db: Fishing for bald eagles

Don Barone finds more than smallmouth while spending a cold day fishing on the Connecticut River.

“Slow down, you crazy child…”

Dateline: The Connecticut River

“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth, we are all crew”
Marshall McLuhan

I am under the Billy Joel bridge.

Drifting in a bass boat on, The River of Dreams.

Years ago Billy Joel came here to this river, to this bridge to make the music video for his hit song about rivers, about dreams.

The Connecticut River.

See more photos of db’s day on the river here.

410 miles long, flows through Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut before finally emptying into the Long Island Sound.

2 million people line it’s shores.

The real name of the Billy Joel bridge is: The Providence and Worcester Railroad Bridge and it is located in Middletown, Conn.

06457.

To the north of me right now is Boston, 115 miles away, to the south of me is, New York City, 110 miles or so.

Middletown, Conn.

Almost halfway between the two largest cities on the East Coast.

Dead smack center of what people who count things call, “The Northeast Megalopolis,” dead smack center of about 32-MILLION people at last count.

And as I drift this river.

As I hear and feel the Megalopolis around me, I raise my camera, and point not down towards The River of Dreams, but upwards to the trees that line it, upwards to the tallest tree on the bank, upwards to the very top of that tree.

And here in what those who count stuff says is “the most heavily urbanized region of the United States,” here, a 3-wood downstream from Billy’s bridge I snap the shutter button on my camera.

And smile.

Because here in the center of it all, as I look at the screen of my Canon camera, something is looking back at me.

Downwind of Boston.

Upwind of Manhattan.

Sits a Bald Eagle.

Several, in fact.

And they are watching.

Us.

“…take the phone off the hook…”

“Dude, I freaked the first time I saw it.” ~ Jason Potter.

Jason Potter rode up one day on a motorcycle to paint my house, as I was talking to him about what was to be done, I kept looking at his bike, not so much THE BIKE, but the small fishing pole in a sheath by the seat.

“I mainly fish,” meaning mainly casting over painting.

I told him back then, yeah I write about fishing but mainly I’m an Investigative Reporter.

Jason mainly painted that week.

Jason painted homes.

Jason fixed roofs.

Jason in life has done many things, I know the type, love the soul of that type, sometimes in life to fit in to the structure of the society of the moment we live in,  we have to be what others need us to be, instead of what we want to be.

Intelligence vs industry.

Avocation vs education.

Love and know the soul of those who don’t fit.

Smart, gentle, inquisitive, caring, spend a day on a boat with someone you learn, “My mother was the one who taught me to have a love of nature.”

Watch someone stand on the bow of a boat, huge camera in hand but not up to his face, watch him eye the Eagle.

Watch him smile as the Eagle turns to look at us.

Do that and you know, mother got it right, mother knew that when the time came the canvas her son would paint, would not be a house, but would be in nature.

Would be the Bald Eagles above The River of Dreams.

Jason’s mom, ya done good…here’s how Jason paints now:

 “…and disappear for a while…”

The man who drove us here on his Bass boat is Dave Schmeer, a member of B.A.S.S. and the VP of the North East Bass Association.

Dave is a machine operator in Waterbury, Conn., who makes eyelets. I really don’t know what that means exactly, but I do know this, he is the greatest bass boat driver in the world since when I asked him not to kill me out here and keep it under 40mph…HE DID.

First time since doing this gig that request has ever been honored. Dave Smith any chance you can make an award for this guy…I’ll pay.

I’m standing in the cutout area where the boat seats are, I’m watching Dave flip to the logs by the bank, 40 percent of the time his eyes are in on the water.

The rest of the time he scans the sky.

Bald Eagles do that to you.

“…it’s all right…”

It was supposed to be about smallmouth, but it didn’t turn out that way.

We launched in 30-degree weather, water temp 44, the river, calm as glass, driving to the ramp on a typical New England windy road when I caught a glimpse of the calmness of the river, I whispered to myself, simply, Thank You.

The person who really controls the river, knows the whisper was for him.

Onboard, we head upriver, wind chill is brutal even at 30 mph, I have some sort of mask thing on, my eyes are warm, my throat is numb.

We pass million dollar homes and hobo camps.

We pass industrial stacks as tall as 10 story buildings.

A cabin cruiser buzzes us, Swans float by, fingers point left, fingers point right to secret fishing holes.

Boulders and bricks line the bank, a small beach comes into view, upriver some, sailboats and yachts are being hauled onshore, this time of year you can smell winter coming.

And all the while, we scan the trees.

Looking.

Hoping.

It used to be that all the Bald Eagles were gone from here…” Dave.

“…but I’ve actually found four nests with adults and offspring in the nests, I’ve managed to take hundred’s of photos of Bald Eagles here.” Jason.

It is not so much the word, “Eagles,” that gets me, it is the word, “here,” that astounds me.

Here, isn’t Alaska.

Here, isn’t the animal channel.

Marlin Perkins, isn’t here…I am.

I am.

I am 21 miles from my house, as the Bald Eagle flies.

I never in my life thought I would see a Bald Eagle not behind glass, not behind wire, not behind bars.

Never, ever thought I would see one in a tree. Free, and in a tree. In the wild like. Near me, looking at me as prey, not as just someone who feeds it.

Never, and yet, as the boat suddenly comes off plane, the motor goes silent, the river goes silent, I hear through the trees a police siren, I see on the bridge a fire truck, a train begins to cross, cars pull into a waterfront restaurant, and yet, onboard this here bass boat, no one moves, no one breathes, it is a show of reverence, it is a show of respect.

For above us, perched on a tree branch, sits the symbol of the United States of America.

A Bald Eagle.

In the Megalopolis.

“…you can afford to…”

In time I stood and took this photo:

Jason, standing right next to me took this photo…someday I’ll be able to get a big boy camera:

We are old here in New England, I live in a town founded in 1645, people from the Mayflower lived here, in fact I’m told some of their descendants still live here.

Bald Eagles filled the air in the 1700’s, it’s estimated that some 300,000-500,000 of the birds lived in America then, many here and throughout the Northeast.

In 1980 in Connecticut ONE eagle was spotted.

Jason: “I’ve seen young Bald Eagles, seen pairs nesting, even saw one come down catch a fish and eat it on the shore.”

Dave: “I have to tell you Don, I’m a tournament angler, I fish tournaments all the time but you know what, after seeing my first Bald Eagle on this river, after seeing this Bald Eagle in the tree above us, honestly, I kind of take more time now, kind of look around at my surroundings more, hard now not to expand my focus now, how could you not.”

“…lose a day or two, ooh…”

How could you not…I don’t know how.

All of this may seem silly to some, and so be it, to be honest I don’t write for you anyway, I write for those with wonder left.

Yeah, I’m pumped because I saw an Eagle not in a zoo or on a TV show.

I saw a Bald Eagle as a Bald Eagle was meant to be seen.

A city guy, and that’s important to know because there are many of us city guys who feel something special when we know Bald Eagles still fly free here in America.

Still fly free two hours from the lights of Broadway.

Still fly free two hours from where America began up in Boston, up in Lexington/Concord, Massachusetts.

Bald Eagles heard the first shots fired in the Revolution, flew over those who signed the documents that made us, us in 1776.

Today, maybe more than ever, we need to know that Bald Eagles still fly.

Slow down. Take time to look around, look up from the water more often, put the rod and reel down, sit in the boat with your fishing buddy, enjoy the moment.

Chances are, you have sped past a Bald Eagle a time or two in your tournament rush, your honey hole rush.

Take it from a city guy, it’s amazing out here.

Out here, inside the outside.

Where Bald Eagles still take to the skies.

Near the Billy Joel bridge.

Above, The River Of Dreams.

In this Megalopolis, 32 million of us, call home.

Just look.

“…when will you realize Vienna waits for you.”
Vienna
Billy Joel

db

“It’s not just a better planet we should leave for our children we should also leave better children for our planet.”
~Paul McPhee
a friend of Jason’s I would like to meet someday