A Year on the Swift: Winter
A shivering, distant sun struggles to hoist its corona over a dreary horizon. In contrast to its former self, the beleaguered star is late to its work by several hours, and despite its best efforts, is futilely unable to thaw the deep freeze that months of frost-bitten darkness have sewn into the earth. On the surface of a glassy Swift River whose flows usually run colder than just about anything around, steam rises and is illuminated by whatever rays the fledgling sun can muster. On warmer days, such an hour would usually be already thronging with life. Months earlier, the day’s first insects would’ve already set out on their hasty task to take flight from the water’s surface before giving notice to the brunching predators below. In turn, those predators’ own hunters would have taken to feathered wing hoping to occupy the least conspicuous and most strategic holds from which to mount an ambush. On the river’s banks, many of the surrounding forest’s fur-bearing neighbors would have already succeeded their breakfast quests altogether. But today, like the tardy sun, lethargy is an inescapable reality for the river’s community.
Some hours pass and prop the sun up just high enough to at least make the air tolerable, breathable. While the few river residents who have not opted for hibernation altogether begin to move frozen blood through wings, tails, and fins, the first of the day’s largest competitors set out. The envy of the river, their toasty Toyotas and hot coffees cheat the frozen atmosphere of its objective, but no matter; what the air is somehow incapable of penetrating the water certainly will. While a few may have been out with the sun’s delayed rise, the most experienced of the anglers have taken advantage of a few extra hours of sleep. Their cold-blooded quarry certainly fares better in the wintry gloom than virtually any others, but even the trout meandering in and out of lazy current seams struggle to commit energy towards the day’s first meal. Whether erroneously out early in the dawn’s dim or keenly waiting for the sun, it’s almost certain that anyone looking to ply the river on such a day is anything but casual in their intentions. While so many of their less hardy compadres occupy heated ice shanties or indoor tying benches altogether, this class of hard-headed fools refuse to take nature’s hint.
Yet like the polar bear who’s tasked to hunt sea ice through the winter, their reality is inarguably concrete. For most of the river’s cousin waterways nearby, the winter has accomplished its goal, leaving lifeless blankets of ice in its wake. The other rivers solidify from their shallow margins inward while lakes and ponds are frozen in expanding totality. By the time the season reaches its most frigid echelon, the Swift River—fed from deep water just a few degrees over freezing—very well may be the only pliably open water for countless miles in any direction. The modest group of anglers gathering at the stream’s various accesses have come to not only their best option, but in fact their only option.
For the river’s target trout, choices are not more plentiful. Despite their presence, the small larva of mayfly and caddisfly species lie relatively dormant at the bottom in expectation of their hatches many warmer months in the future. While the soft currents may sparsely dislodge the larger nymphs into feeding lanes here and there, the trout have fallen out of practice in pursuing such forage. For most, survival will demand that these fish collect thousands upon thousands of not just the smallest, but virtually the only winged aquatic insects capable of hatching at such a time: the midges. This fact draws ire from many of the perseverant anglers who’d rather present any number of more exciting, and visible, imitations, but alas, most realize their position as quintessential ‘beggars’ rather than ‘choosers’. So onto featherlight tippets—breakable when looked at the wrong way—go flies that fit ten to a fingernail and are often forgotten in the back of bags the very moment winter relents.
As the morning hours yield to afternoon, the hobbling sun quickly ascends its peak for the short day. The river homes several species of trout, all of whom are definitively cold water-thriving, but it’s the pink-barred rainbows which dominate the coldest months. While stocked many hundreds of miles away from their native range, these fishes’ genetic coding has not forgotten the permafrosted waters of the North Pacific and her tributaries. Their neighbors by no means hibernate but do maintain optimal water temperature ranges well above what the thermometer reads today. Like many fish enduring both the coldest and hottest months, the body’s metabolism slows and with it so does the activity and appetites of the Swift River’s brook and brown trout.
While the aging sun relinquishes the day’s terminal amount of heat, the rainbow trout move into their positions for the afternoon’s feast of necessity. Their goal is simple: occupy holds that require the least amount of energy to sit in while providing the most amount of energy from food in return. Most trout operate with the same objective throughout the year, but it’s even more crucial now when the forage pickings are so limited. Following nature’s suit, the biggest fish with the best defenses entitle themselves to the most advantageous lies, a fact keenly recognized by the anglers moving into casting positions as the day reaches its warmest point.
In kinder seasons on the river, the guesswork for identifying such areas and fish is nominal. Clearer than some of the waters gently lapping Caribbean beaches, finding fish on the Swift is rarely, if ever, a problem. Today, though, the season’s most iconic poster child encrusts almost every inch of the river’s bank in asylum white. As the sun and snow do battle, one of the Swift River’s cruelest realities of winter is laid to bare. A cornea-searing glare seems to envelop the stream’s entire atmosphere, rendering many sighted anglers momentarily blind as even the most premium polarization utterly fails its task. Grassy stretches of the river that otherwise appear to glow with the clarity of an at-home aquarium are rendered almost inky black to the angler’s vision. Even the most hawk-eyed among them squint and crane but in many cases, their efforts are in vain.
The anglers’ only solution is to rely on the literacy of reading the water’s surface; on this river, a task often as maddening as the cause that’s necessitated it. Despite its title, the misnomered Swift is anything but, lazily trickling down the majority of its course before entering more turbulent waters miles downstream. The result is a glassy, blank slate cast across much of the river’s surface that, when compounded with the intensity of the glare, renders even the most gifted of water-readers all but illiterate. The stream’s most experienced anglers rely on vivid memories from more visible days in order to infer the most likely fish holds, but the newer among them find themselves attempting a task as laughably difficult as studying a text penned in invisible ink. The trout below advantageously sit on the detective’s side of the river’s one-way mirror, occupying lies in impossibly subtle areas of current diversity.
Anglers well-versed in the Swift River’s abuses know that the fishes’ advantage on such a day doesn’t stop there. In any season, the stream’s residents are keenly watchful over the small pothole that follows above their heads in an otherwise mirrored subsurface. The refracted window functions as a periscope, allowing each fish an almost circular glimpse into the surface world. Well versed in the many threats presented by their pursuers—be they bipedal, quadrupedal, or winged—all the river’s trout keep a considerable amount of their vision glued on what they can see of the world above. Those keen to prove their fitness for survival don’t wait for a second hair to fall out of place overhead and take flight to safety the very instant an unidentified flying object enters their window, be it composed of living feathers or dead.
For the struggling angler already contending with an almost invisible world, the totaled reality here is plenty enough to draw questions over why one has chosen this over a stiff drink on a warm couch. The only reassurance—if you can call it that—is that many will not be able to see just how many feeding trout are sent running for cover by even the most fractionally misplaced casts. As the afternoon’s debilitating frustration wears on and icy cold begins penetrating even the most thermal layers, some of the anglers retreat home to lick their frost-bitten wounds. For many of those who have flown white flags on preliminary ventures, the Swift River will not enjoy their company again until many warmer weeks and months later.
Whether from knowledge or ignorance, the masochists who remain hunker down and hope for better. The winter day materializes quickly, though, and as the late afternoon hours yield to early evening, the river’s tables begin to turn. The exhausted sun descends but its warmth, however nominal, will remain until the frigid night takes its turn. The effect keeps trout actively feeding in their lanes and—as the light fades behind the trees, shadows fall, and the snow’s glare erodes—for a brief window, the angler who has persevered until now is given their sight back. In the best runs, the alpha rainbow trout sit high in the water’s column feverishly collecting an early dinner, often dangerously unaware of their dissipating advantage.
By now, those who remain have come too far to give in. While the sun’s remnant warmth persists in the water, they brace as the advancing dark is joined by the bitter frost of a winter’s night. For hands and fingers still able to function, the new hour brings with it one of the day’s most punishing trials as the remaining few are constantly forced to pick, and often lick, chunks of ice out of frozen rod guides. Those who are too cold or tired to perform the chore pay dearly as otherwise well executed casts jam in the air and fall violently to the water’s surface. For most in such a circumstance, the day’s only sight window will do little more than to provide the beleaguered angler a brief glimpse at the entire system of formerly active fish now utterly shut down by such mistakes. Despite their hard-fought efforts, the resulting frustration is often unbearable and signals the day’s end.
On this frigid evening, the Swift River’s accesses have emptied but for one, solitary car. Passersby headed towards the warming din of holiday celebrations on the nearby road wonder if the vehicle’s owner is crazy, dead, or both. But with the day’s last ounces of light, the unmovable angler pushes on, pausing to glare at a stunningly large brown trout, one of the river’s most omnipotent forces, sitting on the bottom in a cock-eyed comatose. Its observer decides to chance a cast but is unaware that the massive wintering fish will not feed this evening. The cast lands undetected and as the flies drift on the current towards their target, for a moment it looks as if the stars may align. The great fish is untempted, though, and as the line crosses its lie, the grumpy trout begrudgingly tails off in search of a quieter place to rest. Perhaps on some summer evening our angler will manage to turn the old fish’s head, but this frigid night belongs to the brown trout.
After all the day’s trials, the angler is undeterred. For several bitter days on end, they’ve privileged all available time towards a single objective. While the Swift’s laziness has betrayed them now three evenings in a row, it has also functioned to keep many of the river’s fish relatively stagnant, findable. Further downstream from the river’s most popular stretches where the water grows increasingly deeper and darker, a male rainbow trout of world-class distinction enjoys an ignorant feast where he’s been suppering all week. Between the barren skeletons of trees on the frozen bank above, our guerilla studies his busywork.
With tantalizing consistency, the fish slaloms side to side opening its cavernous, hook-jawed mouth to scoop up indiscriminate numbers of the almost microscopic invertebrates carried on the current. With each interval, the angler gawks as the asylum-white interior of the rainbow’s maw flashes underneath the increasingly dark water. Where it lies, the trout appears to favor feeding to its right, eastward side. Standing off its left on the westward bank, the angler must exercise incredible caution to place the flies where the trout wants to feed without casting line over the fish. The previous night’s crushing surrender came at such a moment.
In the closing moments of the day’s visibility, the strategizing angler identifies a single twig on the opposite bank; it will be used as a crosshair for what will likely be only a single cast. Descending with the silence of a snowflake to the water’s level, all that becomes visible of the fish is the occasional flash of its feeding mouth and platelet-red lateral line. The moment’s tension mounts as the last minutes of light trickle off the clock’s hands. The scene is a sensory symphony—the trusty rod’s soft cork handle wedged firmly in numbing hand; the night’s frigid, clean air heavily breathed then expelled; the waning light’s awestriking gradient cast proudly across the winter sky; of sound, all that can be heard now is the rhythmic pounding of a nervous heart in the throat.
Now twilight, the ready angler checks their rod guides for ice and finds them clear. Rod firmly wielded by the right, the left hand moves to strip the prescribed amount of line off the frozen reel. The angler casts one last, hopeful glimpse at the aiming point and the fading red line swishing from side to side in the darkening water ahead before the line and flies are swept up into the frost-bitten air. The whole system is flung backwards and just narrowly avoids collision with several wooden obstructions. At the loop’s terminus, the angler smoothly accelerates the rod forward towards the target before an abrupt stop. The clock that has so feverishly ticked down the short winter day’s light halts in its infinity. The moment seems permanent, time and space locking the cast to the air in its suspension. The next second is called into existence, though, as the line appears to come crashing back down to earth. The angler winces in expectation of the worst, but the surface barely registers the cast as it effortlessly unrolls over the water. The darkness has erased any sight of the fish just in these brief moments, and all faith is invested in the fact that the presentation landed true to its aim underneath the chosen twig.
The small dry fly carrying the larval imitations below inches downstream. As the flies near pay dirt, the angler struggles to maintain sight through the advancing darkness. When at last they reach what had certainly been the great fish’s feeding lie, they are crushingly motionless. With heart sinking from the throat to the pit of stomach, it seems that it’s all been in vain; that despite its initial appearance, the presentation has undone the opportunity like so many before it on this day. As the rig advances two, now three feet downstream of where the fish had been, the reality becomes inarguable. Moments away from retrieving the cast and at the forth foot down, a barely visible asylum-white flash slices through the water from the upstream to the down. The small dry fly above gives no clues, but nevertheless, the hopeful angler sharply lifts the rod upwards. Near its peak above the angler’s head, its front half bends and contorts forward, grappling with an unknown load of unknown ferocity.
The rod need not wait too eagerly, though, as the answer is concise and immediate. With the ancient rage of its sea-faring ancestors, the metal-headed rainbow trout takes breakneck flight downstream from where he’s just made a critical mistake. With it, the running line at the angler’s feet pours out through a loose hand, the friction providing more warmth than the sun’s combined efforts for the day. While the reel’s drag screams for its life, the river’s glassy surface is violently broken downstream as the fish takes to the air hoping that its predicament will be remedied. The angler drops the rod parallel with the water hoping for just the opposite, and the increased tension just manages to hold the doomed fly firmly in the trout’s bony kype. As the fish porpoises nose down below the surface, its momentum now carries it upstream without skipping a beat. Fighting on the reel, the angler adeptly realizes the mounting problem and desperately strips in as much line as possible while the enraged fish beelines back towards them, his mission to slack the line he just ran out and escape. For a heart stopping second, the angler strips too slow and the tension is broken. Fearing the worst, they keep stripping and at the instant it seems the battle’s been lost, the rod bends back in half and reengages the still-snared animal.
When it hits the tension, the anxious trout takes back to the air only to find the same result delivered from the ready angler. It turns back downstream to attempt the same, is rebuked, then back up. The rainbow battles with every fin and scale of its being, but with each futile attempt, the tides of this war turn increasingly towards the same direction. On one desperate attempt to flee downstream, the angler anticipates its path and drives the rod upstream against the fish’s might. The thin tippet line tethering fish to rod tests but ultimately holds firm. The exhausted trout, out of fuel to power its frantic suicide sprints, does its best to adopt a new escape tactic. It violently rolls at the surface, doing what it can to roll over the line in hopes that it will break.
The fish’s fate is all but sealed, though. While the loaded rod is held above the angler’s head, the rolling trout is dragged closer with each passing second. From its secure position, the angler draws a wide-hooped net and firmly grasps its frozen handle. Craning to see its exact location in the surrounding water, but with the keen sense of only someone who has made it this distance, the patient angler waits until the trout’s frantic rolls bring it into arm’s reach. Without the freedom of a second’s hesitation, the angler courageously drives the net’s hoop into the water where the fish struggles at the surface. Lifting the net up with the desperate hope that it’s completed its task, the rod simultaneously catapults back to straight, jettisoning the winning fly back into the dark air from where it was delivered. Hardly able to confirm jubilant victory or totalizing defeat, several of the day’s most frigid moments trickle by.
When at long last our angler gathers the courage to peer over the net’s rim and into the basket, the night’s royal sky casts its violet brilliance upon a heaving, platelet-red streak of the most brilliant color the mind could ever hope to conjure. With warm tears welling only to freeze on raw cheeks, the angler peers down at their mythical quarry. The great male’s kype snaps and chomps at the net as the tired fish flushes cold, oxygenated water over its recovering gills. Firmly grasping its tail in one palm and wrapping the other under its thigh-width belly, the angler removes the fish from its temporary cell and carefully holds it. The moment’s irony is not lost as the trout is tenderly held in the water after such a howling brawl. At the ethereal end of the punishing day, the winning angler admires in tearful awe as the most heavenly purple falls like gentle snow from the night sky upon the fish’s awesome flank. The iridescence is incomparable; a prize enjoyed only by those who find themselves in such moments.
With each instant, the angler senses the recovering animal’s power return to its bristling molecules. The palm gripping the rainbow’s broomish tail feels the massive fin begin to pump and churn and is loosened ever so slightly, an invitation as good as any to the impatient trout. Close enough to taste its liberty and with a single swoosh of stunning force, the unhesitant fish kicks off from the angler’s reluctant grip. In a moment’s pause, perhaps the powerful predator considers the skill of this hunter who finally won over at its own game. Whatever the reason, the next second begins with a raucous splash and by its end, the unforgettable fish reclaims his invisibility below the now inky-black surface of the Swift River.
Falling backwards from their seat at the river’s edge, the angler’s head rests on the frozen bank, looking up at a starry night sky eroding from violet to black. The fight’s din subsided, the river is silent once again. In the surrounding wood, a hibernating bear snoozes in the cozy snug of a hollowed tree. A neighboring family of field mice cuddle up in the sleepy warmth of their nest dug beneath snow-covered grasses. The calls of formidable winter birds have fallen silent as their owners rest underneath puffy down jackets high in the branches above. Below on the dark banks of the Swift River, a soaking, freezing, and jubilantly victorious angler breathes a relieving sigh and smiles into the frigid, perfect winter’s night.