Fishing in the Ruins

The Estabrook Impoundment is a serpentine winding dam of Lannon stone about 10 feet high on the Milwaukee River. In the wasteland that is the outflow, old tires and cans litter the riverbed. The DNR has done studies of the soils above the impoundment revealing extremely elevated levels of PCB's and an advisory not to touch the mud in the river is in effect. The chinooks have been piling up in the holes below the dam. A couple of weeks ago, Stryder and I flogged the holes and landed a couple of stout steelhead. And today, M and I waded out into the flow and played mouth hockey with the Kings. And in the ruins, men of all races tap into the plenty, sharing flies and jokes. This is how it must be, I suppose, fishing in the ruins of industrial civilization. Hooking into freight trains, holding tight lines and singing reels--but don't touch or eat the gift, poisoned as it were, by the all too efficient manipulation of molecules for the benefit of man and the destruction of his ancient quarry. Life in a fouled nest, a "poisoned chalice" from which we must be careful not to taste. The gift of the salmon, what long sustained us in the dark fall days, now a kind of eery death pall over us all. Let the fly drift, raise the rod, and roll cast the rig up into the head of the flow. There is nothing else that we can do. Hardwired for the gift, a kind of preternatural signature wrecked by the messy scribbling of man--or of men--who could not stand to be all and only what we are in our essential nature. Oh, ye men of chemistry and labs, would that you never would have been! Go back to your shopping malls and suburbs and just plain fuck off! You should be ashamed of what you did for a 401k and a few dollars more.