On Bridges

In functional and utilitarian terms, they simply provide a crossing from one side to the other, while at the same time, allowing passage of a different form and different elements beneath. But they are also functional beyond their primary and intended purposes, serving as landmarks, points of reference or access, beginnings, and endings. As a very literal point of view, they provide a physical perspective otherwise unavailable. Which, in turn, may lead to an intellectual perspective previously unknown.

On the highway, while on the way to somewhere else and perhaps in cruise control, a bridge and river crossing is an immediate change in train of thought. A flurry of questions arise, but namely: What river is it, and, what does it look like? Depending on the answers to these questions, others may follow, but the ultimate motive being tested is, Do I, now or in the future, want to be fishing there? A 75 mile per hour glance lasts only a split second, but the rumination of the answer to this final question continues for miles.

Bridges are friendly and universal river markers while floating, signifying a put-in or a take-out, or perhaps a check-point during the day. On an unfamiliar river, they may be a welcome sign, ensuring - at least for the moment - that we know where we are. Distances on rivers can be deceiving; time between certain points, especially. So when a bridge does not appear when we think it should, or appears before we think it ought to, a recalibration of bearings takes place which, depending on the time of day and other factors, may be extremely alarming or simply of note.

As access ways to rivers, I am appreciative, but remain skeptical, for they are the obvious choice. Fishing where others obviously do too doesn’t sit well with me, but this may be, as Charles puts it, an ‘MP’. I’d like to think that the quality of fishing corresponds positively with the difficulty of access or distance traveled to arrive, but this simply isn’t true in many places; on tailwaters, for instance, or when pursuing migratory fish. After all, if a great fish is caught within sight of a bridge, one ought not blame the fish for it.

Last summer I fished a stretch of river for the first time and, for efficiency’s sake, elected to hike downstream along a river trail to a bridge, and then fish my way back. The run just downstream of the bridge looked to be as good, or better than any water I’d hiked by but I couldn’t find any confidence to fish it with. It looked too good not to fish, so I started there anyway. And the more I fished it, the better it looked, even though I hadn’t hooked anything. It looked so good, in fact, that I was beginning to doubt the water ahead of me. Finally, before starting back upstream, I saw a single salmonfly bounce over the river’s surface. I immediately tied one on and on the first cast, rose an unbelievably large, wild rainbow trout that jumped no fewer than six times. I fished the salmonfly all the way back to camp, hooking fish almost everywhere I thought that I would. Had I not fished that bridge pool, I’m not sure I would’ve even tried one.

Speaking of bridge pools, the Bridge Pool on the Miramichi (or at least, the one that I know of) is where I first hooked and lost an Atlantic salmon and also where I first hooked and landed an Atlantic salmon. It’s not hard to envision the view. Later that evening, after landing that fish, I took a break from fishing and walked to the bridge to check out the view. The water that looked so good while fishing looked even better from above, and I could make out the entire traveling lane of both of the fish I’d hooked. I watched my friends fish and wished that I’d get to witness, from that perch on the bridge, one of them hook a fish.

Inspecting and analyzing the water from a bridge tells us a lot, but not everything. Water that may have looked deep from the bridge may be too shallow to fish once standing next to it. Or, what looked like an easy walk down river left might be a dead-end bushwhack at river-level. The upstream pool almost-in-sight from the bridge is often an oasis; our mind satisfying our angling desires but reality taking them away. If the water looks pretty good from the bridge, do we proceed, or is this is as good as it gets?

Before our senior year of college, a few of us returned to campus early. A half-hour off campus was a small trout stream and there was an old mill dam just below a bridge on that stream; we fished below the dam where a couple good runs held a few brown trout. On one particularly hot afternoon, when it was clear that the fishing was off, we tossed the rods in the cars and headed for the bridge to jump into the impoundment made by the mill dam. After we all had taken a few jumps in, we lounged on the bridge railing, drip-drying in the setting, summer sun. A police officer suddenly appeared and slowly made his way across the bridge toward us.

“You’re not jumping off that bridge, are you?” he said, more as a statement as a question.

We looked at each other, shirtless, in wet swimming shorts.

“No sir, we’re fishing,” someone said.

“That’s what I thought,” he replied and drove off.