Lake St. Brioc is a popular fishing spot just outside of my home town. It’s a great place to catch charr, but the narrow access to the shore makes some reconsider if the fish are event worth it.
The lake rests between two hills, Mt. Gwenn and Duvall Peak. Sounds simple enough until you realize that the hills are so tightly compacted, that the lake weaves between the valley like a snake with a broken spine. Fishermen have to travel down Missisquoi Road, an old dirt trail they say the Abenaki used to use. It wraps all around Mt. Gwenn to reach the only part of the shoreline gently-sloped enough to get access to the water.
Before you ask if this is technically illegal, I’ll tell you to mind your own goddamn business, but the path is so tedious that the cops don’t give a shit either way. Locals tend to fish responsibly and the trout are plenty, so there’s not much harm done.
The real concern they have is when dumbasses try to haul big ass cars up the path. The PD keeps an unspoken policy of stopping SUVs and larger vehicles from going up the road.
We had an incident where some out-of-town asshats tried hauling their fishing boat up the trail with their Hummer. Needless to say, they were instructed to leave, and that led to a whole kerfuffle. That, however, is a different story entirely.
Speaking of stories, our town is home to a plethora of legends, and Lake Brioc is no exception.
As you round Mt. Gwenn’s westward face, the forest clears up enough to get a clear view of the lake. It’s at this place were people see the Fisherman of St. Brioc.
Anyone claiming to know who he is—even what he is—is full of shit. I’d bet both my jollies that none of the fuckers that describe what he looks like have even caught sight of him.
That said, he’s as real to us here as any Mr. Morris that owns the pawn shop or Mrs. Montfort on down on Bedding. Even the cops see him from time to time. (Funny how they don’t try to slap him with a fine for tax evasion, property taxes up here considered.)
If you happen to be headed out for an evening fishing trip, you’ll sometimes see a man on a small boat minding his own business near one of Gwenn’s bends, the one visible a short walk from the end of Missisquoi Road. Being that the sun sets to his back, and added the half-mile distance between him and the traveler, it’s impossible to get a good look at him, but that won’t stop you from trying. After a minute, he’ll notice you and give you a friendly wave. Wave back and proceed. Once you reach the fishing spot, the water will be empty.
I’ve done a little homework into the story. The first sighting dates back to the mid-1970s. Before then, locals tended to prefer the more distant (though more accessible) Lake Blois. It’s not rocket science to deduce that the prospects of an otherworldly apparition made for a popularity boost.
He isn’t always there, but residents will often wave to an empty lake anyway. Even on those nights, some claim to feel his presence and hear a whistle somewhere over the water.
The skeptic, of course, will chock this up to psychosomatic reactions or just the wind. That’s probably true to some extent. Even that said, it doesn’t stop people from visiting the lake. And it doesn’t stop us from seeing him.
I’ve caught a glimpse of him three on three separate occasions.
The first was in the summer of 2002. I was nine. My dad and I were headed down to the lake for the last day of summer vacation. It was early in the morning, maybe 4:00 AM.
My dad slowed down his car as we passed the clearing and made us leave the car and walk to the ledge. He told me to take a close look out to the waters below. I peered out into unending darkness until my eyes adjusted, when, lo and behold, I made out the shape of a little boat floating down by the bend; in it the figure of a man sat by the side, fishing rod already cast.
Dad waved out, even called out a long hard, “Hello!” He made me do the same. He’d told me about the legend before, but I’d never actually laid eyes on the guy. Reason told me this was a townsman that’d come down to do some early fishing by himself. He couldn’t possibly have seen us this early. Dad probably scared the shit out of him.
And yet, the figure on the boat didn’t flinch or glance around. He just looked in our direction and politely waved back.
By the time we got to the fishing spot—you probably guessed it—not a soul on the lake.
All of the sudden, I go from dreading the school year to the giddiest little bastard on the playground. Half the kids there called me a liar, but fuck ‘em, I got to see the guy on the lake and no one can tell me otherwise. One of the kids that believed me, Tyler, ended up becoming a good buddy of mine. Even my homeroom teacher humored me (whether or not she believed me is irrelevant).
I had bragging rights for the next two weeks until everyone got tired of my shit. A month after that, some lying 5th grader said he saw the fisherman and I was old news.
That didn’t stop me from looking into it. I asked people around town if and when they saw the man. I got varied answered some of them bullshit (okay, more like 75% of them bullshit), but I believed them all the same.
Of the ones I heard, four stories stand out:
>Mr. Arguelles, my Social Studies teacher, saw the Fisherman when he was fifteen while on a date with his future wife. They were walking up Missisquoi Road to hike, when they stopped at the clearing to get a view of the lake. Future-Mrs. Arguelles sits on a stump and looks out to the lake and catches a glimpse of the dude chilling on his little raft. She can hear him whistling a little tune even from there.
She’s from the neighboring town Dreux (and for that she has my condolences) and wasn’t familiar with the legend.
(A quick aside: you’d think a frequently-sighted ghost on a nearby lake might draw some attention even from that backwater dump, but evidently the denizens there have other more pressing issues, like learning what a parking space is or avoiding any contact with a bar of soap, but I digress…)
(…sorry, Mrs. A…)
Anyway, she mentions the fisherman in passing to Mr. Arguelles. He rightly freaks out and checks for himself. The man was still there and waves at them. He waves back.
She, of course, thinks there’s no possible way that the guy sees them—the guy has to be waving to someone on the shore below them—but he tells her to wave anyway. The fisherman stops and gestures to them to pass by.
Mrs. A is surprised that the Fisherman can see them and Mr. A keeps her in the dark until they reach the shore, where—say it with me—there was no Fisherman to be seen. The tells her the whole story. She thinks he’s playing a joke. They head back to town, where everyone she talks to confirms the story.
>Officer John encountered the Fisherman while alone on patrol. I know John personally, since my uncle is buddies with him. He was also at the court when I had to pick up my cousin after his possession plea (that was fun). He’s never struck me as someone with a particular sense of humor. So when he tells me that he saw the Fisherman, I believe him.
The fact that years later he would be so candid as to admit he saw the guy while going on a fishing trip on duty lends credibility.
>My cousin (different one) saw the Fisherman while hiking Duvall Peak. He tells me one of the trees on the slope fell and took a few of its neighbor’s branches with it and he could see the Fisherman from the other side. Fisherman waves at him.
I call him a liar. He tells me to go check. Well, slap my ass and call me Cincinnati, next time I hike up Missisquoi there’s a tree down on Duvall Peak.
>I mentioned Mrs. Montfort earlier. She’s sort of the village elder of our neighborhood. She was a very kind old lady, almost like a third grandma. Most of her days comprised of quilting shirts to the Andy Griffith Show. Dad would make me bring her a pack of Camels every week, a favorite of her and her late husband’s.
Her house isn’t far from the last turn before you hit Missisquoi. I would’ve been a dumbass not to ask her the obvious.
Imagine my shock when she tells me that, not only has she seen him, but she’s actually talked to him. She’s talked to him several times, in fact. She knows his favorite color is blue, he’s a Red Sox fan, and he’s never actually made a catch on the lake.
To her credit, I don’t think anyone I asked ever mentioned him actually catching anything. You know that concept that hell is curtailed to every person? I wondered if maybe that was his own little personal punishment. Beats the fuck out of fire and brimstone, I guess.
That said, I only ever saw her house to go to church, let alone out to the lake. Then again, she also claimed to have met Elvis Presley ten years after he died and had an entire conversation with the archangel Gabriel over the radio.
Looking back, I should’ve been more skeptical of her claims, but by this point I was eleven and had obsessed with ghost stories since I saw the Fisherman two years prior.
I kept jabbering on question after question, but she kept pace with me, answering every one with the patience of a saint.
I finally asked her why the Fisherman waves. She tells me it’s because he’s the guardian angel of the lake, but that he needs permission from those he protects.
So that’s all well and good, but what about the second time I encountered the guy?
Fast forward to 2009. It’s summer vacation headed into sophomore year. I’m dicking around with two buds of mine, Josh and Neman (like “Knee”, not “Nay”). Having wasted virtually all of June with World at War, we decide we’re going to go night fishing. It’s just before or just after July 4th. There’s an almost full moon that’ll give us light for a few hours. So we get our gear (maybe a few Coors) and head up to Lake Brioc.
We pass by the clearing on Missisquoi. It’s 8 P.M. and even with the moon and the tail-end of light you get after the sun goes down in summer, the shadow of the mountain makes it impossible to see jack shit out on the lake aside. Fisherguy might still be down there, so I wave anyway, mostly out of habit. Josh follows me.
Neman, on the other hand, hails from a foreign and faraway land known as Canada and has never seen the man. He says it’s a crock of bull and walks on by. Fuck if I’m the one to tell him otherwise.
On foot it takes about an hour to reach the fishing site. We’re getting our rods ready and chit-chatting about normal shit. Chicks, which teacher is the biggest douche; you know the drill.
Neman walks off to take a piss out in the bushes at the foot of one of the little hills that make up Mt. Gwenn. Josh and I start talking while he’s gone.
We get deep into our conversation talking about some dumb class or another. After a few minutes (7 max), we notice Neman’s not back. I figure he’s dropping one while he’s out there. Josh calls out to him and describes a leaf that’s the best to wipe your ass with that (pretty sure his description matched Poison Sumac).
We wait for a response that never comes.
Thinking Neman’s dicking around with us, we decide it’s better to get spooked by him than it is to risk him wandering off into the woods alone. We don’t often get bears around here, but they are around. Bobcats and Coyotes, too.
We go searching in the woods, calling out for him, telling him what a douchebag he is. This takes something like 10 minutes.
That’s when Josh shouts something and goes barreling down the wooded hill back to the fishing site. I remember him grumbling angrily.
I politely ask what he’s going on about, and he points back to the fishing hole.
“Neman’s fucking back there already.”
I peep through the thick pine brush back from where we had just left. I can see someone standing by the shoreline.
We’re understandably pissed after having just wasted time and energy looking for the asshole, only for him to come back. I promise to myself to kick his ass. Once we’re close, Josh asks Neman why he wasn’t calling back.
Still no response.
We get to the fishing spot and the place is empty. I say we probably mistook something in the way for Neman, despite being fairly confident that I had seen a pair of legs on top of the ground. But Josh doubles down. He raises his voice, tell Neman that if he doesn’t come out right now that he and I are going to leave his ass behind.
Silence.
I’m really antsy now because I figure that we might’ve actually seen someone who wasn’t Neman and that he might’ve done something with our bud. Who knows what else he might be doing.
You look back on something twelve years later and you think, “Why didn’t they just head back to town and call the police?” But that would be a logical response, and Josh and I are two worked-up teenagers that think on our feet like we’re wearing stilts.
Josh decides that it’s just Neman taking the piss out of us. I’m adamant that I’m not going to wander around in the woods in case there’s some psycho running around. He calls me a puss and we get into this huge argument about whether or not there is another person with us and if it’s just someone from town that we scared off with all our shouting.
By the end we decide it’s best if I head out into town to get help and Josh & Neman could walk together back up Mississquoi if/when they found each other.
Splitting up is the second-to-last thing I want to do, but the first is staying in the woods with some weirdo that might be fucking around with us. I tell myself it’s just Neman being an asshole, even though deep inside I’m growing less confident in that by the second.
I’m making my way up the trail when I hear Josh call out my name. I rush down like a bat out of hell back to the fishing spot to find Josh still there. He chews me out, asking why the hell I’m still back here. And I meet his tone to tell him that this isn’t funny and if he and Neman are playing a prank, they need to come clean now or I’m not coming back, even if they call me again.
Josh looks dumbfounded. He swears to Christ that he did not call me. Josh isn’t the most religious guy, but he doesn’t use the Lord’s name in vain. I ask who the fuck did. He says he hasn’t heard jack shit.
We just stare at each other uneasily. By the look in his eyes I can tell his Bullshit-meter isn’t going off. I’ll go along with his and Neman’s ideas whenever we’re out and about, but I’m not the kind of guy to pull pranks like this, especially against my friends.
Just then we hear this high-pitched sound I can’t really make out at first. We both look everywhere, but even in the moonlight we can’t see which direction it’s coming from. The noise is vaguely familiar, like the tune of a song I know, but I can’t think of where I’ve heard it before.
I find the source of the sound and I just about soil myself:
There’s a person on the other side sitting on a stump and whistling to himself.
There’s no way that should be possible. He’s been gone maybe a half an hour. Like I said earlier, Lake Brioc is thin, but it weaves like a snake. The fishing spot’s bank is sort of a pocket jutting out of the snake as it curves, almost like a lagoon, meaning that Neman would’ve had to have rounded the corner of the bank back to the main body and walk all the way around the lake to get to the parallel side to us. That’s an hour and a half trek at best.
We’re afraid the noise might attract something, if not a psycho, then a big animal. We call out to him asking if he’s okay.
The figure stands up, and my blood turns to ice when I see the guy’s way too tall to be Neman. I don’t even look at Josh, but I know he’s got the same reaction as me.
The man on the other side of the lake is clearly facing us. I can’t make out any of his features. What is visible is a cap, pair of overalls and rubber knee-high fishing boots.
He stops his whistling only once to say something to us.
“Take care, boys.”
He gives us a wave, then walks back down the bank out of sight, the sound of that familiar tune lingering in the echos around him.
Josh and I are shitting bricks.
We both jump when a guttural cough resounds nearby. It took just about every drop of courage in us to get closer.
To our shock and relief, Neman is just around the corner on our side of the lake, passed out on the ground.
We shake him awake and he starts lighting us up, asking why we didn’t help him, but we decide it’s best to just wait until we’re back home. We pack our shit and leave ASAP. We ask him what happened, but he just wants to head home.
Going back up Missisquoi, he isn’t very talkative. None of us are. I’m just happy we all made it out in tact.
We make sure Neman gets back home. His mom’s concerned why we’re back so early. Neman looks visibly shaken up he is. We tell her that we had some assholes prank us at the Lake, so we came back. I don’t think she buys it, but she doesn’t press it.
Josh and I go back to our homes, more than a little eager to get back inside.
We all meet up at the park a couple of days afterwards to ask Neman what the hell happened.
The way he tells it, he walked off to take a leak off somewhere in the bushes. He didn’t want any wildlife screwing with us, so he went a little further out to “mark his territory” like some animals do when they want to ward off others, that way if there was bear or bobcat or whatever out with us, he’d put some distance between us.
While he was doing his business, he says he saw something like a laser pointer uphill a short distance. He called out to whoever was there, but the light ran off. He could hear the sound of leaves crunch underfoot as it sped away.
He called back to me and Josh to tell us about it, but we didn’t answer. He tells us he’s going to investigate it, how it’s probably some kids we scared off. We don’t reply. He called out again and thought he heard one of us talking. He took this as we must’ve heard, so he went up the slope to investigate.
But when he got up to where he saw it, there’s nothing in sight. He looked around, told whomever it he and his pals were fishing, asked if the person needed any help. No reply. Leaves didn’t even look disturbed.
He was understandably creeped by this, so turned around to head back. He got halfway back and spotted the bank through the trees, but didn’t see us there. He stopped to yell at us again, when he heard something rustling in the bushes a ways up the hill again. He started jogging downhill and reached the bottom where he though the fishing spot should’ve been.
What he found was a different shore far too steep to fish from. He must’ve taken a wrong turn while coming back down. Unsure of which face of the hill he was on, he started walking across the hill horizontally. That way he would eventually come back to the place facing the site Josh and I were at.
He did this for a while, but found he had really gotten confused on his descent. When it became apparent that the way he was walking taking him the wrong direction, he turned around to walk the opposite way.
Desperate, he shouted our names again. This time he did get a response.
He heard one of us say his name at the top of the hill he had just come down. He thinks the whole thing was a prank on our part; we must’ve gotten Josh’s brother to come with a laser pointer to fuck with him so he could run all around the mountain and make an ass of himself.
The closer he got, however, the voice seemed to stay the same distance from him. He finally got fed up and raced to the top of the hill. He found nothing and no one. He threw a small fit, before turning down again.
He says his heart stopped when he saw the fishing spot on the other side of the lake.
Before he had any time to react, a barrage of voices chanted from every direction around him. At first they spoke over each other, making it hard to understand. But they slowly focused until they spoke in clearly and in unison, “Robert Neman.”
He rightfully freaked out and shot down the hill to the shoreline in what I can only imagine must’ve been a heart-splitting panic that overtook him. He charged down like a bull, knocking over every tree limb and branch in his path and praying to every god of any religion, hearing the voices give way to the thud of feet far too heavy for any human keeping pursuit behind him.
He turned once to see what was on his tail. His heartbeat thudded so loudly that he shouldn’t hear his own scream when he saw two lights like those he followed focused directly on him less than fifteen feet away.
Breaking every Olympic record in a mad dash to get our attention, he screeched our names like a Banshee, pleading us to hear him, to help in some way.
An exposed tree root caught the tip of his shot, propelling him down the rest of the slope until his face met the rocky and wet beach gravel.
He glanced up, still hearing the unseen force barreling down the mountain like a wolf on a lamb, and saw someone out on the lake.
Neman cried out for help, flailing his hands in the air. The other person waved back. With an ease that made it uncertain if he even saw the monster up the slope, the stranger gently rowed his boat slowly closer to shore.
Neman lay there sobbing, but whatever was chasing him hadn’t come. He sheepishly looked up the mountain behind him to see moonlight hitting the quiet forest as though nothing had happened.
The stranger drew close and asked Neman if he wanted a lift. Neman didn’t hesitate and rocketed back to his feed.
He never saw the man’s face. All he remembered was wobbling to the guy’s boat and then waking up next to me and Josh.
Josh and I looked at each other, unsure of what to say. We told Neman our side of the story. He just sat there, paler than any ghost.
Josh tried to tell him that it could’ve been a hallucination that he dream. He must’ve fallen and hit his head on a rock after he peed. He didn’t answer us because he was knocked out and the voices he heard were what his subconscious mind translated from our own calls. Still doesn’t explain the other person we all saw or how Neman was at the shoreline around the bend of the hill’s face, a different side from where he had walked off from.
We still hang out. But needless to say, Neman doesn’t go out to the lake anymore.
I mentioned I saw the Fisherman a third time.
This was about five years later. Mrs. Montfort had been battling lung cancer for the last few months and my dad and mom asked me to help her children with taking care of her.
During one of my visits, I asked her about the man on the lake, just to see if she was pulling a trick on me or not. She told me that if belief meant anything, she could just wish her sickness away. I could choose to believe her or not, but it wouldn’t change the veracity of her stories.
We had a talk about life that I won’t bother bumming you with. Afterward, she requested that, when she passed, that I deliver something to the lake next time I went there.
She said that I could just leave it there, that good ol’ Fisherman would pick it up when he was done for the night. Of course I agreed.
A few weeks later, she died in her sleep in the presence of her living family.
The weekend after her funeral, I took the box to the lakeside. I thought a lot about our last conversation the way up.
I was grateful and all for him helping Neman, but I couldn’t think of anything to give the guy. “Here, let me reach in my pocket and pull out five ectoplasm dollars. Go buy some phantom nightcrawlers.”
I wondered what a little old lady from town might offer a lakeside ghost. Surely she wouldn’t care if I just peeped inside. Curious, and maybe a tiny bit selfish, I took a look. I was confused at first, but when the pieces fell in place, I actually stopped to laugh to myself.
I placed the box down on a stump by the shore and headed back to town.
Wanting to see if my suspicions were correct, I went back the next morning to find the box empty. I smiled and made my way back up the trail.
As I passed the clearing, I happened to look out over the waters one last time.
There on the lake I made out the silhouette of a man with his line cast. Even from where I stood, I saw the definitive shape of his cap, overalls and boots as he bent over to share another cigarette with another figure seated beside him.
They both looked my way and waved to me. Of course, I waved back.
Then they rowed off behind the bend and I likewise headed back home, whistling the iconic tune of a television show from a better time.
I guess he finally made his catch.