Book Excerpt: Rivers Always Reach the Sea

Blind Casting

It was July, and we were on the Pinware River in southern Labrador. I was fishing with the best salmon anglers I know–Billy Taylor, president of the Atlantic Salmon Federation; David Clark, the indefatigable Nova Scotian; and Yvon Chouinard, the all-world fisherman. We were having a tough morning. The weather was miserable–a cold rain blew into our faces from the angry ocean just a mile away. And we were fishless. But the salmon were there–silver half moons leaped all around us.

Shortly after lunch, a young man appeared from the piney woods, leading another man, this one older, silver-haired, by the elbow. They walked to the water’s edge and wedged their way between Taylor and Chouinard. The young man stood by the older man’s non-casting side and gave him instructions on where to cast. “Two o’clock,” or “little longer,” that sort of thing.

After maybe five casts, the older man’s rod bent into an arc. Salmon. He let the fish run, then reeled hard when it stopped. The salmon leaped, the young man yelled, “Drop the tip!” and the silver-haired man did exactly that. The silver-haired man brought the salmon to his feet, but never looked down. The young man expertly tailed it with his bare hands, then pulled it out of the water. He grabbed the silver-haired man’s hand and led it to the fish. The silver-haired man rubbed his two fingers across the salmon’s glistening back. Then the young man released it.

The young man repositioned the older one in the water, turning his body so he again faced quartered downstream. A few casts later, he hooked another salmon. Same scene: young man guiding the older man’s hand to feel the fish’s back, then releasing it.

With that, the young man again held the older man’s elbow and led him out of the river. They disappeared into the green pines with the mist.

Once they were gone, I glanced furtively at my companions. Taylor and Clark were bent slightly at the waist, intently minding the swing of their flies through the riffly pool. Chouinard was standing on a red rock mid-river, cracking long casts over the water with his double-handed fly rod. I started casting again. We fished like this, hard and without a word or eye contact, for three more hours. We did not hook a single salmon.

Back at the lodge, we staggered around, silent and exhausted. We picked at the food set in front of us.

After dinner, we lingered at the table. Everyone remained quiet for a while, then Chouinard made a little noise in his throat. We all looked at him. He was leaning his chair back against the wall. He was staring at the bottle of Labatt’s Blue in his hand, working on pulling off the label, turning up the corners.

“I tried everything today,” he started, addressing his words to the bottle. “Wets, dries, riffle hitch. Dead-drifting the fly. Stripping it. Everything.” We all nodded. Yes. Yes.

“I can’t believe it,” he continued. “I can’t believe I was outfished by a blind guy.”

He began to chuckle, giddy with exhaustion, and the next thing you knew, it caught on and we all doubled over in laughter. We had suffered the same fate.

When the laughter died down, Chouinard stopped worrying the corners of his beer label. Then he rubbed his head thoughtfully.

“I even tried casting with my eyes closed.”

Beer shot through my nose.

Excerpted from Rivers Always Reach the Sea: Angling Stories by Monte Burke, Foreword by David DiBenedetto. Published by Pegasus Books, June 2025.

‍Monte Burke is the author of Lords of the Fly: Madness, Obsession and the Hunt for the World Record Tarpon, and the New York Times bestseller, Saban: The Making of a Coach, a biography of Alabama head coach, Nick Saban. He is also the author of 4TH And Goal: One Man's Quest to Recapture His Dream, which won an Axiom Award for biography, and Sowbelly: The Obsessive Quest for the World Record Largemouth Bass. He is a contributing editor at Forbes, Garden & Gun and The Drake.