Mysterious Fish

Multitudes of fish dispersed in the depths of the Great Lakes take turns in the streams of their birth.  They ascend in their masses to profligately disgorge their seed and die – an orgy of life, death and transfiguration.

Mysteries of lunar cycles take on a mystical clarity when rivers fill with spawning fish, heeding a  primordial call.  The Burbot is a little-known freshwater cod, coming to shore in mid-winter, ascending ice-covered rivers to spawn – beautiful forms in the dark and cold, silently fulfilling their destiny.

These are the common fish of summer vacations. My father no longer finds wading raging rivers desirable, but we still enjoy rigging up our flyrods and popping spiders over sunfish, in late spring when they come into the shallows to spawn...or we spend an evening watching a bobber with a gob of worms. This is the kind of fishing experience most common to us all, and it requires no fancy-schmancy equipment; there is little sporting literature on the high art of cane poles and bobbers, nor much on chumming for bullhead. These are the fish we slay, fillet, fry and eat without much rumination, yet the familiar form and coloration of bass, bullhead, catfish, crappie, perch, pumpkinseed, rock bass and sucker is so elegant – so memorable.

The now-extinct Grayling were once numerous in northern Michigan, yet the trout fisherman today still dreams of finding a deserted place where they survive – overlooked for nearly a century and spawned by the surrounding cedars.  In a variant on the Ghost Dance of the Plains Indians,  I too devote my energies to prayers for the spirit of Grayling made graphically manifest, hoping they may return as we become worthy.