Not A Rowing Machine
We got our Concept2 RowErg rowing machine at the start of a Maine winter, over a second round of margaritas, facing four upcoming months of ice and snow. We were easy victims to the digital marketing and figured it was a good investment for our health while, at the same time, a relatively close resemblance to our favorite moving-water recreation. Some assembly was required but we were both rowing the day it arrived.
As far as home or indoor exercise equipment goes - admittedly, I’m hardly qualified to comment here - I recommend the Concept2. It’s a good workout, not hard to break a sweat, and just 20 minutes is enough to feel like you’ve accomplished something and justify (or at least feel better about) a dessert or drink afterwards. Not surprisingly, you can get an app, create an account, and track how many meters you row. After a million, you get free a t-shirt. You can even get some calluses from a rowing machine, which adds to the whole effect. And, for those who spend time in human-powered watercrafts, you might even be able to convince yourself that you’re ‘practicing’ what you really want to be doing.
Still, there’s no substitute for the real thing. 5700 CFS is not a rowing machine.
The local river has been high for most of the new year so we hadn’t been on it for several months. A couple warm spells - 50 or 60 degrees - came and went and, while we normally would’ve dropped the boat in with hopes of some good fishing windows, the river was too high, we were out of town, or we just couldn’t sneak away. I can’t remember going that long without getting the boat wet since we arrived in Maine in early-January a few years ago. So, it had been a while.
But since mid-March, the river has been dropping slowly and the weather has been warming gradually; finally, it all came together - flow, weather, and a Friday afternoon. Plans were made.
Remembering how that first float in Maine felt after a multi-month hiatus, I’d adjusted my expectations and was anticipating feeling a little out of practice or maybe even a little weak as I lined up to ferry across the river for the first time. But, I blasted across. I guess a few thousand meters on the rowing machine a few times a week does help.
It’s always fun to see a river you know after some high flows and observe what has changed and what was created. Between the still-fairly-high flows and all the high water we had over the winter, numerous new side channels of various sizes had appeared. Some were worth fishing and some weren’t. A lot of gravel has moved around as well, creating interesting new features to fish. We saw all the new logs and limbs that had been washed downstream over the course of the winter, especially the ice storm, and collected along banks or in jams.
In one such gravel-filled, side channel riffle, formed by a giant tree trunk and root system, we rose a gorgeous wild, male rainbow to a March brown dry fly pattern. It was beautiful, with vivid and bold colors along its body, perfectly-sharp fins, and an overall aesthetic that looks healthy and feels good. It was the type of fish that makes you happy just to see it and know that it exists.
The sky was clear and the sun shone bright on us that day, making it feel more like an evening in June or July rather than one in March. We couldn’t help from talking about our next float, but also reminded ourselves that it was, indeed, still technically winter. The next day, the weather turned back to more typical, March-in-Oregon patterns and the river came up again. So we waited.
A few weeks later, it lined up again, this time with clouds. It was good; really good. In recalling the day to a buddy back home, he asked, “How many fish did you catch before you decided that it was good?” Without thinking, I rambled my way through an answer and at the end of my stream-of-conscious blathering, realized that the answer was zero. When we anchored up in the first flat downstream of the put-in and saw three different types of bugs blowing around like cottonwood seeds - that’s when we knew.
But, like the windows at the house, the windows of good fishing are only open for a short while in spring. A few days later, we floated again, and I can’t remember if we caught one or not.
Unquestioned afternoon and evening floats and wide-open fishing windows aren’t far away. Until then, I’ll keep the calluses alive and keep putting some meters on the machine, daydreaming about the gravel bar riffle or long flat that’s around the bend, the bugs blowing off the river, and the ferry required to get there.
