A Stick In The Mud

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I didn't quite understand what Dad was doing then (just some kind of grown-up weirdness, I figured, but I think I do now. A stick for casual walking or wading should have the proper heft, feel and weight: what amounts to the right style. It's a personal matter. You might like a heavier stick than I do, while I might like a longer one than yours. You might insist on near-perfect straightness, while I may be able to live with—or even prefer—a gentle, parabolic, straight-from-the-tree bow in mine. There are damned few straight lines in nature.

A fancified, "boutique" stick.

I like a smooth stick, but I can handle the butts of broken-off twigs—unless I'm fly-fishing. In that situation the stick and the fly line both lie downstream and one invariably gets tangled up with the other. Chances are you won't notice this until you get a nice fish on.

The criteria for selecting a good stick are subtle, but whatever you want, there's one out there in the woods right now that's perfect, as if it were grown just for you.

This year I got as fancy as I ever hope to get with a stick. Of the four I cut the day I hurt my ankle, one was clearly the best. It's a fairly straight piece of box elder ("select" box elder, that is) with a distinctive bow at the top that curves elegantly into a rough, gnarly knot that is the found-object equivalent of a silver boar's head. In a fit of nothing-better-to-do, I shaved the bark off and wrapped on a cord grip.

It's quite handsome, I think. If it were shorter and a bit stouter, it might pass for a knobkerrie (a weapon with one knobbed end. Longer and thinner would make it a staff. A friend called it a shillelagh, but a true shillelagh would have to be made of either oak or blackthorn to be absolutely authentic.

A shillelagh is also considered something of a weapon, and so far I have only leaned on mine, although in the months to come I'll probably rest the butt of a .22 pistol on it to steady my aim. The knot on the end is for decoration, but I suppose it would come in handy if I decided to give something a sound whop.

Mostly this is just a simple device to keep me from washing downstream when I go trout fishing.

I did injure myself while getting this stick—the best ones always seem to be way back in the brambles—and that could be a bad sign. We outdoorsmen can't help but believe in certain kinds of magic, although we call it "luck" now, and it could be that the thing contains a certain medicine. Time will tell. If bad luck dogs my walks with it, I'll pitch it in the river, peeled bark, cord handle and all.

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