Blood Knots
This summer, I drove out of Queens to Phoenicia, New York, an upstate-ish town not far from Woodstock. I woke with a Saturday hangover—not uncommon these past twenty years and an absolute prerequisite for those who get into fishing in the first place—and made a quick decision to rent a car to drive up to the Catskills for some fly fishing. This would be my first fishing trip without Andy, my usual fishing partner. Normally, I was rather afraid to fish on my own, what with the possibility of snakes, bears, and mountain lions (and alligators here in Florida) on the prowl.
I reserved a car online and gathered my gear: rod, reel, a handful of dry flies, rubber legs, nymphs, tippet, extra leader, and tennis shoes for wading. I only had a few hours between me and the river. Fly fishing had proven to be the only cure for too much booze the night before. I’m not sure if it’s the fresh air, the concentration required to follow a dry fly down a dead drift, or the occasional frustration that comes with tying a blood knot with a rod tucked under your arm.
When I pulled out of Enterprise, I realized I hadn’t driven in nearly six months and was about to embark on a three hour trip which first required getting out of Queens, then Manhattan, over a bridge or two, all with an under-slept and boozey head. I had no water, no coffee, no bluetooth for music or a podcast and the rain had just begun. I placed my hands on 10 and 2 and drove as straight as I could. Luckily, I made it in one piece and was so dehydrated that it wasn’t even necessary to stop for a piss. After a few hours, I pulled into a parking lot and entered the Esopus Creel Fly Shop in Phoenicia. The rain had temporarily stopped.
Typically, my fishing partner Andy would ask the majority of questions in the fly shop: where to go, what flies to use, where to get a good sandwich in the area—he had us covered. I was on my own though. The fly shop owner sold me a few Sulphur Parachutes, Bead Head Princes, Rusty Spinners and Yellow Sally’s—none of which I knew how to properly use—and I was on my way.
Next door was the Woodstock Brewing Company. It was just after noon so I popped in for a pint, bought my New York fishing license online while sipping an IPA, and for the first time, read a fishing report for Esopus Creek. I had always relied on guides to tell us the conditions of the water and the types of flies trout might go after. Fishing reports always seemed a bit too technical for me with their water flow data, hatch identifications, and imitation fly names. None of it meant anything to me. I had just wanted to get out there on the water and cast with the hopeful possibility of catching something, anything.
Mom in the 60’s.
Before leaving for the river, I texted my mother to tell her that I had arrived in Phoenicia. She had told me that when she was young, she spent summers in the area, that a family cabin at some point had existed not far from where I was going fishing. Her mother, my grandmother, supposedly used to stand in Esopus Creek and catch fish with her bare hands. My Aunt Donna had even watched her do it. She texted me photos of herself in the 60’s and then more, two decades later when my brother and I were young, playing up at Hunter Mountain nearby. There was an unidentifiable form of nostalgia that was coloring my current state, experiences I had previously had, although, I couldn’t recall anything I had seen and yet, here I was, somehow seeing it again. Or maybe it was just the beer. In either case, as I drove out towards the river, I was feeling naked, partner-less, fishing solo for the first time and hopefully the last time. The photos of my brother and I reminded me just how dependent I have been on a playmate all these years. I quietly sang Brothers from Emmet Otter’s Jug-band Christmas…
How much alike we are
Perhaps we're long lost brothers
We even think the same
You know there may be others
We can always use a friend
This family just keeps growing
This family doesn't have to end
BROTHERS!
Emmet Otter's Jug-band Christmas
Me on the left and Chris on the right.
I arrived to a quiet spot on the river behind Emerson Resort where I could comfortably tie knots alone until a local drunk showed up and asked me if I caught any fish. I said I hadn’t and he told me I should go up the street where there was a hot dog stand. And if I was hungry, I should get myself a chili dog, he had just had one himself. I had scouted out this area before on Google maps because there was a Zen monastery on the other side of the river called Zen Mountain Monastery in the hamlet of Mount Tremper. I had looked up retreats in the past but eventually, decided that Zen was no longer for me, what with its corrupt past of abusive teachers and silly rules. A chili dog now sounded preferable.
I drove down towards the hot dog stand but decided to keep going since I didn’t want to run into the drunk again. He reminded me too much of myself in twenty years. I drove through the town center and found a place to park down the street from the monastery. I fished the river on the north side, however, by the time I got out on the water, the storm was intensifying. Heavy clouds were moving in over the river. I stood in the middle of the water up to my waist with a bottle of beer stuck between two rocks nearby and a rod under my arm while I tied a double surgeon’s knot, the same knot I was told not to tie to connect leader to tippet: “You want a blood knot here, it’s straighter.” But on the river when the wind is kicking up, you tie what you can.
I fished for almost an hour but had no luck. I met two older anglers on my way back to the road, one who was an author, Mitch Keller, who recently wrote East Branch: Six Years on a Catskill Trout Stream. Mitch informed me that fly fishing in America had begun nearby on Beaver Kill River and Willowemoc Creek, about an hour west and gave me a few nymphs to try out and politely invited me to join them over the weekend which I politely declined. “Better get yourself a rain jacket at least,” Mitch warned me.
Rain jacket or not, the weekend passed without catching a damn thing. I even extended the trip by an extra two days. John Gierach, author of Trout Bum had advised that “the solution to any problem—work, love, money, whatever—is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be.” I was attempting to escape a lonely apartment back in the city only to discover that now, once again, I was staying in a musty and dreadfully quiet lodge up the street called Phoenicia Lodge. Every evening on the early side, I made my way back after a lonely steak dinner and a beer and was up early for a lonely breakfast.
The rain came and went and I continued to fish and causally search for locations that my mother might have gone to. The photos she sent all looked so solitary and strangely, I had assumed she was alone, that she must have been a recluse like I was. But I realized eventually that there must have been someone to take the photographs.
When it was time to return to the city, I drove out on Mount Tremper-Phoenicia Road, past the sign for the Zen Mountain Monastery, which was partially hidden behind a dense thicket and I shuddered, thinking of the constraints enforced by the community. But then the New York apartment that I was returning to came to mind, a place I had considered to be entirely lonesome. “Better to join in with humanity than to set ourselves apart,” Pema Chödrön, American Tibetan Buddhist had said.
The inaccuracy of my perception was that the city and even now Phoenicia, seemed overwhelmingly solitary, however, it was me who chose to set myself apart. Driving out along Esopus Creek, I remembered Mitch who invited me to fish, the drunk who may have wanted to split a chili dog, the friendly fly shop owner, and even the amiable bartenders at the pub, all the characters I met who made the weekend a little less lonely. I made my way to the highway, detached from my surroundings thinking of Pema and the blood knot, which joins two sections of fishing line together to maintain each line’s inherent strength.
