Upland Chef

CULINARY CREATIONS FROM GORDON HAMERSLEY

Spring Woods Walk

One wrong step and ice water is now beginning to run down the edge of my boot, and I can feel the frigid tingle begin to penetrate my sock. It’s not like falling into a trout stream right after ice-out where the shock steals your breath for a second before you realize you’re not going to drown. This liquid ice is more like upland water torture: slow, steady, painful.

I’m at a marsh about a mile from the house in northeast Connecticut in what has become a favorite spot. I took the winter shortcut across the back end of the marsh to a stream to fish and made a poor decision. In fact, I probably shouldn’t have been disturbing it anyway. I discovered the marsh last fall while hunting woodcock along the tiny stream that feeds the 10-acre marsh. Shallow in most spots and packed with snow and ice just two weeks ago when it was easy to walk across with snowshoes, now this 10-acre mix of downed cattails and dead water lilies in the deeper spots and large tussocks of thick grasses in the shallow end is just a few weeks away from greening out. Hopping from tussock to tussock, I think I’ll make it to drier, higher ground, but my boot slips off a large hummock and in I go. I struggle to release my foot from the ooze from which it is embedded and off comes my knee-high rubber boot. Using the rod tube for balance, I’m back in the boot and safely detached from the pungent, primordial quicksand. And this was supposed to be an easy day; I wasn’t even going to wade into the raging stream runoff.