Fly fishermen – especially the small stream fiends – view the parts of a stream they have fished as a jumping-off point.
They’re less a permanent home than a home base for further exploration.
Which is where the parts you haven’t fished enter the equation.
On the map, they’re likely to be marked “places to try” instead of “here be monsters” (if they’re marked at all).
It’s the kind of perception that creates its own reality; the second you look upstream and wonder what the water’s like a half mile up, you’ll be haunted by it until you find out.
An updside-down rock in a pool (somebody's got a sense of humor, if not gravity)
Which is how the Wonderdog and I found ourselves at the chokepoint that defeated us on our last trip up this tiny stream gorge – a place where a steep rock wall, deep water, plunging waterfall, willow trees, loose rock and last winter’s fallen trees congealed into one nasty roadblock.
Last time we fished this far and turned back, figuring we’d exhaust our remaining time climbing around the chokepoint, only to turn around and head back down.
This time we hiked right past the deep green pools (and the pair of women sunbathing in the first pool) to this spot, stopping to fish only once.
The idea was simple; find a (safe) way past this point, hike up a mile or so, and fish our way back.
A quick two-hour trip.
Right.
The Great Unraveling
We made it.
Sorta.
In truth, getting around the chokepoint wasn’t really Hollywood blockbuster material, though it was a grunt. An arc-shaped path took us above most of the gunk, though finding a safe path across the loose volcanic rock fired the heart rate just a little.
After we beat the bottleneck, the route alternated between unpleasantly steep and really unpleasantly steep and cluttered.
The trees, willows, rocks and very, very steep walls took turns poking at us, and while I was doing OK, the Wonderdog was having his problems.
He’s a wiz in the forested sections – able to simply walk underneath the thick branches that frustrate the hell out of me. But his best rock-hopping days – which were none too great to begin with – are clearly behind him.
More on that later.
The stream gorge is narrow and steep - this was the only way to see for distance.
Eventually, I couldn’t take it any more, and we stopped to fish some of the flatter stretches (flat being relative in a mountain gorge). I caught little trout in more or less the expected places, though I made two unhappy discoveries.
First, the trout here seemed smaller than those farther downstream, an artifact of the deeper plunge pools down there.
And second, my leader really sucked.
Throwing a soft, 7′ 3wt glass rod demands a leaders with a soft butt section.
Which I didn’t have.
Instead, the casting loop in the line was pretty, but the leader turned over like a two-decades-old gate hinge (poorly), and the fly landed almost where it was supposed to (actually, it landed there almost never).
When you think of yourself as a seasoned fly fisherman who’s got the basics wired, something like this grates a little (note: it grates a lot).
Later – after the wind came up a little – I cut a chunk of the butt section away and lengthened the tippet to compensate, so instead of the thing casting like a capital L, it cast like an ampersand.
Sometimes, I hate the language.
Still, we caught fish and kept moving upstream, right up to a new chokepoint I’d have suggested wasn’t a big deal – at least until the slope gave way underneath me and I started sliding down a steep 40′ embankment, which ended in a six-foot cliff above a half-submerged boulder.
“This,” I thought as I plunged down the slope, “might not end well.”
Fall From Grace
I managed to keep my feet underneath me, but any further control was an illusion. To stay upright – which I figured was the key to surviving the fall at the bottom – I was grinding both hand and forearm into gritty little skin dust.
I’d basically given myself over to the graces of gravity when – a good five feet above the cliff – my lower boot caught briefly on a buried rock, and my upper boot had the good sense to also nick it, then stop.
Whew.
Sorta.
I had toehold on a steep bank above a rocky fall, and faced a nasty traverse to get off it.
And then I heard it. And turned my head upwards…
Oh Wally…
Wally the Wonderdog – apparently assuming I was skidding down the embankment because I thought it was a good idea – had thrown his sausage-shaped body down after me.
Oh goody.
Gravity runs as strong for him as it does for me, and he was sliding uncontrollably right towards me.
I was pissed at first, but in truth, the bewildered, “oh shit” look on his face was almost worth the plunge over the cliff.
Which fortunately, didn’t quite occur.
The Wonderdog may lack the latest in wading boot technology, but he does own an impressive set of claws, and I could see him physically digging them into the dirt, slowing and stopping him a full five feet above me.
From there, we looked at each other for a few seconds (I’m sure we both looked calm and cool, just like I remember it now), and searched for an exit.
We finally got off the face by traversing upstream – Wally by maintaining three points of contact, and me by kicking tiny little footholds in the loose stuff.
Deep breath.
My shin and forearm were chewed, but the vital bits – ankles, legs, arms, neck – were unbroken.
Frankly, I counted it as a victory.
The Wonderdog – whose brain retains nothing of what happened more than six seconds prior – seemed fine too.
So we kept fishing.
The Turnaround
I knew we’d already gone farther than I planned, but we’d justed reached a slightly flatter stretch. After you drag your butt up a steep, claustrophobic canyon in the noontime heat, you rightly consider these stretches your reward.
Which is when the Wonderdog started limping. Badly.
Wally’s nothing if not enthusiastic, but he’s not exactly equipped for boulder-hopping his way up a canyon.
And while it hate to admit it, he’s no longer a puppy.
In fact, even a short walk tends to gimp him up the next day, and both the L&T and I are facing an unhappy reality; the Wonderdog’s aging fast.
Once we’re back from Maine, he’s going to the vet for a full workup, and perhaps those once-a-month arthritis shots will put a little spring back in his step.
At that moment, my biggest concern was getting him home without carrying him, which I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do anyway.
The little mountain stream - so far...
We limped back down the canyon – me trying to clean the bigger gravel bits out of my leg and arm, and the Wonderdog stopping every few minutes to stand ungracefully, his back paw elevated.
Then he started limping on his left front paw, though fortunately, that was the result of a few stickers.
After a little wrestling, I yanked those out of his paw (let’s hear it for surgical forceps), and we resumed our Death Limp.
In truth, this part isn’t very dramatic – until we got back to the big pool, where a new bathing beauty had taken up residence (drama takes many forms).
We rolled into the house better than five hours after we started, both of us feeling a little beat up.
Maybe even a little old.
Going Home/Leaving Behind
More obstacles were overcome than trout were caught, classifying this as a successful small stream exploration with a little fly fishing sprinkled in (sorta like Lewis & Clark, but on a slightly smaller scale).
When I go back – and I’ve got that flatter stretch in my sights – I’ll (sadly) leave Wally the Wonderdog at home.
It’ll kill him (it’ll kill me too), but that kind of travel is awfully hard on him, a perception backed up by the next day’s extremely high gimp factor.
There are flatter, less-convoluted places for us to fish, and while summer’s disappearing fast, the cool days of fall are more the Wonderdog’s speed than the heat of summer.
Instead, I’ll take a daypack with plenty of food and water, and leave the rod in its tube until I’ve reached the end of the known universe, and then start fishing my way up.
It’ll be great.
In the meantime, I’m off to Maine, where there are damned few gorges to fall in, though a header out of a canoe is well within my grasp.
See you in Maine, Tom Chandler.
Recent comments