There was nothing unusual at the start of our telephone conversation last week, me at my Recorder desk, he his New Salem home, after dark. Pretty typical for my rambling chats over the years with Peter Mallett, brainchild/promoter in chief of the Miller River Fishermen’s Association.

An affable sort, he’s always been upbeat and enthusiastic when we talk about his passion for fishing the Millers River, not to mention the hidden-jewel wetlands in its basin, places where native squaretails lurk and few know it. He knows where the aristocrats of New England waters reside, and he keeps it quiet, thank you; something that ain’t changin’ anytime soon.

Anyway, for the first time in my five-or-so-year telephone relationship with the man who I have not yet met eyes with, I felt another sort of passion emanating from his soul, one wreaking of grief and pain and devastating loss, so profound that I myself could feel it deep within; poignant times 10, no, maybe 100. For the first time he was sharing with me the loss of his only child, a son and fishing companion who left this world at the tender age of 19 in an automobile accident, 1993, 15 short years ago. To him, it seems like hours, maybe minutes, that agonizing.

“I miss him terrible, and think of him every day,” he admitted, voice crackling at the thought of a precious child ripped suddenly from his life. “That’s why I do what I do on the Millers River and the other places I stock. I do it for my son. He loved fishing, lived for it. When I catch a nice fish now I always look to the sky and say, ‘Thank you, Shon, I love you.”

Powerful stuff from this, a man I had previously known only through sporadic, light, playful banter and whimsical chit-chat. Overpowering, in fact. The kind of human emotion that rips at your guts, moistens your eye sockets, brings a hollow lightness to your throat, your upper torso. Grief like that is tough to take, even when it’s someone else’s, and that’s what I was experiencing, palpable grief, transference of the worst kind of emotional pain and suffering; spontaneous, unexpected, gut-wrenching. I ached for him.

This year Mallett has already stocked a four-pound rainbow trout wearing a tag worth $100 in memory of Shon Michael Mallett into the Millers River, another for the late Skott McKenzie, an early MRFA supporter who worked in the L.S. Starrett paint department before cancer took him a few years ago. “Skott was the first person to put a dollar into one of my donation cans, my most loyal supporter early-on, and the best fisherman I’ve ever been around,” Mallett said. “I wanted to do something special for him and for my son and inspiration.”

The two $100 trout are swimming in the river now, and the only person who knows where they were released is Mallett himself, who isn’t giving any clues. “People’ve been asking me where I put ’em, but I won’t tell anyone,” he said. “I’m the only one who knows and that’s how it’s gonna stay.”

Anyhow, when I reached Mallet Monday on his cell phone at midday, he had just arrived home to hundreds of beautiful brook and rainbow trout ticketed for stocking this week. “Big brookies, 12 to 14 inches,” he said, “and some really big rainbows. I think everyone will love these fish.” Fish he has to travel to southeast Massachusetts for now that Sunderland’s Mohawk Hatchery is closed.

Ever the carnival barker, Mallett wanted to remind everyone that donations are always appreciated. “People have been great to us,” he said, and the river is the beneficiary. His goal is to make the Millers River the state’s premier trout stream, and he’s well on his way, if not already there.