t know
everything. That9s hard to do,
particularly as we get older,
but there seems to be some-
thing important about the
willingness to keep asking
questions, and to keep learn-
ing instead of insisting. In
both fly-fishing and horses
it9s probably vital.
And, I think, it9s often
just helpful to have someone
along who knows more than
we do.
Steve Erickson is that
kind of guy. It9s an old saw,
but remains true: Steve has
forgotten more about fishing
than I9ll ever know. I love
fishing with him because he9s
also an intuitive teacher, with
a refined sense of humor, and
that combination of knowl-
edge and skill, and just plain
good-peopleness, that cre-
ates a three-dimensional
experience.
Because, truly, a trip like
this one is always about more
than just fishing. Any bear
can stand in a river and catch
fish. But done well, a great
fishing trip teaches lessons
from etymology to ecology,
from casting and mending to
humility and patience. Which
is to say nothing about lessons
learned in the differing qual-
ity of small-batch bourbons.
Somewhere above Hole
in the Wall I felt that tug that
anglers dream of 4 hard and
fast 4 and fought against
my tendencies to jerk the
rod wildly and in the wrong
direction, and set my hook
in a beautiful Redside. I was
doing everything right, right
up until I wasn9t, too greedy
and too full of impatience to
get that fish in a basket, revel
in my own glory, and pose
for a ridiculous <grip-and-
grin.= And as disaster struck
in slow-motion increments,
from somewhere downstream
I could hear Steve yelling, his
voice echoing off the canyon:
<For the love of God man, let
it run!=
Which, in retrospect, is
really funny. Because of
course I didn9t, and because of
course I lost the fish. But there
was a lesson in there that tran-
scends fishing. It9s important
to let things run. That9s also
true when writing columns
or when training a young
horse 4 always an animal
that learns from the release
of pressure 4 which magi-
cally draws it closer to you.
I think it9s important in
parenting, too. My daughter
graduates from college next
week, and as much as I want
to keep a bend in the rod and
reel like a maniac, I9ve got to
let her run.
Later that night, at Hole in
the Wall, sated on a great day
of fishing and learning, we
walked out into the grass after
dinner to look at the stars.
For just a minute we thought
about renaming the constel-
lations because the ancient
names don9t hold our fasci-
nation the way they did once,
when people all over the
planet lived under a night sky
they could actually see. Then,
the constellations were invig-
orated by origin stories. Now,
we are disconnected from
those tales, and we get excited
if we can see the stars at all.
And we were admiring
that rare view of the stars,
letting our minds run, when
a train came through, scrim-
shawed along its sides by tags
and gang monikers like des-
perate messages from some
off-planet world. The train
came up the tracks out of the
darkness and then followed a
turn in the railway, away from
us and into the canyon, head-
lights washing the canyon
walls and crevices like an old
31
street cop walking down an
alley with a flashlight.
Early on our last day,
Steve rowed us ashore just
downstream from a reek-
ing beaver haul-out. My cop
buddy ended up fishing there.
When it was time to go we
convinced him that whatever
that stink was 4 beaver cas-
toreum or effluvium from the
depths of Hades 4 he was
now wearing it.
He wasn9t, not at all,
but we let the joke run for a
while, until it finally broke
up in laughter. And here was
another gift of simply fish-
ing with friends: It felt great
to watch a great detective, so
often steeped in other peo-
ple9s misery, get reacquainted
with that store of joy we
sometimes bury too long, and
too deep, and to settle into the
drift of the boat and the per-
fect river, and just let it run.
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