(Rob Benigno art)
August 11, 2024
By Steve Ramirez
This article was originally titled "The Hop" in the June-July 2024 Seasonable Angler column of Fly Fisherman.
All my life I’ve been told that I’m “too much.” Even my own daughter has said, “Dad, sometimes you’re just too much.” Only during my time in the Marines did I seem to be just enough to be a part of the tribe whose members pride themselves on being “more.”
But if I’m honest with myself, and I try to be, I was too much then as well. I’m not too sure that my fellow Marines pondered the deeper meaning of life as they cleaned their M16A1 rifles—as I did. Then again, perhaps they did. The specters of hopeful life and certain death create a wonderful gumbo of philosophical exploration and endless gratitude. And through the years I have concluded that the problem may not be that I am too much but rather that, too often, humanity is too little.
I suspect that my new friend T-Bird has been told more than a few times that he is “too much.” And just thinking of this hurts my heart. After all, I know what it feels like to be on the outside of the universe looking in. I know what it feels like to want to fly tight loops around the universe while the choir sings: “Slow down. Steady as you go. Follow the leader.” The thing is, no one is really leading; you must lead yourself. We all need to run our own race, and just like T-Bird, I want to fly.
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T-Bird has the little-known given name of Troy Abplanalp. It’s a name that may take up space on his birth certificate but hardly describes his avian soul. To my mind, T-Bird is a perfect designation for this free-flying enigma who wears a de Havilland Beaver like a second skin. He began his love affair with flying as a chopper pilot in the Army and moved on to fixed-wing aircraft shortly thereafter. And yes, to some people I guess that T-Bird might seem to be quite like me: “too much.” But I’ll tell you this, my friends—I’d fly with him anywhere. He makes me smile.
What if we all had names that described us . . . or at least the person we wished to be? I wonder if we’d behave a little better if our actions decided our names. I think we’d all prefer to be known as “Wind in his Hair” or “Dances with Wolves” rather than “Lazy Lying Bastard” or “Mean Spirited Narcissist.” In a way, like the portrait of Dorian Gray, our faces show who we’ve chosen to be in life—and it is a choice. Do the lines in our faces signify years of laughter, or disdain? We are all just the product of our upbringing—until the moment we choose to bring ourselves up to be more than a mere result or reflection.
T-Bird seemed to seek me out on my first day at Bristol Bay Lodge. Over an Alaskan Amber brew he whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “Steve, you need to come out with me on ‘a hop.’ I have lots of secret places to take off and land where the fishing is wonderful, and the scenery will blow your mind!” Needless to say, I was all in and so was my buddy and cabinmate, Steve Negaard.
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It didn’t take long for Steve and me to find that we were well matched as fishing buddies and unstoppable jokesters. In fact, laughter seemed to be the common denominator of our friendship, and at times we found ourselves laughing so hard that we had to stop fishing—and that’s as good a reason to pause a cast as any I know. The other way Steve and I matched up perfectly was our casual and relaxed way of dealing with the variables of bush plane flying: variables like staying airborne, not hitting a mountain, circling over bears, and “Can we actually get there from here?”
Steve was kind enough to allow me to fly shotgun with T-Bird every time, and that worked fine for him because whereas other travelers might lose their cookies, Steve was more likely to take a nap in the back of the plane while I was sitting up front, completely enthralled with every bit of the avionics alchemy that T-Bird seemed to manage with ease.
As I looked down at the vast expanse of lakes, rivers, mountains, and bright green valleys of the Wood-Tikchik wilderness, I felt grateful for their protected status. I believe in the value of publicly protected lands, waters, and wildlife. I have no politics, left or right. Instead, if anything I’m a member of an undersized and underrepresented tribe. I am a naturalist. My religion is kindness; my creed, courage.
The float plane seemed to drift in reality and parody as a reflection upon glacial blue-green waters and a shadow upon blue-gray stones. As we rounded a mountain and descended into a wet, boggy, deeply verdant valley, my eyes followed the river that formed it and ultimately spilled into our destination—Upnuk Lake. T-Bird landed softly upon the lake’s surface and taxied over toward a point of willow-covered landscape that jutted out into the water like a natural dock. We set up a few fly rods with sinking lines and big Woolly Buggers with barbless hooks.
Standing in the glacial waters, I cast my line and absorbed every ounce of the power and beauty of this place. Nothing needed to be said. The moment was perfect, just as it was. And that was when I noticed a stocky lake trout following my fly. And just as she came almost up to my submerged legs she struck, and I struck back, and then she went on a run out to deeper water while I kept the pressure on and hoped I was doing just enough to bring her in and not enough to break her off. I knew as she swam forcefully away that she was trying to get home. We had that in common. I too was searching for home.
I finally brought the laker in and was overjoyed as I briefly held her in my hands. As always, as I gently lowered this muscled, multicolored char back into the bluest of water, I whispered the heartfelt words, “Thank you.” Gratitude is the gateway to joy.
And I did feel grateful to have caught and released my first lake trout. I wanted to catch more. But I also wanted my buddy Steve to connect with one—and he did. In fact, he somehow found a sweet spot and began catching fish after fish, seemingly on every other cast. I was standing just fifty feet away and yet cast after cast I came up fishless. I was happy for my friend even as I was wishing I’d find a sweet spot too. That was about the time he caught and released yet another fish, looked at me with a grin, licked his pointer finger, and made a check mark in the air. We both laughed as I mimicked his antics in return—but I chose a different finger.
Just behind the float plane’s pontoons the soil was misshapen by the tracks of a bear and a single seemingly large moose. Next to the bear tracks I saw a twisted and sun-bleached length of driftwood, and out of a crack in the wood a bouquet of tiny white wildflowers was growing up toward the life-giving sunlight. Life really does find a way. Nature teaches the power of resilience and adaptation over rigidity. Fixed ideas and ideologies lead to extinction. Learning and adaptation lead to healthy growth.
A loon was calling from across the lake and the soft sounds of wind and water filled my ears. It didn’t sound lonely; it sounded at peace and at home. Looking into the deep green forest I wondered what the bear was doing now. Looking up into the surrounding mountains I wondered if I would ever see them again . . . except in memory. Life was beautiful, fish or no fish.
All too soon, I found myself sitting in the cockpit of this plane that was as much a usable relic as I was. It was born just a few years before me. In a way, we were brothers, this plane and me. Like me, it had seen so many wondrous places and gone to the edges of the earth. Like me, it was struggling to remain intact as long as possible—to stave off the vagaries of entropy, and remain airborne, a little longer. All at once I was lifted from my trance with my eyes and my heart transfixed upon this lake and its community of wildlands and wildlife. I heard T-Bird call out, “Clear!” and then “Contact!” as the engine rumbled back into service.
I gathered every glorious sensation of the plane’s movement across the water, the spray rushing past the edges of the pontoons, and then the gentle, almost imperceptible feeling of separation from the water and connection to the sky. In a single day I had transformed myself spiritually into a fish, a bear, and a bird. I swam deep down in a glacier-fed lake. I ambled through forests and waded in rivers. I soared above the mountains. I felt the earth breathing, and I felt free.
I seem to have animist tendencies. I see and sense spiritual life in everything. By acknowledging life in “the other” we gain empathy—and in these troubled times, empathy seems to be in short supply. I see fish, deer, and trees as living members of my community—not as a “resource.” I see the earth as a living being complete with a lifeblood of water, air, and soil working in perfect unison—if we do not interfere. And I even see something soulful in a 1957 de Havilland Beaver. I think T-Bird feels the life in this old plane too. I’m not sure of his animist tendencies but I am sure of one thing: If I were to give him a name that reflects the offbeat, free-spirited, fellow misfit I enjoyed being with so much, I’d call him “Dances with Clouds.” How cool is that?
Steve Ramirez is a Texas master naturalist, poet, and Marine Corps veteran. He is the author of Casting Forward, Casting Onward, and Casting Seaward. The fourth book in the series, Casting Homeward , will be available from Lyons Press in September 2024.
