Words: Yvon Chouinard 2016-12-16 14:41:19
I’ve never had the pleasure of owning a dog, but I have hunted behind some great bird dogs and I’ve known some equally great fishing dogs. I don’t mean the ubiquitous Lab standing proud on the bow of the guide boat. I am talking about dogs that actually fish for sustenance and sport. Tom Brokaw’s yellow lab, Sage, was a Manhattan apartment dog for nine months of the year, but the other three she turned into the best South Dakota pheasant hunter I’ve ever known. One day in her retirement years in Montana, I was walking by her on my way to fish the ranch pond and, though she was old and arthritic, she forced herself up off the cool lawn and hobbled down the trail with me. She stood quietly by my side while I cast big dry flies over the still waters. She stared intensely at the fly and just before a big rainbow would take the fly, she brought one leg up in a perfect point. What’s with that? Polaroid eyeballs? A sixth sense that I’ve been trying to develop for 70 years? Cruiser was Doug Moore’s yellow retriever at Turneffe Flats Lodge in Belize. The dog knew to be in the shallows near the pier on an incoming tide. Cruiser hunted with two other mutts that the dog had trained to herd boxfish toward him. He would jump on the fish and pin it down. Best of all, he knew that boxfish were right up there with fugu and lionfish in delicacy. It did not end well for Cruiser. He was eaten by a saltwater croc. The best job I’ve ever had was on tiny Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific when I was deputized by the Nature Conservancy to catch and log as many bonefish as I could. This was in the early days when the bones were country bumpkins—I actually had one swim between my legs. Palmyra was a private island that was sold to the Nature Conservancy in 2000. When the owners departed before the sale, three dogs—Floppy, Tut and Dadu—were left to fend for themselves until the Conservancy and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moved in. When I sailed there in July, Dadu and one other dog were still there. Even though the Conservancy provided them with all the dog food they could eat, they still had that fishing gene that has nothing to do with survival. At camp one day I saw the two dogs get up and do a big downward-facing dog. “Oh, they’re going fishing,” one of the scientists remarked. I grabbed my rod and followed, busting through bushes and lush vegetation and swimming across cuts all the way to the southeast flats. All abreast, we walked the shoreline looking for fish. I stopped for a moment to look at some far off bonefish. Dadu stopped, looked back at me and I swear he was saying, “Come on, man, keep up. We’re here for sharks, not bonefish.” Sure enough, we cornered a small black tip and drove it onto the beach where they commenced to eat it. Feeling pretty proud of myself and grateful to be part of the pack, I wandered off searching for my bonefish.
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The Pack
https://digital.theflyfishjournal.com/articles/the-pack