"WE NEED A BIGGER BOAT"

Roy Scheider famously delivered that line after seeing the shark for the first time in the movie Jaws. I muttered a variation on that line this morning, on the banks of the American. "I need a bigger fly rod," is what I said.

Friends had told me tales about the striped bass that migrate into the river to spawn in the summer. Tall tales, I thought, about adult ducks being slurped underwater, down into the predator's maw.

It's possible, I thought. My field guide to Sacramento's Outdoor World says some stripers can reach 70 pounds. Big Mo is what one of my friends calls that fish, the mythical fish that gets him up before first light and out the door with a 10 weight rod. The guide book also says most stripers weigh less than ten pounds and, until this morning, stripers hadn't captured my imagination.

The steelhead is the fish that gets me out before dawn -- with a six weight spey rod in my hand on fall mornings. On this particular fall morning I was walking downstream, shadowing two does and two fawns on the river's other bank. Lost in that moment, I rounded the bend on a brushy island just as a fisherman connected with a steelhead.

The silver fish leaped into the air and tore across the deep pool. I joined the fisherman in shouts of marvel and wonder at the half-pounder's athleticism and positioned myself up and above him to get a good look down into the pool.

That's when I saw Mo. That's when I knew I needed a bigger fly rod.

Mo's gray shape came up from the depths of the pool and attacked the steelhead. It was like watching a shark. The fisherman's pole bent in half and he asked me if I saw what he just saw.

The fisherman didn't surrender the steelhead. He hung on as the steelhead twisted free of the striper and ran downstream, trying to escape the pool. But the steelhead was unable to escape the hook and the line and when the fisherman turned him back toward the edge of the pool that dark shape reappeared and struck again. The steelhead disappeared behind the striper's jaws.

The fishing pole folded over and the fisherman slid down the bank and ankle deep into the river. He held on, determined not to lose "his" steelhead to the striper. Eventually, he was able to move both fish closer to the bank.

When that striper moved into shallower water, when he was within two or three feet of the surface, he saw us and simply released the steelhead. He vanished under the cloak of deep water.

Tomorrow morning, in the dark, on the tailgate of my pickup, I'll rig the biggest rod I have, an eight weight, and tie the biggest clouser minnow in my streamer box to the strongest-test Maxima I have; and I'll mutter to myself, "I need a bigger fly rod."

A RODNEY DANGERFIELD MOMENT AT THE CASH REGISTER IN A ROADSIDE CAFE

"MAYBE YOU SHOULD ALL GO FISHING" II

Sharing last light in Oak Creek Canyon with my father.

"MAYBE YOU SHOULD ALL GO FISHING"

There's a line in Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It" that I enjoyed thinking about last week. It comes at the end of the scene where Norman bails his brother Paul, and Paul's girlfriend, out of jail. On their way out the desk sergeant says, "Maybe you should all go fishing."

Neither my brother nor I had to bail the other out of jail last week but there was still plenty of metaphoric resonance in that line. Like everyone, we've had our share of trials and tribulations. We've done our best to help each other through them -- with the inevitable mixed results. Which reminds me of another line from Maclean's book that stayed with me. He quoted his brother as saying, "maybe what he likes is somebody trying to help him."

Last week, Trent drove up from the valley heat and joined me on my writing retreat at the family cabin. He helped me trouble-shoot Lonely Dell, the new screenplay I'm working on. Then we ate a couple of burgers in Flagstaff and fished the evening rise on Oak Creek. Trent caught the only fish of the day on his trusty mosquito pattern.

Being the older brother, I tend to think of myself as the one who takes the other fishing. While watching Trent fish, though, I realized the dynamic changed somewhere along our lives' timelines. Now that Trent's pushing forty, and I've pushed past fifty, it's hard to tell who is taking whom fishing.

THE LOYALTY OF BLUE JAYS

My plan was to drive down Oak Creek Canyon and see if I could connect with a wild brown trout.

I'm in Flagstaff again this summer to recharge my creative well --- to paraphrase Hemingway. It is suffering from an overdraft. Hanging out in and around the family cabin, and fly fishing Oak Creek, are some of the ways I recharge that well.

As is so often the case when I'm here, first light woke me. Actually, it was the morning air that got my attention and lured me out of a deep sleep. I climbed down the ladder from the loft and put the percolator on the propane burner.

We keep ground coffee in a silver can labeled "tea." I had loaded the can with Late for the Train's North Rim blend. Beyond French Roast, they describe it as Volcanic, like Flagstaff's geology.

While I waited for the water to boil and the coffee to perc, I picked up a copy of a new book I brought along to read on this trip, Shedding Skins. It is an anthology of four contemporary Sioux poets.

The morning passed as I read poems and drank coffee on the porch. The sun rose and warmed the meadow. The aspen and ponderosa pine and bunch grass transpired and the air became pleasantly humid.

When I read a line by Steve Pacheco, the first line of his poem, "The Lower Sioux Rez: Three Scenes," a trickle of creative water started to refill the well.

"I feel I owe something to the blue jays for their loyalty."

RENEWAL

(Photo: Kennedy Tanaka)

I finally renewed my lapsed Trout Unlimited membership; put the check in the mail. But that doesn't mean I wasn't doing my part until then. Money is just one way of helping out. Another way to help preserve our streams and rivers is to take a kid fishing. Educate the next generation.

This way of helping is my personal favorite. Especially when those kids are my niece and nephew. And it's not just because they like to eat french fries and hot wings, or that we work the morning paper's crossword puzzle during the drive. They are genuinely fascinated with the whole of nature. Watching and listening to them make connections in their minds about the connectedness of ecosystems thrills me.

Actually, fishing with these kids doesn't qualify as volunteering my time at all. I'll send my membership renewal check to TU on time next year.

YOUNG ENVIRONMENTAL WRITERS ON THE SOUTH FORK OF THE AMERICAN

Volunteer. You'll meet amazing people. Most recently, they were students from three El Dorado County high schools participating in the first-ever Young Environmental Writers and Storytellers program. YEWS for short. Here's their mission statement.

"To create a dynamic and self-sustaining environmental education program for El Dorado County high school students, enrich the quality and availability of rural environmental news, and celebrate El Dorado's unique natural heritage through good storytelling and new media."

The program was conceived by two soon-to-be-legendary foothill residents, Emily Underwood and Shawn Dunkley. The program is cosponsored by Family Connections El Dorado and the inaugural weekend was hosted by the Mother Lode River Center.

My role was to help out during the poetry hike, with fellow volunteers Moira Magneson and Alexa Mergen. In the photograph above, we're enjoying some much-needed shade and fresh cherries. And writing about the sense of taste.

I left the workshop invigorated and inspired. Our future is in good hands. But that doesn't mean the next generation can't use our help. To learn more about the Young Environmental Writers and Storytellers of El Dorado program, and to find out how you can pitch in, follow the link to their website.