Above Slate Run

The high country feeder enters a tributary of Slate Run before dropping into Pennsylvania’s Pine Creek Valley. For years I’d been only half aware of this little stream on state forest land. I’d seen it on the topographic map but had never thought to fish it. For years I had driven by its mouth en route to more well-known sites and never known what I was passing by.

A friend had told me he fished the brookie water in the autumn and enjoyed its colorful native trout and the solitude that only a wild mountain stream can give. On a cool May morning with an overcast sky, I finally had a chance to get acquainted.

Approaching the little run, I figured I’d spend several hours hiking and fishing into the headwaters. If I had time in the afternoon, I’d go downstream and cast a Little Yellow Stonefly on the clear waters of Slate, then finish up with a bit of fishing on big Pine. For Pine Creek I would need the long rod with a March Brown dry fly on the tippet, with emerger pattern dropped a foot below the dry.

Stepping into the feeder stream, I let all other plans evaporate. The run averaged only eight to 10 feet in width, but its flow was full, and 48 degrees F. Small logs and boulders helped create numerous pockets, pools, and undercuts.  Penetrating this green country with its babbling voice, I found the welcome privacy of public land and water.

For being so well-shaded, the stream was friendly for a short upstream cast. Until the end of my climb, the only sign of human life was the drone from an airplane over the mountains somewhere. When I quit for lunch near a small waterfall, I noticed the remnants of a railway bed once used for logging.

Whereas most watershed anglers today were fishing down on Pine Creek’s Delayed Harvest section near Slate Run village, I was miles away. Big browns up to 28 inches long had recently been stocked in Pine, but I was happy catching and releasing small native fish along with an occasional brown.

These wild fish were delightful. I picked them up on a barbless dry fly and a short tapered leader. A limber seven-foot rod made casting easy.

The humdrum social world was quieted for now. I find that small fish meeting you face to face in a beautiful locale provide as much enjoyment as big fish taken in a crowd.

The small native trout could care less who was bombing whom in the world, or who was beating whom at the races, or who would rake in the fruit of the latest Power Ball Lottery.

I wasn’t in Pennsylvania’s most remote locale, but I was close to it. Other than a charge for gasoline and a few items for lunch, it didn’t cost me much to get in here. The physical demands were minimal.

I stopped at the plunge pool of a small waterfall. If I could stop all time and still survive with all that was important to me in this moment, here would be a decent place to halt. With wild trout in the month of May.

There had to be a fish in that pool. I was down to a single thought. Do I stay with the dry fly, or go to the wet?

The Cloudburst Council

Last weekend I attended the two-day Cloudburst Council, a gathering of poets and writers at the Gell Writers Center northwest of Naples, New York. The Cloudburst Council. But what’s in a name?

It was a nice gathering of artists at a lodge set on a forested slope above Canandaigua Lake. Some of these writers had traveled a long way to get to this retreat. Some of them were interesting to speak with and to listen to while reading their work. Some of them even understood that they, and all of us, live in an environment, whether it’s urban or rural or in between, and were able to express connections to it creatively.

I had to leave this annual event on Friday evening as a thunderstorm pelted the deck with hail. For half an hour the drive south took me through torrential rain, wipers beating double time, flash of light and thunderclap directly overhead.

The next day I returned. The weather was brighter and calm, and the Council was alive. I left the dining hall of the lodge and rambled over the grounds. On a path to the tree house near Thoreau Cabin, I met a woman with binoculars trying to spot a warbler singing in the canopy.

She didn’t sound as though she knew much about birds, as yet. I suggested that the singer could’ve been a yellow-rump warbler, or maybe a redstart. The observer probably thought I’d taken too many liberties with the free beer in the kitchen.

But what’s in a name? I was here to talk with fellow writers and to hear some of their programs. I’d been asked to present my own program called “W.W. Christman: Upstate Poet.” Hardly anyone knows the name.

It’s my honor to co-publish a book I’ve helped to edit. On the Helderhill: Selected Poems of W. W. Christman will appear in a matter of weeks.

Will Christman was a New York farm poet (1865-1937) who wrote passionately of the land he lived on, and of man’s place in its universe of lives. When I found his work many years ago, I dug behind the name and was amazed.

Someone wrote in the Guest Book, What do people call the white trilliums around here? We don’t call them that. Say what? I thought of asking, “Do you call ‘em wake-robins?” There’s that thing about the name.

I broke from my narrative about the old poet to recite one of his poems. When “The Passing of the Pine” came to a close, unexpected applause derailed me for a bit– till I found where I’d left off in the narrative.

Losing my place for a moment while reciting for an audience was like searching for an unknown singer in the trees. Who am I and what am I doing? Luckily I held the singer/poet firmly in my head, his notes no less profound.

Had there been a trout stream near the lodge I would’ve taken time to fish. Why not? Only a careerist would scoff, then drone on and try to further his name.

Oh warbler, trillium, poet. What’s in a name? Thinking back to Friday night’s storm, I only know that “Cloudburst Council” had it right.

Wild Trout and Trillium Flowers

On Mother’s Day I crossed the creek and drove into the hills to see the one who’d brought me kicking and screaming into this world long ago.

She lives alone now and requires daily care. It was my turn to fix the breakfast dutifully, provide the medications, do the daily chores. We conversed about the birds and bushy-tailed critters on the deck. I said goodbye, told her we would meet again later in the day for dinner with the family.

It was time to fish for a while, to immerse myself briefly in that mother of all mothers where the wild trout dwell and where the mayflowers blossom in their time.

I caught the first small brookie on a March Brown dry, but probably could’ve hooked it on a pattern tied with hair from the family cat. The small streams of rivertop country were flowing wonderfully and benefiting from recent rains. Their native trout were hungry and on the prowl.

For a moment I held the brookie beside a trillium flower blooming on the bank. Usually when the trillium blooms in May, the brook trout fishing is at its best around here. The streams are full, allowing trout to move around in less restricted water. They visit the deeper pools, riffles, and pockets formed by rocks and logs.

The trees were not yet fully in leaf. Occasionally I got a glimpse of migratory warblers. The woodland flowers were at their peak, blooming while the sun still filtered through a young canopy. The trillium seemed a study in natural symmetry.

Three petals, sepals, leaves. Three species by these streams, on banks where three species of trout reside.

Between visits to the mother this day, I fished for nearly three hours. I fished three neighborhood streams, and caught three wild brookies in each one.

Could we live each day embracing natural symmetry? I don’t view it as a perfect thing. Inspect it, and you’ll see the fraying edge.

Sun and cloud and wind. Then wind and cloud and… snow! Brief squalls at the noon hour, on Mother’s Day, wild flurries blown around like seeds.

Trillium, or “Wake-robin.” Even the name has three syllables. A gateway flower.

I hold a purplish blossom, or a white one, or a smaller white one with a blaze of red around the throat. I absorb the floral beauty for a moment then release it. What do I see?  I hold a small wild trout, as well, and ask a similar question.

Only poetry can say what is held. Only wildness can know what is truly there.

For this we can thank the Mother.

The Back Country, Sinnemahoning

Large coyote pauses on an open slope. Looks down-valley at the human looking up. Coyote ambles off, into the woods, the wild.

detail, I.F.

Small caddis hatch from the big stream, under deep blue sky, among the greening hills. Anglers stop on the bridge and shout, “Catchin’ any? We got nothin’ up above! Do they stock this stream?”

I could’ve lied and said they don’t. The anglers moved off anyway. I fished into the woods and lost a heavy trout, but that was it.

Drove downstream, down below Costello, walked in at the Rossiter camp, among a dozen  fishermen, most of them with bait or spinning rods.

One guy with a fly rod told me they’d been fishing here a week. Caught a few trout but very few fish were rising. The Hendrickson was off; there was caddis in the evening, but the trout weren’t coming up.

I needed something wild so I traveled downriver. Turned eastward and on to the high ground. There I found the feeder stream and parked the car.

Packed away the 8-foot rod and rigged the 7-footer. Headed upstream, felt the air get cooler and more comfortable. The babbling run looked beautiful, but low. We needed rain.

Yellow warblers in the willows, redstarts in the hardwood. Two small brook trout slamming the dry fly in the first pool that I saw.

Switched from Red Quill to a Stimulator, with the barbs pinched down. Onward, higher, past the final camp, catching brook trout after brook trout, young-of-the-year to size 10.5. The largest trout are the farthest from the road.

The “big fish” didn’t want its photo taken, though I measured him along the rod. He flopped back into the water and darkness of the roots.

The brightly colored male was like coyote. Pausing on an open slope, on the gravel by a stream. Looking out at what looks in.

Coyote.

Finger Lakes, A Backyard Trail

In a recent post about the Finger Lakes Trail (FLT) in western New York, I mentioned that we humans often disregard important outdoor resources when we live close by them. It’s as if these resources near the backyard really don’t need to be taken seriously. Maybe we’ll get to them, or maybe we won’t. For years the FLT, coincident with the North Country Scenic Trail for several hundred miles across New York, has been available for my hiking pleasure, but I’ve always had other things to do.

My post received several comments from readers who felt the same way about recreational opportunities near their homes. Proximity somehow lessened their need to explore them. This was interesting to me, but I also mentioned that I hoped to lessen my ignorance of these trails by finally getting out to see a part of them.

I decided to make another foray on the Finger Lakes Trail, this time on a spur trail nearest my home. I wouldn’t run it, bike it, power walk it, or anything else of the sort. I’d  just ramble from point A to B and back, perhaps note the character of the trail and some of its natural constituency. Getting acquainted with the flora, fauna and landforms of a place seemed like a good way to get to know it better.

So I visited a spur trail near the city of Hornell, New York.  It was an early May morning, my favorite time of year. Trees were leafing, like the playing of a blues guitar that tears up the aural atmosphere and hangs lime confetti in the air. I left the car at an access to the Kanakadea Park Trail system and within minutes entered a tunnel underneath Interstate 86. The long, uneven tunnel walk beneath passing cars and semi trucks was a bit disorienting. If an earthquake suddenly struck, I said to myself, I could have a natural burial down here.

I climbed through a transitional zone, enjoying the sights and sounds of newly arrived birds– bee-buzz of the blue-winged warbler, jumbled notes of gray catbird, the belling of a Baltimore oriole– and climbed through deciduous woods to a resting place at the Kanakadea Lean-to. Getting there was like switching fly rods when you’re done fishing one stream and begin on another. It was like switching from graphite to bamboo or fiberglass and slowing down the pace of things. In getting there, I adopted a slower rhythm. The Interstate noise began to fade as the forest deepened and an ovenbird called.

Beyond the lean-to I could stroll a bit of the FLT, enjoying an hour in a new green world. Returning to the car, I decided to visit the trail access closer to Hornell. When I got to Webbs Crossing Road and parked the vehicle, I was close to where my parents had owned a house for a short while around 1970 as I began my college life. Back then, I had walked around the wetlands a little, but before I knew it, the folks had sold their house and bought an old farm in the Greenwood hills. This was years before the Finger Lakes Trail had adopted an old railroad bed beside the marshes of Hornell.

I’m getting to know this backyard trail, at least a tiny portion of it. I’m late to an opening of my eyes and ears to it, but that’s okay. When you reach an older age, as I have done, something tells you that maybe you should mend your broken circles if you can. The Finger Lakes Trail, the small portion of it near my home, is walkable when time allows and urges me on.

Spring Journal: What the Trout Sees

What a human sees

For the previous week or more I’d been anxiously awaiting a good Hendrickson hatch, the mayfly whose appearance on Eastern streams and rivers has a tendency to produce good dry fly action on the surface of the water. Although the air temperature has been warm, and the water temperatures have been comfortable enough for trout, the sky has been bright throughout most of my waking hours, and the mayfly’s appearance has been minimal. Undaunted, however, by the lack of dry fly action, I sought the trout at a deeper level of the water column.

What a trout sees, maybe

I’m not a dry fly purist and I’m not afraid to run a streamer through the deeper waters of a trout lair. Since I don’t presume to know exactly what a  trout can see (half the time I can’t be sure what it is that I am seeing, even when sober), I can only speculate on the nature of another creature’s vision. When the sky is blue and the water filled with sunshine, it’s a reasonable assumption that a trout, not blessed with an eye-lid that can block the light, would rather not search for insects hatching directly overhead. Although large brown trout tend to feed mostly after night-fall, that is not to say they’re always napping during daylight hours.

A juicy-looking bucktail or a streamer drifted enticingly through the depths might spur a strike, as long as the fish doesn’t need to leave its lair of safety for long. In other words, if the angler can present a lure convincingly within the safety zone, there’s a good chance for a strike when other signs for decent angling are about as scarce as honest politicians.

On several occasions during the previous week I kept an eye out for hatching caddis flies or mayflies like the Hendrickson or March Brown while also fishing deeper. If I didn’t see the surface action, I attached a heavier leader to the 5-weight line and then applied a weighted streamer, in particular the Muddler Minnow. The famous Muddler, first tied by Don Gapen, of Minnesota, in 1937, but popularized by Montana fisherman and tier, Dan Bailey, would be cast along the seams of heavy water, or worked along deep banks and log jams. An alternative might be to cast into the head of a pool where the fly could sink and then be stripped in slowly through the deepest sections of the stream. Doing this, I could hope that my sculpin imitation might pass a  fish at the level of its eyes.

We can state, with reasonable accuracy, that what a trout sees in the water is a far cry from what we ourselves might see under similar conditions. Instead of worrying about specific views, however, we might do well with considering generalities. When conditions don’t favor a specific strategy (like the one we had hoped to employ) we shouldn’t hesitate to try another approach that’s recommended by good sense and judgement.

When I approached a series of tressel pools at the mid-section of Dyke Creek in the Genesee River watershed, and found little hatch activity under the bright May Day sky, I switched my leaders and tied on a weighted Muddler. Within minutes of allowing the streamer to drift and twitch along the unfathomed pool, I was on to my heaviest brown trout of the season so far. The fish was a dogger, a tough one to net, despite its modest size.

My friend, Tim, was catching and releasing much larger browns on the Conhocton River with the help of streamers whose hook sizes still seem unbelieveable. Whereas the weeks of early spring each year have usually found me casting relatively small nymphs and wets and streamers, Tim’s success with super-flies had got me interested in larger patterns cast later into the season.

Soon the March Browns, a mayfly possibly more significant to the angler than the Hendrickson, would be hatching from Mid-Atlantic streams and have me focused on the surface area of the flow. I’d be looking for them in a day or so, although the forecast was, again, for warm days and clear blue skies. If I don’t see the hatches that I hope to find, no matter. To be out in the beautiful month of May will suffice. I’ll have several larger flies with me, too, of course– in case I have to tap some deeper water where the mysteries reside.

Mr. Hendrickson, I Presume

mr. hendrickson, i presume

All week long I’d been looking for Mr. Hendrickson, my personification of the great Eastern mayfly hatch. Because of the cold, wet spring, this first of the big mayfly hatches in the region was expected to be later than usual, but it could happen any day that Mr. Hendrickson saw fit.

The artificial pattern for this fly was first created by the Catskill tier, Roy Steenrod, around 1920, for a  fishing customer whose name was Hendrickson. The mayfly, Ephemerella subvaria, is heralded by Eastern anglers as a key player in the new dry fly season, the nymphs emerging from the depths of a stream to unfold their wings on the surface and to dry them long enough to stir a feeding frenzy in the trout.

The females and the males of these adult insects have smoky blue wings. The female has a light pink body, and the male has a darker, reddish cast. The females tend to hatch from one section of a stream, a riffle perhaps, and the males tend to hatch from another. Mr. Hendrickson, my personification of this complex critter, is an interesting fellow who contains both male and female parts.

A week ago I was fishing the West Branch Genesee and looking for its first few Hendricksons. I was well inside the woods when I heard a rustle downstream. I saw a gray-haired angler who, approaching the pool that I was sampling, proved to be a female, astonishingly enough. I love it that more and more women are taking to the field these days, but I rarely ever see one fishing solo, that is, without a male partner nearby. This angler, wearing camouflage and plastic, sauntered in and asked what I was using for bait. I showed her my tandem nymphs. “Oh, flies,” she said. “I should try them sometime, but I really like my nightcrawlers.” With that, she swung her weighted crawler to a root wad in my pool, and continued: “Let’s see if there’s a trout hiding under there.” Luckily, no trout responded. She was not Mr. Hendrickson, I acknowledged confidently. Reeling in my line, I excused myself, and slunk away.

I checked for Hendricksons on several creeks throughout the week but on each occasion I saw little. It didn’t help that the sky was bright each afternoon and the water still cold from all the freezing April nights. When the new weekend rolled around, however, the weather was considerably warmer, and the prospects for some serious hatch activity looked fair.

On Saturday I was privileged to fish about a mile of private water on one of the best freestone creeks in Pennsylvania. I was looking for a 3 o’clock hatch of Hendricksons when I chanced to meet another fly-fisherman coming my way. We paused to chit-chat about the weather, how we humans love the bright spring day, whereas the trout probably had different opinions about the sun. We commented on each other’s bamboo rod, on the maker of the stick, on how many pieces each contained and what their lengths were. When bamboo-wielding anglers suddenly meet out of nowhere on a peaceful stream, I dare say the scene is not unlike two friendly dogs meeting for the first time and sniffing tails.

I commented on the prospect of a Hendrickson hatch, and the other fellow said that it could happen. “I start looking for them when the shad bush blossoms,” he stated. A variety of blooms were on the forest and the streambanks; and I looked at this guy and knew him to be older than myself (believe it or not), and almost bursting with life experience. I wondered if he was Hendrickson, himself.

The next day I was out on the same northern Pennsylvania stream, and now the sky was overcast. Wonderful, I thought. Clouds, along with the prospect of rain, might actually spur some insect hatches! I began by casting a pair of wets, but as mid-afternoon arrived and the first few Hendrickson duns appeared on the surface, I switched to a dry fly.

Ten minutes later the rain began to lightly fall. The temperature was dropping. I saw a splash on quiet water near a riffle, and I knew that surface feeding had begun. A specimen of Roy Steenrod’s mayfly, in living color, landed on my hand and perched there in the stiffening breeze. Before a gust of wind blew it away, and before I made a roll-cast to the narrow feeding lane, I made my introduction.

“Mr. Hendrickson, I presume.”