Calling After Water

A book review

I’m currently lying down, with my upper torso kicked back at a 45-degree angle in a beach chair on the Mexican coast, just south of Playa Del Carmen. About a dozen cruise ships sputter across the horizon past my sandy toes, dwarfing the island of Cozumel- the ships, not my toes. My wife and I are shaded from the blazing Caribbean sun under a palapa — a thatched-roof structure made from dried palm leaves, typically supported by wooden posts. They’re commonly found in tropical beach resorts, particularly in this part of the world, and give their gringo inhabitants the feeling of being in a tropical paradise.

I brought two books with me in this trip. One I haven’t gotten to yet that promises to help me think differently than everyone else- which should scare the bejeezus out of people who understand how my brain works- and Calling After Water by my friend and deer/trout/turkey camp mate, Dave Karczynski

The first time I met Dave was on a midwinter float down the Au Sable big water with Jason Tucker to throw streamers for the biggest trout we could will into eating. I still had my first drift boat, a 16’ Clacka LP, the perfect boat for that kind of water. The guys at the local fly shop warned us that the river might be frozen solid all the way across somewhere in the middle of our midwinter float. What do you do when you’re floating through the middle of nowhere and the river ends in a wall of ice?

Now that kind of warning with subfreezing temps will scare most people into going elsewhere or calling it a day and heading to the local pub for a spike burger- but not me, and definitely not Jason, but I wasn’t so sure about Dave. He didn’t flinch and I immediately liked him.

The palapas here are first come first serve. My wife sleeps in while I groggily walk down to the beach under the cautious eyes of howler monkeys perched high in the jungle canopy to leave our books and beach towels on the first pair of chairs under a palapa I can find. I realize I’m hungover as I walk back to our room to pick my wife up and go grab breakfast.

It’s hard to enjoy breakfast when you’re worried some French tourist might remove our stuff and claim the palapa as his own in our absence. I don’t really care about the towel, but I want to read the whole book before someone steals it.

After breakfast I read a chapter or two of Dave’s book then set it down for a while to watch the pelicans fish. They’re big, clumsy looking birds. But like Dave, boy can they fish.

The heavy wind doesn’t seem to impact their flight. They glide along parallel to the breaking surf, then they coast for a second or two and suddenly plunge head first like a free-falling elevator. After disappearing for a half a second they resurface, gulp down whatever baitfish they caught, shake their tail (pooping?) then lift back off while looking back over their shoulder. Before they’re 20-feet in the air they relocate the pod of baitfish and dive straight back down into the shallow water they just rose from. Sometimes solo birds, sometimes a pair in synchronized clumsiness, leap frogging their way down the beach.

I watch them while digesting Dave’s work, occasionally interrupted by beach vendors offering to sell us jewelry, parasailing trips, jet ski rentals, scuba lessons, weed, or a relaxing couples massage in the jungle.

I needed this trip and I needed this book.

In a way, it makes me sad to feel Dave’s enthusiasm for fishing. I used to have the same lust for fly fishing but really haven’t felt the spark for almost a decade. Reading Dave’s stories takes me back to a wonderful time in my life when I thought of nothing else besides fly fishing, and as I read, I feel Dave’s book calling me back to that feeling I used to get when I thought about fishing all the time.

Using Dave-logic, I probably need to go spend a week fishing Alaska to shake the cobwebs off my casting shoulder. A peacock bass or golden dorado excursion in the Amazon might do the trick, too. I’ve always dreamed of dipping into my retirement savings for just such a trip and bringing a few close friends along for the ride.

And that’s the beauty of great writing. Not only does it take you to places you’ve never been, it makes you want to actually get off the couch and experience them in real life.

I wrote all this on my phone and I’m too lazy to grab a link to where you can buy Dave’s latest book if you haven’t already, but go on over to MidCurrent or Amazon and it won’t be hard to find. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.