One of the reasons why I push myself to go fishing, even if it means losing sleep, making a long drive or missing out on something else, is that nearly every trip results in a story to tell. As a person who makes his living writing about fishing, putting myself in the position to have these experiences is akin to continuing education.
It’s been impossibly windy lately and work has been especially hectic, so it’s been really easy to stay home. Yesterday was another wild wind-fest but right after dinner, the relentless gale fell flat. I took the garbage out and stood in the placid air of last light, everything was silent except the intermittent ‘cukking’ of a robin. I don’t know why, but I knew I had to fish.
It being April and not yet worth my time to fish for stripers, I grabbed my swimbait stick and headed for a favorite lake. It’s one of those places where I already know where I will hook up, but I still try everywhere in between. The truth once again proved itself and I had no fish anywhere except the places where I expected to get them. The best fish of the night was a 3-1/2 pound smallie, the thing leapt repeatedly, like a tarpon.
As I rounded a small corner, exiting the most productive stretch on that shoreline, I snapped back into the mode of ‘keeping things honest’. I looked down the wooded shore and remembered that a single submerged boulder was perched on the corner of a steep drop, a spot that always draws a cast and – oddly enough – almost never produces a strike. I sidestepped to avoid a fallen tree, standing in 40-inches of water I lobbed my homespun wooden rat parallel to the overhanging brush, splashing down about 20 feet beyond the hidden boulder.
The sky was moonless, but I was facing north, so there was enough light pollution from distant towns to depict the same glow, stars and undulating blackness of the woods – in perfection – on the surface. As the rat crawled along, the subtle clacking of its single joint adding a slight rhythm to the night, I heard just the slightest crackle of a disturbance. Just enough to pull my eye from apex of my rat’s wake.
I saw it first in the reflection, something dark speeding silently, straight at me. Startled, my mind wrestled with the task of identifying this upside down image. As the apparition sped closer, the source of the reflection joined its mirror image in the sky as the two rapidly closed in on my bait! In that moment my brain was working with the speed and precision of an elite mathlete, drawing the obvious conclusion that this silent sniper was locked in on my bait which I was connected to and retrieving back to my exact position. In those slowing seconds of panic, I realized that this was an owl and she was going to grab my rat. Furthermore, she was transfixed on her target and had no clue that there was a third participant in her pursuit. The aforementioned mathlete rendered a result, based on the trajectory of the owl and the proximity of the bait, a collision with a large bird, sporting huge talons, a beak made for ripping flesh and carrying a large lure adorned with two sharp trebles, was imminent.
I’m not a screamer, so I whipped my rod down and splashed it, hard, on the water. The owl, not even 24 inches above the surface, appeared to trip in mid-air. She turned 90 degrees with the swiftness of a superhero and landed in a tree not even 25 feet above my head. This all happened within 30 feet of where I stood. She came in like a fighter jet, making her approach from 30 yards away, certain to overwhelm her prey, and with so much confidence, she could do this in the dark and not even moisten a feather. The most striking thing about the whole ordeal was the silence, with the exception of that little rustle at takeoff, if I hadn’t been looking, this story would have had a much scarier ending. How can something moving so quickly, make no sound at all?
In the next moment she took to the air and silently disappeared into the blackness. In that moment, the supposed silence of the dark came alive with all the sounds of the night; peepers, bullfrogs, coyotes, crickets and my barred owl singing lead. “WHO-COOKS-FOR-YOU?” I couldn’t help but wonder if her message had been lost in translation.
