The Farewell Brookie

The last day of the Fall trip to Potter County I'm too busy to be sad. The cabin has to be cleaned out and cleaned up by check-out time, so I'm up early. By the time my pick-up truck is packed, I'm tired already, and still have to face a 4-hour drive home and unpacking the truck when I get there. Therefore, although it's still morning when I leave, I seldom stop and fish on the way. But for some reason, this year as I drove up Rt 44, my mind was still filled with visions of colorful brook trout flashing and swirling. With each one I'd caught through the week, I'd felt that elusive, vital connection between myself and the wild energy of these gorgeous spawners. It was heartbreaking to leave them behind without even a chance to say farewell. The temptation was irresistible. Putting the truck in 4WD, I headed for the headwaters of Kettle Creek.

As I donned my gear, I felt refreshingly adventurous and free, with a touch of wild energy of my own. It had been a long time since I'd fished without a companion, or at least telling someone where I'd be. I strolled along the trail back to a favorite run, all my senses engaged in enjoying the autumn forest. The leaves, the sky overhead, the tracks limned in the mud, were all stored in my memory for solace in the bleak winter to come.

The run had changed in the summer floods, the far bank becoming even more undercut; Saplings sporting leaves of gold or pink that once stood tall on the opposite bank, now leaned over the stream at angles, providing excellent cover for the fish... And making casting hell for the angler. One nice hole I reached only by drifting my Yellow Humpy down under the branches, where a fish slashed at it. A poor hooking angle, I thought as I disentangled my fly from the results of my futile strike.

Further up the run, I dropped my fly along a drop-off, and hooked a trout solidly. Strong and wily, this fellow tried to dive into some downed branches, but finally came to hand: A wild brown about a foot long, stunningly marked with big red and black spots. He had the well-defined facial features and big dark eyes the old-timers identify with "Loch Levin browns". I was pleased to land this, my second brown of the trip, and shook him off the hook underwater with a sincere compliment and wish for his future welfare.

At the head of the run, a fallen log at an angle to a fast current has dug a hole at its tip, and a lucky cast swept my fly along the log and into that hole, where a fine male brookie savaged it. I played this fish just close enough to identify him clearly, when an acrobatic twist freed him from my hook and he shot back into the depths. Once more I had colorful autumn brook trout in my mind, the reality matching the memories, so I couldn't help but smile.

From here I crossed at the riffle, setting up for the next pool upstream. On my side, the shallow side, a thick mat of golden leaves had been deposited in the slow water. I stopped at its edge, not wanting to disturb the process of solar energy turning to trout: The leaves nurtured by the sun, now sheltering and feeding myriad nymphs which in turn would nurture fish. But even while the leaves invoked the season past, and the nymphs thoughts of the future, I was focused in the present. Between the leaf mat and the huge leaning sycamore that defines this pool, the water is very deep, and contains plenty of trout, all as canny as only wild fish in still water can be. I crept, step by step, cast by cast, slow and quiet as I know how, until at last I could lay a long, delicate cast right into the current sweeping past the sycamore's trunk. It bobbed down the current, out of the hot spot... I thought. The take came as a surprise, and I felt only a moment's resistance before the fly came back at me.

Clouds had covered the sun, and I feared a return of the rain that had plagued us on and off the last three days. I decided I had one more chance at my farewell brookie: An old friend that lurked downstream of the bridge abutment near where I'd parked my truck. In past trips, two friends had caught him, and I'd done so myself, on a Yellow Humpy identical to the one on my tippet. Crossing the riffle again, I hiked across the floodplain meadow, dotted with the pink pompoms of English clover, brightened by clumps of purple aster and blazing yellow goldenrod. I paused under a crab-apple tree, its boughs heavy with clusters of fruit. There were no windfalls underneath; It seems the local deer, turkeys, and grouse have a taste for these tart morsels. I strolled on, retracing my steps along the trail, in no hurry despite the threat of rain. This would be my last walk in the Potter County woods this year, and I wanted to savor the sights, sounds, and aromas.

In the middle of the mud-tracked plank bridge I stopped to lean on the rusty railing and peer downstream. Three almost-identical sections of a lightning-blasted tree trunk had lodged in the shallow run below, at casually-precise angles and spacing that reminded me of objets d'art scattered across a Dali landscape. Directly below me, the bridge abutment took a sharp corner to meet the bank, but the current bubbling along it continued straight until the bank curved out to meet it downstream. The triangle of deep, still water between abutment, bank, and current was the lair of my friend Mr. Big Brookie.

Clouds continued to darken overhead, and I knew my time in Potter County was rapidly coming to an end. Crossing the bridge, I walked downstream looking for an easy path down the steep bank, waded in and took position to cast to my old adversary. I worked line out, concentrating on that tranquil corner the trout called home, gauging the length of my cast and the currents between us, going for the prefect presentation.

At last, the fly landed where I wanted it and rode jauntily over the big fellow's lie. A tiny dimple sucked the fly under. I'd been expecting an attractor-type rise, not a timid terrestrial sip. By the time I struck, there was nothing there. The old patriarch had fooled me neatly, and I acknowledged it with a low laugh. 

He had all the time he needed to recover from our encounter, but the smell of rain on the breeze told me my time in this place was over. I waded out, but before I stepped onto the bank, I looked back at the brookie's lie, brought my fly rod to the salute, and intoned, Ave Salvelinius! I hadn't caught my farewell brookie, but we'd exchanged our good-byes.

--Rabbit Jensen--
Winter 2007 Issue