BEFORE THE STORM

“I’m dropping out after today.”

    The declaration was one part joke, two parts intent, and escaped daily into a warm, bluebird sky from behind a bottom lip bit in collegiate compliance.

    Once you’ve invested years of tireless angling and observation, and compiled and analyzed a few thousand fish’s worth of fishing logs, you come to recognize Go-Time for what it is.

    It was Day Four of what was to be a week-long warming trend, and March’s winds were moving in response. Friday afternoon would see 75 degrees, and Saturday would bring a sharp cold snap—30 degrees and the possibility of snow. Local stream flows were double average from spring rains, and dropping slowly. In other words, it was Go-Time, and I knew it.

    With the looming reward of escaping to the mountains in search of big wild trout, I crammed my schoolwork into the dark hours, and shaved all unnecessary habits from my routine.

    Thursday afternoon found me speeding towards a Virginia mountain valley, eyes glancing nervously from the road towards the snaking creekbottom below. An eagle soared overhead—casting a shadow over the river’s course and the farm fields surrounding it in its lower reaches—it too content in the spring sun’s gaze.

    I found the water and realized a dream. Rivers—in their ideal state in my mind’s eye—run full and deep. From snow runoff, their runs and holes are highlighted an icy blue. Wonder and possibility are retained when the gravel of the streambed is not too visible. And so this river ran.

High spring water. Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Within these holes and runs and un-seeable gravel lots lies the year’s most promising opportunity to tangle with a big fish, for they find confidence in the slight discoloration, and large prey is disoriented in the chaos.

    Likewise, I tied on a large crayfish fly and worked my way upstream, methodically, keeping contact with the gravel and opportunity.

    Opportunity took me by surprise a few casts into the afternoon, when a sizeable brown snapped at my fly and released it in the same breath. An hour and a half later, opportunity returned with conviction, and ripped my fly into the undercut of a rock ledge. My Tycoon Tackle Scion throbbed under the pressure of a large flash, and a thick 24-inch wild rainbow initiated an adrenaline-soaked game of net tag downstream.

24-inch wild rainbow trout taken on a streamer in the mountains. Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Friday was a continuation in the weather trend, and the joke in my daily threat to abandon academic employment was further diluted with intent. The wind was raging harder; the sun, shining brighter. A storm was coming, and the front was shaping up to be a dramatic one.

    This time, I found the water slightly lower. The currents were calmer and the water clearer, though still rich with opportunity.

    Brown trout are homebodies, particularly in small mountain streams, and so I started the day with a hit list. Patiently, I placed my fly along the current seam of the first run, working my way upstream. 

    Redemption struck where she should have—in a pillow behind a large chunk rock in the streambed where she showed her face the day before—but held on, and rewarded me with 21 inches of wild butter-belly and shimmering bulls’ eyes.

About 20 inches of brown trout taken on a streamer in the mountains. Photo by Matt Reilly.

    It’s funny that fishermen yearn for redemption so avidly, and yet release her graciously once achieved. I was pondering this thought as I examined my tippet and discovered nicks that could cause me to lose another big fish, should I be so lucky. I retied.

    In the act of retying my fly, my focus shifted from my knot to the water in the background, captured by unexplained movement. My heart ricocheted about my chest, more than it would for any fish, when I quickly recognized the brown figure lumbering over the limestone streambed towards my wading boot as a hellbender salamander—18 inches of giant, beautifully adapted, rare salamander.

A hellbender salamander cruises the limestone streambed inches from my wading boot. Photo by Matt Reilly.

    With shaking hands, I reached for my backpack’s side pocket and squeezed my eyes tight in thankfulness for having remembered my waterproof camera. A few moments interacting with, and studying the awesome intricacies of the animal left my spirit enriched.

    God must have been smiling on me and rewarded my responsible stewardship, when granted redemption in that large wild brown trout, with more blessings; for the afternoon ran on, and more wild trout came to hand—approximately 40, with most being larger than 12 inches. The term “golden light” comes to mind—that moment of perfect elemental combination that results in a truly magnificent circumstance, as recognized by photographers and outdoorsmen, alike.

Photos by Matt Reilly.

    As I write this, the weather has turned stable; the water, low. I’ve hardly threatened to abandon my studies for the river, and my nighttime motivation has shrunken. The conditions are not prime for my mind to wander, but they will be again.□

    

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian            

FEBRUARY IS A HARD MONTH TO LOVE

February is a hard month to love. The most ardent endure her harsh temperament--her changing moods--with some success, rarely without sacrificing self, in the form of numb fingers or wind-chapped cheeks.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    February is a time of change, one without which the climactic arrival of spring would be of muted contrast. Snowmelt, under the typically warmer-than-winter closing days of the month, floods rivers and streams with cold, dirty water, while small game seasons peter out. But if February offers any consolation, it’s that taking it by the horns and experiencing the true end of the outdoor year makes spring all the more grandiose.

High, Cold, and Dirty

    Six inches of snow fell over the weekend, and promptly melted, unleashing inches of 36-degree, muddy water on the landscape. If there’s a type of water that warrants hanging your hat up for, it’s this—but when the going gets tough, I find it unacceptable to accept defeat.

    When I arrived at the roadside pull-off, I could hardly recognize the creek that brushes the road. Under normal circumstances, a well-defined run-pool complex passes tranquilly under the shadow of a hemlock-lined bank. With the right angle of sunlight to facilitate, a half dozen or so dark, elongated forms can be seen waving in place like submerged grass in the lucid blue belly of water, fins grazing cobble below.

    This time, however, the scene looked and sounded of chaos. Green-brown water capped with foam rolled and chopped like ocean waves, ignoring the serpentine borders of the creek, and challenging the quiet forest highway adjacent to a contest in violent white noise it was sure to win.

    I learned a lesson in high-water trout fishing in western Maryland three years prior. That river was running roughly four times its typical flow. Wild brown trout filled the river, and I had considerable success fishing soft water behind big boulders along the flooded bank with a large, dark fly. That was mid-June.

    A third odd was stacked against me on that February day—cold water. I knew I’d have to fish slowly, and very thoroughly.

    When a creek jumps its banks, holding and feeding lies are tossed in the air. The food chain scrambles to reestablish footing in the changing system. Small fish are tossed around, and large, predatory fish cruise harsh current breaks, looking for a feeding opportunity.

    A few hundred yards upstream, I found the setting for the scene I prophesized in my mind. A long, hard run ran over chunk rock, tossing water in crests and pits. An abutting slab of bedrock calmed the churning, and pooled a few feet of calm water.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    Several casts with a heavy crayfish-imitating fly into the seam ended with a hard stop and the turn of a massive female brown trout that ran downstream, broke me off, and became my latest heartbreak.

Two Triples

    A crisp, sunny afternoon in February beckoned me to the squirrel woods, amped with adrenaline, 20-guage pump shotgun in tote.

    Late season bushytail hunting, in my mind, speaks of delicate walking, skittish squirrels, and quick shots—a game tailored to the indiscriminate, somewhat forgiving reach of a boom-stick.

    Just barely inside the treeline, as I stood mid-way up a hardwood ridge, sun to my back, three squirrels busted from cover, nervous from my prolonged pause, and darted for independent cover. Swinging, and operating the pump-loading mechanism instinctively, I dropped all three on consecutive shots—a triple, for half a limit.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Another 45 minutes of still hunting landed me in position to take another bushytail. From a creekbottom, I closed the distance between me and the rustling I could hear near the top of the ridge, hopping and skipping in bursts, imitating the sound of a pouncing gray squirrel.

    The first shot was presented when an alarmed gray pounced from the trunk of an oak tree into the branches of another. As it was scrambling to establish footing, I dropped it with a swinging report from the 20-guage.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    A second bushytail peeked out from behind the trunk of a neighboring oak, curious, presenting a headshot that didn’t go unclaimed. Down went another batch of meat for the pot.

    A third held tight to the forest floor for 30 seconds before making a mad dash for a nearby hickory tree. I ran forward ten feet as the squirrel began its ascent of the trunk, and interrupted it, taking a quick knee, and firing a rising snap-shot—a second double, for a limit of late season bushytails.□

 *Originally published in the Rural Virginian

A MORNING WITH THE VILLAGERS

Mountains are the world’s best hiding places. They can shield you from what’s immediate and threatening and place you closest to what’s most important in a single breath. This, I am certain, was God’s intention; to move or alter one should be a sacrilege. The communities and cultures that emerge at the end of the roads that navigate the folds and ridgelines, and cross the creeks that animate them, are, by design, strongholds for old-world values and charm. Thus my soul is pulled down secondary roads that lead up and away.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    For a few hundred miles, as they dive into the southwest corner of Virginia, the Appalachian Mountains find girth. The highlands to the west begin to expand from the narrow crest that mounts in the central part of the state, and continue to do so as they roll into western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee—the Great Smokey Mountains. Ridges and fertile valleys take turns striping the land to the east, giving rise to a number of small mountain towns that once dotted a railroad that wandered the valleys and hollows.

    Taylor’s Valley is one such destination. Nestled in the palm of the southwest Virginia highlands, the village is as far removed as you can get in just a 15-minute drive from Damascus—affectionately dubbed “Trail Town USA.” Fork Mountain, which separates the two populations geographically, pushes the traveler south into Tennessee along a mountain highway before a ramshackle, faded, wooden sign directs him northward along a pot-holed road back into the state from whence he came.

    While I refrain at all costs from writing about secrets, Taylor’s Valley is none such. In fact, visitors—hikers—en route from Springer Mountain, Katahdin-bound on the Appalachian Trail, pass through shortly after making their collective favorite stop in Damascus. Perhaps Virginia’s most popular bike trail, the Virginia Creeper Trail, drives dozens of bikers through town daily. A single-lane bridge spanning Whitetop Laurel Creek—arguably one of the highest quality trout streams in the Southeast—is the town’s welcome mat.

    Gardens are plentiful; gas stations, nonexistent. Churches outnumber restaurants, which are few; and on a pleasant fall morning it would not be a surprise to find the majority of residences vacated for the comfort of nature. The Game Department’s regular stocking of the creek throughout fall and spring makes the retired man sporting hip-waders, creel, and limber spinning rod a common character—canine companions are optional, but largely endorsed.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    It’s a homey place. That’s the impression I got when I opened my car door in a small gravel shoulder by the creek to find my very own dog waiting for me, like a housewarming present for my sojourn. Perky ears and friendly eyes stared me down, a wet nose implored my hands for attention, as I shouldered waders and strung my fly rod, intent on sampling some of the Valley’s aquatic villagers, but not without satisfying its four-legged one.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Golden leaves barreled down the creek pecking at my fly line, catching my fly on occasion. Patience and persistence payed out, though, in the form of four chunky brown trout, flamboyantly adorned with spawning garb.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    I released the last fish and looked up to notice an elderly man fishing a good way above me. I stepped out of the river to explore upstream and give the man some space to enjoy the morning, but happened upon him leaning by his aged red pickup, retired from fishing.

    “Seems every time I looked you were doubled up with one of them!” he exclaimed.

    “The jury’s still out on the luck part of it,” I returned politely.

    “Any browns,” he inquired?

    “All browns,” I replied,

    “Huh,” he returned, hoisting a stringer of four rainbow trout. “They looked pretty good sized. Last year the state did a questionnaire asking people if they’d have lots of small and average fish or fewer bigger fish, and I think they settled on bigger. Works out good for me. I come down here when I can, but I don’t fish any of those other creeks. This one is the prettiest.”

    “There’s something to be said for that,” I said. “They say ‘trout don’t live in ugly places.’ Those are some nice fish.”

    “Tell me, are you a Christian?” he asked.

    “Yes, sir,” I said.

    “I thought I could tell it on your person,” he replied, smiling. “Most folks here are. Some of ‘em opened up their home as a café for the bikers. Their chocolate cake won some award in one of them southern magazines.”

    Talk of family and fishing petered out after a snack and a wave. I moved upstream to explore, caught a dozen more trout, exchanged waves with the bikers and hikers, and thought a familiar thought: These hills are home. And everything in them.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

THERE'S A FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON IN OUR MOUNTAINS

There’s a fire-breathing dragon in our mountains.  Should you request a photograph, he is invisible, but breathes his torch upon our coldwater flowages, ever more intensely as years progress.

Pine Creek, PA suffers from early autumn low water.  Photo by Matt Reilly.

    You’re skeptical?  Scientific academies the world over confirm his existence; and should you, being biologically inquisitive, wish to know where such a creature was birthed from, I would inform you that those very same scientists are in concurrence that you and I are the culprits at large. 

    A brute of such stature and appetite, you reason, must have some significant impact on his environment.  This is true.  However, I will counteroffer that he is a habitat generalist, omnipresent.  His impact is slow, yet steady—relatively undetectable to the untrained eye.

    Still, this intangible monstrosity of Sagan speciation affects quantifiable damage.  Our very own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken note (as of last summer) that his very existence on planet Earth results in rising water temperatures and altered streamflow so significant that 62 percent of coldwater fisheries habitat is projected to be compromised without intervention by the year 2100. 

    In layman’s terms, our dragon has the life ambition of forcing our trout and salmon from Appalachia, the continental lowlands and hills, and all but the highest elevation streams of the Rocky Mountain West.  Any individual concerned with ecological diversity, recreational fishing, or economics should consider such an antagonist a cold-blooded murderer.

    Still, he can neither be touched nor seen, and thus we have a decision to make.  Either we intervene, or we refrain, on faith that the dragon is merely a figment of our imagination.

Greg Craven, author of What’s the Worst That Could Happen?, an innovative, rational response to the climate change debate, offers a model that fits our dilemma quite nicely.  In reality, there are four possible actions and outcomes to this question.

    First, our dragon does, in fact, exist, but we decide not to intervene.  As a consequence, 62 percent becomes a very real number, and our trout and salmon are ravaged by a destructive reptile.

    Second, our dragon exists, and we decide to oust him.  As a result, we invest greatly in destroying the invasive fire-breather and save the majority of coldwater fisheries from slow death.

    Third, the dragon is actually make-believe, and we decide not to pursue his execution.  In this case, all is well that ends well.

    Finally, our dragon is, after all, a figment of our imagination, and we do decide to act.  Unnecessary economic downturn is the result, as we invest in dragon-killing measures that are effectively a wild goose chase.

    Mere days following the release of the EPA’s dramatic statement, I was having lunch with a handful of coldwater fisheries conservation professionals, employed by Trout Unlimited, delivering the comprehensive State of theTrout report—a critical look at the risks posed against coldwater fisheries, and the proposed solutions to those problems.  Many of those problems are related to climate change.

    In that setting, the aforementioned model would have served useful, as an aged gentleman sitting in on the discussion dug his heels into the dirt. 

    “Why are we focusing on climate change when the real problem is the health of our coldwater fisheries?” he questioned.

    “Because their decline is tied to climate change,” it was countered.

    The conversation hit a wall.

    What failed to be recognized is that failure to act, based on the claim that climate change is not occurring, gambles with the viability of the ecosystems in question.

    Within our four real options, two require action and two don’t.  Of the two that don’t, the only positive outcome relies on the premise that our dragon doesn’t exist (an idea which is strongly and collectively opposed by the international scientific community), while the worst results in the loss of over half of our coldwater fisheries.  Of the two that do require action, the positive result is a country of relatively healthy salmonids, while the worst reality is an unnecessary investment.

    Thus, it is irresponsible to get hung up on the question of whether or not a scaled beast inhabits our hills.  The question that should be asked is whether or not we should act; and the steward’s answer is “yes.”

    And so we are called to make an assumption:  there is a fire-breathing dragon in our mountains.  For should at last his unhindered wreckage be permitted to culminate, skeptics will see and believe, and all will mourn the loss of our finned protagonists, begging to trade a blinding societal ego recognized for an irreplaceable ecosystem so ignorantly sacrificed.□

*Originally published in The Rural Virginian

MONSTER POOL

As I wound my way through Pennsylvania’s Grand Canyon, traffic slowed to a stop. 

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    The Northern Tier is a mostly rural landscape, similar to that of the Shenandoah Valley--traffic is relatively non-existent.  Corn fields and dairy cows cover the rolling countryside in a studded patchwork falling off the slopes of the Appalachian Mountains.  At the center you’ll find the Pine Creek Valley, the artery which carves the mountain gorge that earned the area the Grand Canyon likeness.  At the heart of that valley you’ll find a beautiful freestone creek, finned by the speckled forms of shouldered brown trout.

    When I came to a halt in the line of cars strung along the single road that follows the creek through the mountains, the obstacle became apparent.  Despite a bluebird sky and no wind, a thick pine tree rooted a few feet from the roadside had met its end and splintered, coming to rest across both lanes of the mountain highway.  Travelers applied insufficient brawn to the trunk, while resigned onlookers crowded the scene.

    Luckily, an ax lay in its place in the back of my car.  A few minutes of sweaty swinging split the branches from the trunk and severed the crown.  The resigned onlookers helped clear the road.

    Despite the delay, the fallen pine tree was not altogether inconvenient.  The mountain air was thin, crisp, but warm and dry.  No rain had fallen in weeks, and the creek ran low.  Perhaps “ran” is an inappropriate verb.  Even the pools and riffles were at a relative standstill.

    I fished the morning with no reward.  Crystal clear water and a bright sky were my foremost opponents. 

    And so in an effort to “switch things up,” I visited a friend in the local fly shop for direction.

October caddis were on the water and thick in the air.  So I left the shop with a few Elk Hair Caddis in my pocket, aimed at a stretch of river rejuvenated by a few small tributaries.

    It was 4:00 in the afternoon by the time I reached the parking area where I planned to enter the water, and the early fall sun was oppressive as it hung just above the western wall of the canyon.  

    Wet-wading would suit, and the river water refreshed me as I waded downstream in search of trout in a recommended location, nicknamed “Monster Pool.”

    A sharp bend in the creek channel and visible riffles just downstream from a creek mouth signaled to me my arrival.  A gravel bank was exposed by the low flow on river left.

    As a matter of stealth, I crossed the creek to prepare my attack on the bank.  I examined my leader.  5X had proven itself ineffective against finicky risers in the present water conditions.  So I converted my tippet to a size finer, and lengthened it by three feet.  A caddis found its way on the end.

    As I edged into the water towards the rising forms of wild brown and rainbow trout, a bald eagle erupted from the bank opposite me.  Cast after delicate cast brought no interest from the fish, despite the cloud of October caddis on the scene. 

    Eventually my fixation on fish lost hold.  A red fox trotted over the ridgeline on the opposite bank, scaring a rather hefty groundhog loafing about the rocky crags half to death.  The predator halted at the commotion caused by the rodent, turned, and followed the creek out of sight. 

    Moments later, my backcast caught on grass peeking up through the gravel to my rear.  I turned to see a black bear cub sniffing curiously about the ground, pausing only to stare confusedly at the flailing angler in his watering hole.  The light of day escaped with the beast as it meandered its way out of sight.

    Suddenly, barely visible in the fading light, rises became audial, no longer delicate.  To a pod of several fish, I fired a short cast dropping my caddis in their feeding zone.  Immediately, it was slurped up and I was fast to a 14-inch rainbow trout. 

    I continued picking off fish, and the action grew faster, more aggressive and indiscriminating, as night settled in.

    My fifth fish was a solid brown, caught in the head of the riffle on a blind cast to noise.  I chased it down to land it in the riffle it inhabited.

    As I handled the fish, plucking the fly from its mouth and admiring its strong form in the dark, the discarded fly drifted with the current between my legs.  A familiar sound caused me to find the fly line tangled in my hand and pull.  And just like that, I released the fish in my left hand, grabbed my rod and turned, tight to another trout in the dead of night.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian