Last summer, Ron was worrying about losing his mind. That’s not uncommon for people our age. He was reading a book called The Buddha’s Brain.  It seemed to be about how the brain works according to modern researchers and how that matches up with  the teachings of the old sages, mostly Buddhists. The authors suggest practices designed to resharpen the intellect. According to the book it’s never too late to take a deep breath and think happy thoughts. He tried to explain all this to me as we covered our last few miles on the Golden Road.  We were going up to fish a stretch of the Penobscot below the Seboomook Dam. We would spend the night in tents. Separate tents.  Even the Buddha can’t get a good nights sleep with my snoring.

After we got the camp set up we launched the canoe. The river was lower than I’d seen it and everything was slow, but we poked around here and there and the afternoon sunshine was almost as good as a fish.

“What kind of fisherman do you think the Buddha would have been?” I asked from the stern of the canoe.

“Not like us,” and then after a pause.  “He would have no desire for a fish.  I’m still at the ‘want to catch a fish’ stage.”

“Yeah, me too.  I think I’ll change to a full sink line and a nymph, see if I can desire something up from the bottom.”

“Buddha would have definitely been a catch and release guy.  Barbless hooks.”  and with that Ron made another cast.

“I wonder if there were any trout in India back then?”   

“If there weren’t, I’m sure some Englishman carried some there from Europe and then wouldn’t let any Indians fish over them.”

We had a slow afternoon of it and instead of trout, we cooked weenies on sticks with a pot of beans for supper.  Oreos for dessert.  Then we got comfortable on our camp chairs with a bottle of Jameson’s and cigars.  

Ron messed with the fire. Sparks rose up into the night sky. He likes to mess with the fire. After he’d finished I ask him, “What kind of fisherman would Jesus have been?”

He looked up to where the last spark winked out in the darkness.  “Well, he got his start as a guide.  One day he saw Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee fishing.  He watched them for a while and they weren’t having much luck.  So he shouts out to them, ‘Hey.  Try the other side of the boat.’  They take his advice and their nets come in chock a block full.  His reputation was made.  Everyone wanted to hire him.  He really didn’t need the miracle of the fishes and the loaves.  That was pure gravy.  He could have had all the business he ever wanted with just that first bit of advice.  They still talk about it”

The fire died down.  We didn’t add any more sticks.   

“And what about Mohammed?”

Ron stood up before he spoke, “Fish were pretty rare in the desert, Jameson’s too, and Allah’s tough on lying, so fishing might have been something to avoid if you wanted to spend eternity in paradise.  But then who’d want to go to a paradise that didn’t have Jameson’s or fish?”

It was time to turn in for the night.

We got up early.  Ron was getting the fire going and making some cowboy coffee as I took a stroll down to the water to give a look.  Up by the point there was a folded ledge that came out of the river to a little bluff.  In the water, off that point, there was a rise.  Thirty seconds later there was another rise.  Finally, some fish were showing.  I hustled back to get Ron and we grabbed our rods.  We could make breakfast later, now there was a little sport to be had.  

Down the shoreline there was this one steep spot where you had to hold on a bit to get around the rocks.  I held Ron’s rod as he climbed around the outcropping to the other side.  Then I passed both rods to him and followed, but about half way around I made a misstep.  Down I went.  I bounced once before I managed to twist onto my butt and bump the rest of the way into the water.  Beneath the bluff  it was deep, over my head, and unexpectedly chilly.  I grabbed my hat before it floated away and managed to pick up a fly box that had floated out of an open pocket and then dog paddled down stream about ten yards until I could stand up.  Ron watched all this.  The clatter had put the fish down.  He eyed me like he wasn’t sure whether or not to ask if I was okay.  Finally he started laughing.

I stood there dripping in waist deep water.  

“Do you want your rod now?” he asked. “Or a towel?”  

I composed myself and stopped my teeth from chattering before I spoke.  “Chuang Tzu tells a parable about fishermen.  It goes like this, ‘The common fisherman chases fish in a hundred different directions.  To him it’s a great battle.  Empires rise and fall at the end of his line.  If he can fool a fish with a grub and a float dangling from his stick of bamboo he can feed the family.  When he does it’s a fine day, but more often they go hungry.  The better fisherman has raised his craft to an art.  Through years of careful study he knows fishing.  He knows when the fish rise in the morning and where they rest at night.  He knows when they arrive from the sea and the shade of every dazzling scale on their backs.  He knows their desires.  He is ready with a false cricket so cunningly made that you couldn’t tell it from a live one.  You would expect it to sing.  No rock in the river is a stranger to him.  He offers his bait so skillfully and with such deft timing that it is rarely refused.  That’s a good fisherman.  But then, then there is the true fisherman.  No man even knows him.  He would rather sit quietly by the wild river than be the emperor.  He doesn’t need a rod or a fly.  He understands the Tao.  He just stands in the river and the fish swim into his pockets.’  Behold, Ron, I am fishing with the ancients.” 

Rick Cronin fishes in Maine and will be reporting on why the big ones got away, here, in the Pen Bay Pilot.