From the start, this was clearly a small stream adventure; a shot at fly fishing a piece of water that I'd never seen except on Google Earth -- and had never heard anyone else mention.

It was miles upstream from a stretch I did know, and for two years, I'd been idly planning its exploration. I knew the water was thin and fish likely small, but fishermen are powered by hope as much as anything (or in this case, greed), and who doesn't want to find a hidden stretch of great, never-fished water?

Me landing something small on the second biggest pool of the day (photo Older Bro) 

Suddenly, with the family out of town and Older Bro at loose ends, a plan was hatched.

The original plan was to shuttle a car to the takeout point where the stream crossed a logging road, then fish our way up several miles of stream.

It sounds easy, but the reality was a little daunting; the stream varies between flatter sections (where you're crawling over/under downed trees and boulders) and steep-sided gorge sections (where you're crawling over/under downed trees and boulders, but steeper).

In other words, it's a little like work.

Older Bro on one of the easy sections. 

After we got a good look at the deteriorating logging road -- and the time involved in a shuttle -- we simply bagged the second truck and drove miles up to the road crossing, bushwhacked back down the ridgeline, then slipped and skidded our way down the long, steep slope to the creek.

Where things didn't go quite as planned.

The snowpack this year was dismal and the creek was low. I can't count the number of times we looked at a stretch of water said "that would be interesting if it had another three inches of water."

Which -- in a normal year -- it would.

Couple the lack of water with an unholy number of 100-degree days up here in the mountains, and we were concerned enough to take a few water temperature readings.

Fortunately, water temperatures in the morning were 64 to 65 degrees. High, but OK for fishing.

We thought.

The Fly Fishing

The fly fishing went largely as planned, though the water was thin and the fish small enough to occasionally generate feelings of guilt.

You'll inevitably catch four-and-five-inch trout when you fish a small stream, but if that's all you're catching, then maybe it's time to look elsewhere.

In this case, Older Bro took the Headhunter Of The Day (so far)
lead when he caught a 5.5" trout (we thought about measuring them in millimeters to make them seem larger).

Later, I caught a legitimate 6.5" fish (the shoulders on that one!), making me the real Headhunter.

Unfortunately, when I caught that larger fish, he made one short run, flopped over on his side, and just let me unhook him.
Uh oh. Zog not happy.

He swam away into the foamy stuff at the head of the plunge pool, but I took another water temperature reading, and the bad news stared us in the face: on the periphery of the pool, the water was 70+ degrees.

For me, 68-70 degrees is the upper limit of my trout fishing. And we'd reached that.

We kept clawing our way upstream and checking the water temperature. There was no joy. We kept finding flatter sections where the sun heated the rocks and the water spread out and moved slowly, spiking water temperatures.

In other words, our day was done. We were only a quarter mile from the takeout point and we were both pretty beat, so it's not the disaster it could have been.

In fact, my legs were getting punchy.

When you fish terrain like this, you want to be Mr. Glide. He's the strong, assured fisherman inside you who has the strength to get up on top of all the rocks, hopping from one to another like you're simply gliding over the boulder field.

When it works, it works great. But when your legs get even a little weak, Mr. Glide goes away and you're left to either slog your way over the boulder fields or risk a fall.

Which is what happened to Older Bro, who after his 13 miles-per day hike is in much better shape than I am. Yet he stepped up onto a rock but didn't quite carry enough momentum to stay there.

When that happens, you look for a rock to step down onto (it had happened to me a couple times by that point), but sometimes that rock isn't there, and down he went.

I winced when I saw him go down, and later he congratulated me for not stepping on his body as I rushed over to see if his fly rod was damaged. ("I'm fine. Really, don't mind me.")

At my core, I'm clearly a humanitarian -- but one with a deep interest in the welfare of fine sporting gear.

The Details

Older Bro fished his by-now beloved (and still intact) 8.5' 3wt Orvis Superfine. I finished testing the 8'4" Helios 2 two-weight, and decided it was a little fast for my tastes, though the very light tip does make it useful for small stream use.

I ended up landing seven small fish and the 6.5" Megatrout
mentioned earlier, and Older Bro did about the same.

In other words, we did way too many hours of work for way too few small fish.

This was the lower limit of our trip; we turned around and headed back up. 

Still, we got a good look at the stream not far from its headwaters -- miles upstream from the bits I've fished before. It's beautiful and challenging and (clearly) is almost never fished, but it's also probably not worth a return visit.

Several miles downstream the fish are a little bigger and the water a little deeper, and you don't have to struggle over lots of deadfall in the long stretches between fishable pools.

We were sore and beat (Older Bro because of his fall, and me because of my disgusting lack of fitness), but we'd fished something few (if any) people bother to fish, which isn't a bad way to spend a day.

And now I know.

I don't have to look upstream and wonder what lies miles up the watershed, and while it's not the hidden superfishery I always hoped it was, it's everything it's supposed to be, and only an entitled ass would whine for more.

See you crawling over rocks, Tom Chandler.

For some reason, I like it.