Yale Anglers' Journal

Volume Six Number One

The Opening - Great Pond
Ray Ellis
Print 1997

An excerpt from:

Circles

Written by Blair Oliver

HE worked the bottom in circles. The rope scratched at his hips, and the smell of low tide rose from the marsh. Low tide was the stench of fiddler crabs flipped on their backs in the sun, of glazed snapper in a bucket, of all the used bottoms of things. But Quinn didn't mind. He appreciated the smell in the way he appreciated anything that felt of home.

Pushing the rake from his feet, he combed the bottom one strip at a time then turned slightly to cover the cove in circles. Hardshell clams had hatchet-shaped feet that anchored them to the sand or mud. If the rake hit one, a tremor would shimmy up from the teeth. Most other crud stone, conchs, beer cans would roll from the rake, but the clam would hold its ground. After feeling the tremor, Quinn would place the rake's mesh basket behind the shellfish and sink the teeth into the mud. Once set, he'd pull the rake toward him, turn the handle and scoop the clam into the basket.

He hooked a starfish whose tangerine arms were rapped in a puncher's fist around a cherrystone. The clam spilled from its shell like a swollen tongue. The starfish had sent its stomach into the shell to swallow the clam. Quinn took it off the rake and pried open the fist. He bit the starfish. The skin had the dry leather toughness of jerky, while its guts were plump as a tomato. His father used to eat tomatoes like apples when watching the Yankees on television. Give 'em hell, Billy, he'd say, squirming in his easy chair, a tomato snug in his palm. Quinn took another bite, spit out a piece of arm, then found a nail in his dory and used the rake handle to hammer the broken star to the gunwale.

An arm twitched.

He farmed the cove at Dinner Point in an hour, boated to the north side and began to scratch outside the mouth of Channel Creek. Widgeon grass licked at his legs. Finishing a circle, he heard music, then a factory outboard pleading toward him.

Quinn dropped his rake and looked up as C.E. Lovelady's mint green Starcraft swooped from behind the reeds and made a run past the dory. Gulls chattered in chase, and water rooster-tailed from the outboard. A black flag flew from the transom. The water arched, paused it made a rainbow. Then it fell, splashing Quinn.

The conclusion available in Volume 6 Number 1

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