Fishing -- Juvenile literature; Fishing -- Nova Scotia
It was among the last days of June--the most wonderful season in the
north woods. The sun seems never ready to set there, then, and all the
world is made of blues and greens and the long, lingering tones of
evening.
We had early tea in preparation for the sunset fishing. It was best, Del
said, in Jeremy's Bay about that time. So it was perhaps an hour earlier
when we started, the canoes light.
In any one life there are not many evenings such as that. It is just as
well, for I should account it a permanent sadness if they became
monotonous. Perhaps they never would. Our course lay between shores--an
island on the one hand, the mainland on the other. When we rounded the
point, we were met by a breeze blown straight from the sunset--a breath
that was wild and fresh and sweet, and billowed the water till it caught
every hue and shimmering iridescence that the sky and shores and setting
sun could give.
We were eager and rested, for we had done little that day, and the empty
canoes slipped like magic into a magical sea of amethyst and emerald
gold, the fresh breeze filling us with life and ecstasy until we seemed
almost to fly. The eyes could not look easily into the glory ahead,
though it was less easy to look away from the enchantment which lay
under the sunset. The Kingdom of Ponemah was there, and it was as if we
were following Hiawatha to that fair and eternal hunting-ground.
Yet when one did turn, the transformation was almost worth while. The
colors were all changed. They were more peaceful, more like reality,
less like a harbor of dreams and visions too fair for the eyes of man to
look upon. A single glance backward, and then away once more between
walls of green, billowing into the sunset--away, away to Jeremy's Bay!
The sun was just on the horizon when we reached there--the water already
in shadow near the shore. So deep and vivid were its hues that we seemed
to be fishing in dye-stuff. And the breeze went out with the sun, and
the painted pool became still, ruffled only where the trout broke water
or a bird dipped down to drink.
I will not speak of the fishing there. I have already promised that I
would not speak of fishing again. But Jeremy's Bay is a spot that few
guides know and few fishermen find. It was our last real fishing, and it
was worthy. Then home to camp, between walls of dusk--away, away from
Jeremy's Bay--silently slipping under darkening shores--silently, and a
little sadly, for our long Day of Joy was closing in--the hour of return
drew near.
And postpone it as you will, the final moment must come--the time when
the rod must be taken down for good; the leaders stripped and coiled in
their box, the fly-book tenderly gone over and the last flies you have
used fitted into place and laid away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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