Into the Fire

Seasons wash over us inexorably and without fail.  Hot August nights slip into the cooler days of September, and we know that bird hunting and football will soon be on the menu.  The ice softens under our feet as we chance one more wary trip for bluegills, the sun making way for April.  During the long drive home from deer camp many of us stave off the soul-crushing depression of returning to the world with thoughts of hunting pheasants and squirrels in the blustery snows of December.  If time is a human construct, it is in that specific moment that I'd like to meet the guy who invented it, and invent him a cuff upside the kisser.

One season remains immortal, however, nearly unchanged by weather, calendar, or the plight of man.  While it can be challenging at times, and it would be occasionally easier to forgo altogether, it is among the most rewarding of all seasons, and therefore must be treated with reverence.  And a good deal of fun.  While we exist in the sweet, juicy core of it right now, in my world, grilling season lasts all year long.

Before we begin, it must be stated that some part of the fascination with grilling stems from the slightest whiff of pyromania that I think inhabits most of us.  Fire enchants us.  There wasn't fire, then there was fire, then we didn't die.  Pretty simple, really.  We stood up, and while our incisors shrank our brain pans grew, we suddenly became capable of mastering it.  A million generations of your ancestors had to not die at the icy hands of hypothermia or the jaws of some fearsome Pleistocene beastie for you to be sitting here reading this, and fire is directly linked to that happening.  The attraction is programmed within us now.

You can still see those roots, at least in my clan, if you look closely enough.  Men stand around meat over flame, congratulating each other on yet another successful hunt.  Entire families stare contentedly into the prism of glowing embers, conversation lost to rising smoke and the knowledge that we are all fed and safe, at least for tonight.

I was staggeringly lucky enough to be born to a father who held a deep and abiding relationship with the fire and grill for nearly all of his life.  A man who let me play hooky to learn how to build bow & drill fires and cook over a Swedish Fire Torch.  A woodsman who made his own fire-starters out of charred cloth, pine pitch, saw dust, and the little paper cups you used to squish your ketchup into at Burger King (my brother and I would swipe them by the pocketful for him).  We heated our houses with fire, cooked over it, and occasionally had father-son races to see who could build a fire from scratch the fastest, the object being to burn through a length of twine strung between two stakes a foot off the ground.  Only one kitchen match per man was allowed before I was old enough run a flint with any competency, and I seldom won either way.

If my obsession with fire was not honed to a razor's edge by a couple eons of heidelbergensis forefathers surviving, it was pounded into me by a progenitor's obsession.  And if he taught me any one thing, it's that you don't touch another man's fire anymore than you'd touch his wife.

  

The fascination with flame well established, we move on to the other appeal of grilling.

I'm a Cheesehead.  Did you honestly think the pic wasn't going to be of brats?

...and in the grilling basket with my beloved veggie friends.  Weirdos.

The way I see it, our grilling scenarios break down nicely into three disparate categories.

Firstly, and most often, you have your Home Game.  This is the sanctuary, the place where you grill most often and feel most comfortable.  Ideally, you grab a beer, linger over the licking flames, poking and prodding until all is sublime with dinner and the world.  You can smoke pretty damn good homemade bacon here too, without even really thinking about it.  All spoken like a dude sans progeny, I know.

In any case, this is the place to relax or let it fly as your mood and situation dictates.  You're free to stretch your legs and give 'er, or keep it spartan and simple.  This is where you're welcome to grill every available foodstuff on the planet without recourse or judgement, or simply char a hot dog.  Your call.  In my case, it's where pizzas, ingredients for dip and soups, desserts and salads also get grilled.  They don't play a big part in the next two testosterone-fueled situations, sadly, but they should.  Pistachio stuffed figs... hello?  Even John Wayne would smile after he tasted those.    

Do whatever you want at home.  You want to do a fresh take on easy old school?  Coarsely ground local chuck and sirloin, formed into an imperfect, squat cylinder, stuffed with stanky Blue or stringent aged Cheddar, and slabbed on a toasted kaiser with spinach and fresh, fire-roasted salsa?  I'm in.  You want to get nuts and stuff a lamb shank with the catnip you mistakenly identified as mint down the road?  I'm still in.  I'll bring a cooler, and run the camera for YouTube.  Home is where the grill is.

Secondly in the grilling universe, we have the Away Game category.  Not an away game for your team, but away from the comfort and ease of the homestead.  I do a fair amount of these for the group, mostly tailgating, and I keep them unabashedly simple.  Badger football at home, under twin buttresses of turning leaves and the magic of a college football Saturday, or the beloved Pack in sheets of driven snow, I have exactly four menus in the playbook, and I rotate them blatantly without regret or shame.  A few big flank steaks, nice and rare, with some grill-marked ciabatta and a short selection of sauces made beforehand at home to complete belly-warming sandwiches... maybe, just maybe, some caramelized onions or roasted peppers if I'm liking the boys that weekend and it isn't too cold for my hands -- that one seems to be the prevailing favorite. 

Our last scenario of the three is the Camping Setup.  There was a time when I would scoff at the very thought of calling drinking beer around a fire in state forest, or even more embarrassingly, yards from the trucks in a state park "camping," but alas, that time has passed.  It seems to be all that we as a group can muster anymore, and even then, not very frequently.  This is where worlds collide on top of the fire.

You have easy access to a cooler, full of all the ingredients you wish to bring, screaming for you to go overboard with the meal plans.  You also have no idea what the physical setup of the fire and/or grilling station will be.  The Furies are tempting you into a dance that will mostly likely end in your terrible demise.

There is an old stainless grill grate with impossibly weak, little fold-out feet in the basement directly below me as I type this.  I won it in a Boy Scout .22 rifle competition as a kid, decades ago, if you can believe that.  It remains in a backpack there strictly for this situation.

Honestly, when I'm heading to a campsite in a park with a cooler and a possibly sketchy grilling setup, I bring dinner prepackaged in little foil pouches.  Toss them in the coals, and be done with it, no grate necessary.  But inevitably, somebody arrives with frozen grocery store patties or chicken breasts, and no idea what to do with them, and that old reliable, apparently invaluable, BSA grill grate saves their evening one more time.

   

Let us conclude with the Manifesto Portion of this post.  This should piss a few people off.

Gas grills are wrong.  An abomination.  An insult to cows and pigs and chickens everywhere.  It is a bold generalization, probably overstated and not always true, but it's how I feel, justifiable or not.  If you fire your dinner over propane, God bless you.  This is not meant as a judgement of your character, though it may be a judgement of your judgement.

I understand the appeal.  All the brushed metal and big fancy knobbery... and you saw that celebrity chef glazing pork chops on one under a lens filter they hadn't used since a Playboy shoot circa 1978.  Cool.  Shelves and sinks and that snappy little piezo-electric start jolting across the millennial abyss from cave painting to garden party in an instant -- I get it.  Gas grills are convenient and fast, relatively clean and easy.  And they taste like it.

I ask that you show me one instance of anyone ever, in the history of the universe, winning a major grilling or barbeque contest on a competitive circuit while using propane.  Post it in the comments if I'm wrong.  I'm wrong all the time.  I have no trouble with that.

Not that such contests are the defining measure of cooking with fire.  I would make a convincing argument that they are, in fact, the stark antithesis of such.  I simply posit that not one competitor has won a nationally recognized competition over strictly gas because we all know the flavor produced is inferior to that produced using charred hardwood chunk.  When the crying's done, we're only talking about flavor here, after all. 

I'm a purist and a bit of a Luddite, I'll admit.  You got me.  That combination lends itself to a touch of zealotry sometimes.  I much prefer the taste of meats (and fruits and veg) off a hot lump charcoal fire, that's all.  If you can't tell the difference, you're not paying attention or you've never been blessed with the chance to try.  And that's a shame.  I won't turn away your gassed food at the graduation party or wine tasting.  I will remain picture of decorum, happy to be amongst friends -- I'm a true believer, not an ass.

Lastly, however you see fit to grill your meal, keep your grates clean.  Just because we're firing like cavemen, doesn't mean we should practice their grill hygiene.

Clarity Through Purpose

Electric green borders the ribbon of flowing hope as it makes its run through humid farm country.  Water wrests through a boulder garden, presenting bubble lines and eddies to the fisherman's eye.  Dappled sun and bugs and the urgent pull of flowing water, all the things that call the fish hunter, converge to create a sense of urgency.  Want and need conspire to quicken things into a hasty, calamitous effort.  A center must be found; a balance between rushing to folly and the knowledge that often, one well-delivered cast will produce more than a series of ill-planned, poorly executed efforts.

I know there are fish in the pillow water guarded by upstream slab limestone or veiled in the muted recesses of the undercut bank, though they do not yet know I have arrived.

There's never a fish peeping out when you jam the camera under a cut bank.

 It will take time and effort to get to them.  It will take experience and knowledge converging to form a plan much like the seams of current and foam.  Decisions need to be made and actions need to be taken to wrangle these fish to hand.  Flailing and stomping about like I've upset a beehive simply won't do.  I must approach quietly, my casts and mends must be true.  Done well, it requires clarity and focus, and can be downright beautiful.  At least when other people do it.

This pause before the action may be the singular defining moment of fly fishing for me.  The fish are exquisite, of course.  I chase smallmouth bass predominately, and when I finally fight a muscled olive tank from coursing water, his burning red eye leaving no doubt that he would continue to fight me above water had he feet or fists, I am dancing as the feet of my Lord, as they say.  But that's all adrenaline and smiles, fist pumping and hooting like a fool.  The pictures are being composed and the backs are being slapped, and it all vanishes so quickly.

The quiet, treasured secret comes in the time before all hell breaks loose, before you're trying to run down the bank to avoid a snag or just holding on and praying.  It's the clarity of purpose.  More precisely, the clarity through purpose.  You're there to catch a fish, all your practice and experience has brought about a confidence and a purity of thought that lets you make a thousand little decisions, and execute them in nearly the blink of an eye.  Autopilot in the best sense of the term, it's a state that comes about precious few other times in life.

While we've set the apex of angling on the catching of that one perfect fish (it is that one thought that keeps most of us going back, after all), there are no real ramifications associated with not doing so.  The goal is there in all its lauded enchantment, but nobody is going to starve, the universe will not cease to expand, if we fail to achieve.  So even with all the pressure and anxiety we place upon ourselves, it's just a damn fish.  There's a joy of freedom in that too.  Take a breath, set your feet, and let 'er rip.

It has taken years and many fish, but I more often look forward to the intensity of the hunt and the purity that it brings now.  The foreplay.  That moment when it all comes together and you somehow know, you can be certain, that a fish will soon come.  You cover water, you cast and wade, until, all at once, through some magic of proprioception and memory, you just know it's going to come together.  The cast unfurls before you, and you can almost see it before it happens.  The fish will be there.

Whether it is simply a trick of the mind that we forget all the times it doesn't happen, or we can actually acquire enough touch, enough clarity, to actually see a memory nanoseconds before it happens, I do not know.

I was a musician in a former life, a horn player with a group that continues to perform on a national stage in front of tens of thousands of fans every year.  It was there, playing with those guys, that I first experienced this pure clarity and righteous confidence that comes with tiny moments of flirting with perfection.  As long as we loved what we were doing, as long as we trusted each other implicitly, that moment would come when the tunnel vision set in, when everything else disappeared and the autopilot kicked in, and there was but one goal to strive for in life.  Deep in the groove.

That moment comes for me in fishing streams and small rivers now.  The relationship between angler and fish has replaced that of the one between musicians and fans.  When it all comes together, when that moment comes and you can feel the fish rising out of the darkness, there is little more pure.

 

Around the Bend

Selma Kayak and I had a hot date this past weekend.  We've been together for quite a while now, and as happens to some couples after half a decade, I'd been somewhat remiss in my relationship duties toward her lately.  It's a good relationship, but we need to set up more regular dates to keep the romance alive.  She'd been nagging me to take her out, so we hit a local stream.  Just the two of us, a little lunch and a couple fishing rods.  River romance rekindled.

I made her a new duck hunting dress last fall, but maintaining relationships, especially with beautiful girls like Selma, requires constant work.

We set out to float a section of a local river that often fishes well for smallmouth bass and channel catfish, with the occasional petulant pike making an appearance, all flash and slashing threat at the side of the boat.  As is our habit on such solo journeys, we paddled upstream for quite a while right from the outset.  We can then take a relaxing lunch break at some point, and float back down to the truck at our leisure.

I know this river well, having fished it in spring for the bass, summer for the kitties, and hunted ducks on it during the fall.  It's a bit of a drive, but I was on my way out of town in that direction anyway.  It was the perfect excuse to sneak in a backwater tryst with my girl.

As we got into the groove with each other, once again, we were able to let go all the stress of weekday life.  Birds sang, sun shone warm and bright, and there was just enough wind to keep things cool.  All was temporarily right with the world.  She travels fairly well against the current, and I don't mind the extra work, so we were having a grand time of it.  The water was a little high and stained, which didn't bode well for the bass fishing, but we didn't care, just content to be out on the water.  She is pretty long and beamy, wide in the hips, if you will (don't tell her I said that!), which isn't the ideal set-up for paddling up a cramped little river in high water, but I'm just barely young and dumb enough to keep on chugging. 

While probably not the best for maneuvering against the current, Selma was designed by Native Watercraft to be exceptionally stable and roomy.  She's the perfect platform from which to stand up and fly cast, almost un-fall-out-able, though I have managed that feat one time through no fault of her's.  A mid-stream boulder and my inattention conspired to dampen my britches on that particular day, as I was attempting to cast, standing up, to rare bronzebacks rising to hatching flies. She really shines with that amazingly comfortable seat on long trips or when it's time to relax and sip a cold beverage on the float back to the truck, using the paddle only as a rudder.

This river gets some boat traffic, but not as much as the more popular ones.  I figured when we first set afloat that we'd encounter a few portages along the way, and I was correct... kinda.  There were more than a few.  In fact, there were a lot.  Kind souls (I can't name the group without giving away the river on the open internet so they will sadly remain nameless here) usually clear the stream of downed trees and other obstacles every spring, but they had apparently not gotten to this section of river yet.  Around seemingly every bend of this twisty, flirty little river, we found blowdowns, wood debris, and the natural detritus that makes a passage somewhat more of a challenge.  It's not much of a hardship to get out of the boat, and drag her over or around a hurdle once or twice, but as the portages begin to pile up in number, the burden begins to grow.

Selma often functions as my taxi as much as anything else.  We paddle or float to a likely looking fishing spot, then, when time and river condition permits, I sometimes exit the boat to wade and fish the riffle or run.  Honey hole fished, I hop back in, and ride down to the next spot, making probing casts as I go.  There's no right or wrong way to fish a river, and this is my habitual mode of covering water.

So I'm used to getting in and out of her, as the fishing and trees barring our way dictate.  It can become a bit of an ordeal when you simply want to get home to dry shoes and a good meal, water and mud splashing into the boat every time you clamber in and out, but that's the way of the river.  If you don't want to get stinky, take up coin collecting, or worse yet, golf.

While she looks great spit-shined and polished, I like her better when she's just a little dirty.

We eventually made our way far enough upstream that I deemed lunch to be in order, knowing full well that I'd have to make all those portages again on the way back down to the parking area.  I noshed on chicken smoked over apple wood at home and grilled asparagus with roasted red pepper coulis.  It had gotten all smushed together in the dry bag, but I didn't care.  Those of us who sometimes take sustenance under a willow with our feet dangling in the river actually look forward to those vaguely colloidal meals, blended together by vest pocket and duffel.

Rested and restored by a fine snack in the shade on an outside bend, a strange thing then happened.  The plan had been to return to the truck, and get on with the responsibilities of the weekend, but of her own volition, and without any input from my paddle, Selma pointed her bow into the current, and once again we made our way upstream.

That's why we're a good match, she and I.  Even when there are things to do and places to be back in the world, we share the same desire to carry on exploring.  It's a draw that I also share with a few good river men in my life.  Any of us that have ever been pulled around the next bend of a river, and the next one after that, know the joy of simply seeking.  We also know the rigors of navigating the last river miles and loading a boat all while shrouded in darkness. 

Truly undiscovered country is no more, at least around here, but it can sometimes feel like you'll be in it if you can just round the next bend.  Visions of Lewis and Clark, of Undaunted Courage, race through your mind, at the same time accompanied by the sobering thought that there's probably a Starbucks within 20 miles, as the mallard flies.

Selma and I continued on for a while, nearly in the paddle strokes of Marquette and Joliet as it happens.  And this is where my many shortcomings as fisherman and duck hunter often rear their ugly, gaping maws on the nearly innumerable babbling gems that braid our state.  I forgot to fish.

Well, not exactly forgot.  More precisely, I was persuaded to choose paddle over rod by the drive to see around the upcoming corner, past the next willow blocking our path.  It happens to me all the time.  I set out on the hunt for that slab smallie lying in wait at the head of the pool or wood ducks careening through the hardwoods, and I simply cannot fight the paddle from my hands.



Soon enough, obligation put an end to our heedless search for the unknown.  People need to eat, after all, and I'm the designated kitchen monkey of the clan, for better or worse.  I gently convinced Selma to pirouette, and carry us back to rubber and tarmac.  We made all the same portages again, water and goop slopping into her resin hull.  I may have cursed once or twice, dragging and grunting her over logs and through the slop, slapping skeeters and wiping sweat, but even the best couples fight occasionally.

We'll continue to explore, Selma and I, sometimes forgoing the gathering of protein for the love of gliding on water.  I have my eye on a another kayak now, one more slight than her stately form and dimensions, more suited to navigating the wee rivulets where I pass a lot of time.  I'll hate to break it to her when we become a triumvirate, but she'll still be my girl when when loads of decoys and camping equipment need to be ferried across open water, or any time the royal ease and comfort of a La-Z-Boy on the water is called for.