It was the finale of a wild rivers adventure on the south coast and alongside my buddy, Jed, we slinked through some of the continent’s oldest trees. We weren’t in any rush, transfixed in one of nature’s great cathedrals that had refused to succumb to the ice 10,000 years ago. Sure, there had been some pretty women to ogle during our brief time in Santiago, but being relative gentlemen, Jed and I had never rubbernecked like this before. We had ample time to soak in the forest and could wait for the steelhead for a few more minutes. We’d traveled a thousand miles in hopes of intercepting their obsequious nature, to feed them flies finished with sharptail grouse feathers from the old buffalo grounds in Montana. Our odds were slim. But that was hardly the point, and I knew my friend was well engrossed in the same energy that was upon me now, or perhaps, he was way ahead of the game, as usual.
We clunked down the narrow road, barely clearing the Sequoias in a rented U-Haul, which actually made a pretty good case for a poor man’s RV. There was a cot setup in the back for changing costumes and keeping our shit secure from nobody that would steal it, and today we were intent on swinging flies, and for the fence, on the lower river. There wasn’t much conversation to be had as I pieced together what little I had learned about this stretch of water. There were four definitive sections of holding water that had been explained to me, and I’d had occasion to fish here a few days back. As usual, I’d learned what not to do and now had just enough information to be really confused; that’s the beauty of steelhead angling, or permit fishing, or elk hunting, or whatever outdoor challenge floats your boat.
Driving downstream on river left, I stared past the tip of my friend’s beak and watched a drift boat slide in to back-troll one of the juiciest pieces of water. I knew very little about the run, but I knew I liked it, and the amount of attention that the locals were presently paying to it affirmed my suspicion.
Jed saw him first, and I countered his quick intense reaction, refocusing my attention to the left side of the road where an old hippy manifested out of the woods and approached us, close enough to make his statement clear. “We’wha. River people. ’96!” Jed and I exchanged dumbfounded glances and continued down the road to Stout Grove.
I first met Jed on Montana’s Smith River when we were both hired as baggers for a multi-day fishing trip. He was taller than my 6’ 2” by a good piece and his gorilla arms reached to his ankles. Running gear had always been my favorite job on the river, and though my colleague on this adventure sure looked capable, despite being rather out of shape, I was in my early 30’s and assumed I might school him in the finer points of boatmanship. “Rowing is not all about power, it’s about finesse,” I mused internally as we shoved off. We left the boat ramp at the same time and never again would I be within a river turn of him. I was amazed, what with my sculling background and years on tumultuous Oregon rivers working with guys named “Marty” and “Rodger”, who built their own knives and arrows and could hold that mighty flow back with a few back strokes. Moving to the relative tranquility of Montana, I figured I would be the stroke oar, moving tonnage down-basin. Montana is a big pond, lil’ guppy.
Jed and I became fast friends on that trip, resorting to an old primate tongue once the angling clients had concluded that we were basically Cro Mag, and should be treated as such, Jed’s Masters Degree and my nimble Associates aside. We crushed the guest’s white wine spritzers when they weren’t looking and spilled their overrated Cuervo 1800 down our gullets. Jed beat up on big browns in the camp water and by day four, I knew I had met someone of premium character-humble hilarious, irreverent, genuine, and kind, all the factors I admire in an angler. I would come to find out later that he had been a next-level athlete and I never really had a chance of keeping up with him in the first place.
Jed has had occasion to fish cool places, and I s’pose I have too, and as we stepped into the lower river with the redwoods shattering the light, sure as shit, that same odd bird that I had seen a few days prior well up-country lit in the tree across from us. I took the low part of the run, as it was deep and slow and I had a ‘Zellman’s Tendonitis’ tied on for dredging the depths. The skill-player above me fished the riffle-stuff and by the time we were both done, Jed took the words from my mouth-“This might be the coolest place I’ve ever fished.”
I pointed the bird out to Jed, who feigned interest, but I could tell he was in the zone and his primary focus was on the water-the space between a Sports Psychologist and an Audio Technician (we are always listening).
We finished the pool, regrouped, and slipped back into the ghostly forest, shadows creeping all around us. The vibe was mysterious for sure, but positive, like a good buzz amongst a biker gang.
The next piece of holding water was several hundred yards long and we agreed to split it in half. I took the bottom portion. I fish faster than Jed, too fast for winter steelhead, surely, but I can’t sit in a treestand for more than an hour either. I found a natural exit at the bottom of the pool, left my camera and water bottle, headed upriver a couple of hundred yards and entered the river. Directly across from me in a massive redwood, I saw that unusual bird again, and from a side profile I confirmed my suspicions that it could be no other raptor than a Crested Caracara. I’d seen them in Argentina. This individual was a full 10 degrees of Latitude north of its home range. I’d heard rumors of unusual numbers of tuna and even wahoo, being caught off the Oregon coastline. The winds of La Nina were shuffling the deck, or, perhaps, the bird was looking for something in particular?
I finished the run, fishless, and exited the river to retrieve my gear. Next to my dry bag was a small stack of wet stones that I’m certain hadn’t been there when I left my stuff. The sky was cloudless and I had not seen anyone on the riverbank? Perplexed, I grabbed my stuff, with my spine tingling and my head on a swivel, I trekked back upstream to join my friend. Reflecting, the name, “We’wha”, seemed to echo throughout this spiritual garden.
We’wha was a leader of the Zuni tribe, a member of both the Badger and the Dogwood people, and a prominent cultural ambassador for all Native Americans. We’wha died in 1896. What I initially took to be the ramblings of a wayward stoner was, in fact, a clue that would unlock a portal into the past.
