The Stream

      Moss under foot silenced my feet. The path slipped through shade beneath very green maple leaves then turned down into the darkness of softwood trees. Where the ground flattened, woven roots formed a bridge over a tiny trickle, then waist-high ferns shouldered the narrow trail between tall straight spruce and fir trees. 

     My dogs bounded ahead and I hoped they weren’t cooling themselves in my favorite fishing pool. The water would be low and those brook trout spook easily. Colby, the older German wirehair trotted back looking for me. Maggie, ever the hunter, was standing atop the bank by a bend of the stream, looking down into the water. Frogs? Maybe.

     The quiet babble said the stream was low long before I saw it. Stepping from the trees, I noticed that one channel was completely dry and what was once an island in the stream had become part of the far bank. Shoulder high grass grew where only pebbles lay before. After reminding the dogs that stealth was required, neither entered the water, much to my relief and surprise.

     Studying the water and hoping for some inspiration, I missed my pipe that I hadn’t smoked in almost thirty-five years. Which fly? No insects were on the water, but the water was mighty thin. I opted for a tiny caddis dry.  

     Where there used to be a deeply undercut bank a tree stretched across the stream. Gravity had taken its toll. The water still swirled against the far bank, where the water piled against the log. I floated a fly in. Nothing, and then several nothings. I contemplated changing to my trusty wooly bugger, but upstream a kingfisher burst from a dead spruce. The pool beneath that bird’s tree looked promising.

     With light footsteps, I crossed a stony shallow riffle to wade through the tall grass of what used to be the island. Both dogs snuck along with me and, when I stop next to the stream to fish, they sat to watch.

     Through the glassy surface it was easy to see the brown silted bottom of the pool. Trees over the left bank blackened the water with shade, but bright sunshine lit most of the pool. Dark cigar-shaped shadows on the bottom came from holding trout, possibly a dozen with one or two longer than the spread of my hand.

     Nervously, I worked out fly line. A fleck of water from the line hit the surface and the trout flinched. My next forward cast landed short and the trout twitched again, but did not move far.

Can you see the trout?

     After the fly drifted back I lifted it off the water and false cast over the weeds along the stream. When the distance felt right, I let the fly drift down ahead of the trout.

     Pandemonium! Some dashed left, others right. One snatched the fly off the surface.

After a short battle and a sniff by the dogs, that trout was returned to swim again. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

The Brook

     A woodcock fluttered up and away my very first time there. That was eleven years ago and it seemed like a pretty good omen. Barbed wire buried inches beneath the bark of softwood trees told it once was a pasture. In places, remnants of old fields still border the stream, but alders and poplar are squeezing the grasses away.

     Every year the brook changes when the spring runoff chews away at its banks and tumbles streamside trees. One favorite bend used to be around a narrow gravel bar, but has grown to nearly the size of a tennis court. The stream is a property bound and someday it will be interesting to sort out who owns what, but that isn’t a worry now.

     On the north side of the stream, softwoods cover the flat valley bottom. Soft needles and moss muffle footsteps, and moose and deer keep a path well trampled. 
      In places the ferns are waist high, easily tall enough to hide dwarfs, elves, and forest creatures. It is a magical place. Farther from the stream, the land abruptly climbs and the forest changes to mixed hardwoods. Along this edge is where the exploding ruffed grouse live.

     Brook trout hide in the stream’s shadows, beneath undercut banks and fallen tree trunks. In the fall they slip up some of the tiny feeder streams to reproduce, sometimes in places that are so shallow their backs are out of the water. It is best to give them some privacy then, so I stay away.

     Fishing downstream, sinking flies in the deeper holes or among the shadows along the banks, you will eventually come to the alder flats. In October, when the weeds finally lay flat, the woodcock will be found feeding in the soft soil beneath those alders. Some great memories linger in that tangle. But by mid-November the place feels as empty as a ghost town.

     Further downstream a bit, beavers keep trying to dam the stream, but always disappear after the dams get started. Possibly someone traps them out, but the abandoned barriers create lovely tranquil pools. There, a tiny dry fly often coaxes a trout into doing something stupid, or at least showing its location. The trusty old green woolly bugger usually catches the biggest fish.

     Most of the trout are gently put back into the stream. A whopper would be as long as the spread of a man’s hand, but those are rare. Occasionally, a couple medium sized ones will come home to be cooked in bacon fat for breakfast. A kingfisher might protest, but he can catch his own trout.