Last Cast

“Last cast!” my date called as the tide turned, threatening to leave the skiff stranded on the rocky beach and us with it. Trout fishing on a beautiful, isolated river accessible only at high tide was his idea of a perfect first date—and it was. 

After ten more last casts, we wrestled the heavy skiff across the barnacle-encrusted rocks to the ebbing tidewater and shoved off. It may not have been the typical first date dinner at a fancy restaurant, but fishing, just the two of us, turned into a forty-year romance.

We fished rivers and lakes throughout Alaska, reluctantly sharing the riverbank with hungry bears during salmon season, or finding our string of pike left to cool in the water—stolen, sight unseen, by stealthy martins.

In Mexico, we chased the same school of fleeing tuna as a pod of hungry porpoises, the sea around us churning with the flash and splash of predator and prey.

While trolling for marlin in Panama, wily dolphins stole the bait right off our hooks.

On a clear, sunny day in Belize, our skiff capsized a mile from shore in rough water on our way to fish the reef.

Off Admiralty Island in Alaska, a pod of orcas surrounded our small skiff, their breeching scaring me so badly I bit teeth marks in my rubber rain gear.

Never, in all those years, was the last cast really the last cast, but rather, the prelude to a series of last casts.

In all that time, in all those places, we always, always, ate what we caught. In our early years, we ate tasteless grayling because we couldn’t afford meat. Later, we filled our freezer with salmon, halibut, cod, trout, char, you name it. In New Zealand, we feasted on brown trout roasted over an open fire. In Tahiti, we picnicked on tropical fish we’d speared, washed down with milk from fresh coconuts. In Mexico, we cleaned bonitos and sailfish in the shower of our budget pensione because they were too large for the tiny sink. In nicer hotels, the restaurant chef would happily turn our catch into a scrumptious meal seasoned with cilantro and slices of mango: some for us, some for the other guests.

All this to say, my husband was not a catch-and-release fisherman.

Four decades after that first “last cast,” I checked my husband out of the memory care home and took him on an expensive charter trip to catch steelhead in Idaho; a bid to relive old times, I suppose. On the long drive there, he jabbered incoherently about past fishing exploits and how great a meal of fresh steelhead would taste. At least, I like to think that’s what he said. We spent the night in a nearby hotel, where he obsessively checked and rechecked his tackle box filled with rusty hooks, dented bobbers, and lures collected from around the world: the life-like barbed mouse for fishing in the marsh, lethal eight-inch lures from Mexico, pink and green plastic squid, tiny mosquito flies and ugly horsefly-looking things. Glancing over at his hunched form, I thought of an old pirate rummaging through his treasure chest of jewels, unwilling to part with a single diamond or plastic bauble.

The next morning, we found the charter operator waiting on the banks of the Snake River. Aspen leaves on the riverbank were just beginning to turn gold and the water sparkled as sun burned off the fog. Sunny and cool, it was a perfect day for fishing.

The charter operator coached us on the proper technique for catching steelhead, casting downriver into the riffles and then reeling just fast enough against the current so the heavy lure bumped against the rocky bottom but didn’t snag, or at least not often. My husband either didn’t heed or couldn’t comprehend the advice. He spent the morning casting and reeling, casting and reeling, by rote and muscle memory. He didn’t speak, but seemed happy.

As the day wore on, discouragement set in.

Please, I prayed to the river gods, please let him hook into a fish. It’s been so long; it would mean so much to him. Please, just one steelhead to take back.

I saw when the fish struck his line. The tug on the end of the pole, the zing as the strong fish took line and ran. Twice my husband brought the big fish close to the boat, only to have it spook at the metal hull and bolt, heavy monofilament spooling off the reel at warp speed.

Finally, the guide was able to reach over the side of the boat with his long-handled net and scoop the exhausted fish aboard. 

“Quick, get a picture,” the guide said. “Before I release it.”

“What?” I asked.

“Take a picture,” he said impatiently.

“But why throw it back?” I asked, confused. “It’s over twenty inches.”

“Wild fish have their fins intact,” he said brusquely. “We can only keep hatchery fish with clipped fins.”

My husband stood in the stern, struggling to hold the heavy, slippery fish while I took a quick photo. Then the guide took the fish, leaned over the side of the skiff, and let it go.  

My husband’s eyes, which earlier were the color of a turquoise river on a sunny day, turned dull, like the bright tropical fish whose iridescent scales turn muddy two minutes after being pulled from the water.

There was no announcement, no call for the last cast. My husband just set his pole down and turned his back to the river. After all those years of last casts which weren’t, I wasn’t prepared when this one was.

It’s All Relative

Knowing the importance of always hiking with a buddy, I called around last month to find one. Turns out, Jennifer was busy alphabetizing the spices. Becka had to take her gerbil to the groomers. It was Mary’s turn to host the agoraphobia group.

Then I remembered a gal named Suzi I’d met in April at Becka’s Cinco de Mayo party. Over sushi and chili, she said she was getting tired of ballet and would like to try hiking. I scribbled her phone number on an old bookmark stuck between pages twenty-three and twenty-four of “War and Peace.” I’d taken it to the party to impress Becka’s brainy friend Peter but he never showed up and I never read the book.  Even Becka’s cheap wine proved more entertaining than Tolstoy.

Anyway, Suzi was thrilled at my suggestion we take a hike.

For our first excursion, we hiked Old Baldy. “What a view!” I called down from the summit to encourage her to scramble the last few hundred yards.  “You can see for miles.” On the way home, we stopped so she could buy hiking poles and an ace bandage. 

I decided to reduce the distance on our next hike by going directly down the canyon instead of taking the long way around. Faced with several unexpected—but fun--drops down the dry wash, I showed her how to slide down the sheer rock on her butt.  We completed the hike in record time, but to the detriment of her old and, I must say, rather flimsy shorts. She now wears canvas shorts designed for Army Rangers.

Suzie was thrilled with last week’s hike in the mountains towering above town. The trail was only five miles long—not counting the extra mile or so it took for us to find where we’d parked the car. Who knew all those streets leading to the trailhead looked alike?

It was as hot as a crematory oven inside the car when I finally found the keys in the bottom of my pack and unlocked the door.

 “I keep forgetting to get the air-conditioner fixed,” I said as Suzi fiddled in vain with the knobs. “But never mind. People pay good money to take a sauna at the gym. This one’s free.”

She unrolled the window and guzzled the last of the warm water in the galleon jug she’d taken to carrying after fainting from dehydration on an earlier hike.

I didn’t want Suzie to feel our hikes were getting too strenuous or too expensive. So, I planned today’s hike along a mellow zigzag trail down a dry creek bed, the kind of creek that when you skipped a rock, dust puffed from it. It would only have water in it when it rained. And this was, after all, the desert.

I picked Suzi up in the new rental car the garage had loaned me when I took my own in to get the a/c fixed.  Naturally, they found a few other things they insisted needed replacement—something about an alternator belt and worn-out brakes. Which is exactly why I don’t go to doctors anymore, not since I went to the clinic for a stomach ache and came out of the hospital two days later with my appendix out and a whooping hospital bill.

Suzi and I drove along the highway singing along with the rock and roll blaring from the radio. Well, I was singing. Suzi just kept turning the volume up to the point where it was drowning me out, but I was too polite to say anything. I just sang louder. When the song was over, I glanced over. Suzi had one eye on Google Maps and the other on the dark clouds unexpectedly gathering ahead. 

“I don’t suppose those tennis shoes are waterproof?” I asked nonchalantly as I glanced down at her feet.

“No? Well, never mind. I’m glad you’re using that moleskin I recommended. You’ll hardly notice those blisters.”Not for nothing had I spent twelve years in the Girl Scouts, mostly making paper mâché place mats and lanyards, true. But I did earn the Outdoors Badge after camping all night, well, part of a night, in the leader’s backyard. We missed the opening of the Johnny Carson show but got the badge anyway.

“The turnoff should be around here somewhere. Yep, here it is.” I braked hard and turned right onto a dirt road. The semi-truck behind swerved to pass, horn blaring. “I don’t know why he’s so pissy,” I said, giving him the finger. “There was plenty of room for oncoming traffic on the shoulder.”

Suzi released her death grip on the car’s armrest and retrieved her phone which had fallen on the floor. “I thought you weren’t supposed to take the rental on dirt roads,” she said shakily.

“Oh, a quick run through the car wash and they’ll never know.” I replied airily as the rental car bounced over the gravel and a few larger rocks scrapped the undercarriage.

Five miles later, tired of hearing mostly static, Suzi turned the radio off with what seemed like relief.

“You’ve been here before, right?” she asked.

“Sure. Becka and I hiked the trail only last year. I thought it was better marked. Guess not.”

“How is Becka?” Suzie asked.

“Haven’t seen her in a while,” I shrugged. “Whenever I call, she’s busy scrubbing the shower grout.” The day was cooler than expected, which I told Suzy was a good thing as she wouldn’t have to worry about getting heat stroke like she had before.  Still, she kept casting envious glances at my hiking pants with legs that could be zipped off when the day warmed up. Wearing shorts, even with the car heater blasting, she had goose bumps on her bare legs.

“You said it’d be in the 70’s today,” she commented. “I’m freezing.” I glanced at the newfangled dashboard. 

“It’s already 68.”

“That’s the heater,” she said dryly.

“Never mind. You’ll warm up once we start hiking.”

To take her mind off the smattering of raindrops on the windshield, I asked her to check the temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska, my home town.

She tapped a few keys between bumps. “It’s only 27 degrees! They must be freezing.”“27 degrees? That’s a heat wave up there for February.”

“Brrr!” she gave an exaggerated shiver. Or maybe it wasn’t exaggerated. 

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Is that 27 degrees above zero?”

“What else would it be?”

“Check again.”

“Oh. My. God. There’s a little dash before the number.”

“27 below,” I observed. “Now, that’s cold.”

I parked at the trailhead and we got out of the car. “Always be prepared!” I said cheerfully as I loaned her the nifty poncho I always carried.  Trying to wrap the flapping plastic around her, she looked like a pigeon trying to gain traction in a headwind.

“That’ll keep you warmer,” I said, hoping to sooth her ruffled feathers.She hopped over the water running down the creek bed without answering.

“Wanna do the Bump and Grind trail next week?” I asked when I caught up.

“Sorry,” Suzie said. “I need to schedule a root canal.”

© Lynda Sather

Published in the Central Oregon Writers Guild 2022 Literary Collection.

Available through your local bookstore or Amazon.