salmon, but most would slip quietly back down the outlet pools and drops and after a two week orgy, the pond would return to it's quiet and serene and, again, fishable self. Overall, the pond was a study, so engrossing that I bought a 150 gallon aquarium and endeavored to stock it with every species of fish I could catch or net from it to fill up the winter hours. That itself was a recreational and educational success except forthe little smallmouths that inevitably suicided by trying to catch the flies that buzzed against the windowpane above the tank. It is even now difficult to estimate the importance that the pond, and to a lesser extent, fishing it, played as a grounding and sanitizing experience to a four year graduate school experience that began the first day with an introduction to "fred", as we nicknamed him, disinterred from his seven year sleep in a pickling formaldehyde bath/coffin, nobly and consciously chosen by him in a "donation of my body to 'science'" for a 9 month, thorough dismantling process that rarely seemed "noble". Fishing, escape, became the consummate obsession. But inevitably the best memories are the mixture of people and fishing, not the fishing itself. Why, exactly, I was the only one to fish the pond remained a mystery to me. Anyone could unload a small boat as I did in the parking lot at the mill, carry it above the flume, and paddle freely to every reach of the lake. No one else did, though. One year I pulled in on opening day in April, anxious and long suffering in withdrawal, to find the lot full with fishermen buzzing everywhere. The reason was found in the splash pool. Twenty fishermen crowded elbow to elbow concentrically rimming the 20 foot wide glorified bathtub, rod tips all meeting in the center, under which huddled, exposed and mortified, two (2) freshly planted 10 inch rainbow trout (undoubtedly 'cape cod strain' rainbows, which is itself a perversion since there were never any native rainbows in the northeast, the 'cape cod strain' simply representing the longest artificially propagated and most thoroughly domesticated strain, which is now transported back to the native northwest to be planted in our streams again). At least one fisherman hunkered over each little pool between the rocks from the outlet to the salt marsh. One hipbooted success was leaving proudly with a stinger of two "fish". Apparently I was not the only salmonid snob. But I had more pride in my snobbery than that. Laughing, I carried my jonboat around the crowd, launched into the lake, and had a wonderful day without seeing another soul. A week later the lot and the splashpool were empty. Presumably the fish died of embarrassment. Inevitably, I tried to mix business (fishing) with pleasure (dating), before learning my lesson the hard way with x-wife#1. One sunny summer day I asked a feisty and nubile young thing down to my pond on the cape to share with me my deepest passion (so I strategically explained to her). She had a lot of
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