Wild Boy Run was named for Lewis “Wild Boy” Stevens who settled on the Pennsylvania mountain stream in 1842. Born to alcoholic and abusive parents, Stevens “jumped the back fence” of his home (in New Jersey) at age eleven and escaped, eventually settling in the East Fork Sinnemahoning wilderness. He had learned the tinsmith’s trade, and had built himself a cabin chinked with moss and mud, complete with hemlock boughs for a bed, along with a gun, an axe, a frying pan, a tin cup, and a knife. He lived alone at the stream’s edge, six miles from the nearest neighbor, through the 1840s and the ’50s.
I learned of Mr. Stevens long before my introduction to Wild Boy Run but, admittedly, the poet in me reinforced the link between man and stream just recently. The poet urged the fly-fisher to inspect this new location. I was not trying to romanticize a subject barely known to me, but I do enjoy local history. I figured that it might be interesting to view the stream from vantage points 160 years apart.
Before the Wild Boy visit, Jim K. and I had fished Ontario tributaries without much luck. Our timing was bad. The Salmon River kings were dead or dying, and the steelhead run was in its infancy. At another Lake Ontario trib, the runs were way behind an average seasonal start. The lateness may have been due to warmer water temperatures. Who knows? We had fun attempting to decipher what the problems were– knowing full well that behind them was a simple fact: there were just too many fishermen on these streams. Judging by the license plates observed in parking lots, there were people casting here from such places as New Jersey, Idaho, Ohio and Ontario– more fishermen than fish, at least in late October.
It’s a problem, and the New York DEC is proposing several changes that may help ease the impact that we make on Lake Ontario and its tributaries. The proposals, basically supporting a reduced “creel limit” for brown trout and steelhead (while also increasing the size limit for steelhead), can be viewed at dec.ny.gov/outdoors and commented on until December 16, 2019. I support these proposals (for implementation on April 1, 2020) as a means to benefit Lake Ontario fisheries, a start on the long road to improvement in this realm of trout and angler.
Meanwhile, it was time for us to regroup closer to home. I much prefer the relative solitude, the beauty of the forested mountains with their sparkling streams where small fish rule the undercuts and riffles, where I share my thoughts with a fishing partner or where my singular reveries help me jump the back fence into local lore.
Lewis Stevens grew a garden here, lived on nuts and berries, trout and deer. Wild pigeons thrived near the forest. Stevens’ hair and beard grew long and shaggy. People who encountered him saw a crazy fellow, shy, uncomfortable, one who disliked cats and dogs but who loved the birds and flowers. Regional mothers threatened misbehaving children– saying if the kids didn’t straighten up, bogeyman Stevens would surprise and get them. When the Civil War broke out, Stevens left it all behind, enlisting with Pennsylvania’s 46th Regiment, contributing his own fervent hope that the Union be preserved.
It was a beautiful afternoon in late October. I climbed the wild run and looked for trout. The state forestland, rich with bronzy foliage and flowing water, seemed to cradle my intent and small stream interests. The farther I got from the valley camps and lodges, the more fish I encountered. They were small, surely. Brookies, bright with spawning color, up to nine inches long, at best. I had jumped the back fence from my 8-weight fly rod tactics on the northern tributaries to my 3-weight strategies for brook trout in the mountains. It was a pleasant leap.
Wild Boy Stevens went to war and found that fighting was unbearable. He didn’t want to kill; he didn’t want to die. He called himself a coward, and deserted his regiment, eventually building a hut in the Indiana swamplands. After the war, Stevens made a gradual return to the Sinnemahoning. He discovered that his old home had been broken into, and his few possessions had been stolen. He eventually built another home for himself in western Pennsylvania but, essentially, Wild Boy Stevens quickly faded into history.
About a century and a half later, near the place where Stevens had lived for many years, I caught a bunch of brook trout and released them from the fly. The Wild Boy would have used live bait or the “fingering” method for his trout. Whereas our goals and methods, our philosophies and beliefs, may have differed due to circumstance, outdoor Pennsylvania brought us into an afternoon of dreams.
Gray Hair and Grizzly Hackle
Ever since I joined several outdoor organizations and started to attend their regular meetings in the 1990s, I’ve been hearing a general complaint: Look around this room. Our hair is gray. We need some younger people, bright new faces interested in what we do, or it won’t be long until we’re finished.
I, too, used to be concerned– longing for the comfort of youthful representatives in the room. I had to wonder if high-tech gadgetry, or a form of evil, was stealing young folk from the world of nature and its preservation. Maybe something nefarious was involved, but maybe… it was no more than before. I had to reconsider…
fields of chest-high goldenrod, the antithesis of gray…
I recalled that the Boomers, influential at the blossoming of social and political progress in the 1960s, had television (black-and-white and, finally, color) to blank their impressionable minds. Today, well, we know that all too many kids come from broken homes, that Fortnight or equivalent has them in thrall…It’s different and, yet, not so different than before…
I don’t make many social or political comments on this blog. Frankly, I find that all too many current events are either so depressing or surreal that my two-cents’-worth of commentary has no value whatsoever. Even if I spoke more fully, nothing I could say would help settle the sordid flow of things.
Up & down the stream, an Inter-Web of night-time information…
That said, I still consider myself an activist for change, retaining a bit of youthful energy first noticed back in college days. Despite some lingering awkwardness and confusion, I still try to harness a reservoir of social energy– like a river dam that’s cracked and probably should be taken down .
Before I judge the world of young adults, I need to look at my own gray hairs and recognize the route I’ve taken. I became a parent (with great kids, by the way!). I wrote letters, books and pleas. I dealt with home ownership and muddled on with high hopes for a better world. I attended lectures, rallies, and planning sessions. I participated in many acts of non-violent civil disobedience, but I did not join a formal meeting of an activist group (i.e., A. C. Bird Club, Slate Run Sportsmen, Trout Unlimited…) until the age of 40, or older.
taking time to smell the odorless asters…
And that’s when I started hearing the complaints… We don’t have the young folks here. We need fresh blood.
I heard it again today, at a Sportsman meeting, just before embarking on a fishing jaunt along Slate Run. The water was low, very clear and cool at 61 degrees F.. The sky was overcast and promising rain. As far as I could tell, no one else was fishing the run. A favorite pool, long and deep, was active with some very nice fish, large trout mostly nymphing at the bottom or occasionally taking something tiny at the top.
another view of upper Genesee watershed…
I wanted a connection– with the fish, with fellow Sportsmen who could not be here because of physical ailments or prior commitments, and with youthful anglers who might be casting in the social breezes down on big Pine Creek…
I watched a Green Weenie drift along the bottom of the pool– to the nose of what appeared to be a 20-inch brown, into the opening jaws of that exceptional fish– only to snap off when I struck too hard and broke the hair-like tippet. Damn! Then I went through wet and dry fly patterns in various sizes till I settled on a tiny Adams emerger… #20 hook. Real small, for sure, but effective.
keep an eye on this small gray-hackled fly…
Youth has every advantage in society today, and that’s the way it should be if the world isn’t under the command of a Deathwish. Yeah, we gray-hairs had our chance to speak out clearly, but wouldn’t it be nice if our shards of wisdom and experience still stood upright like a road sign to the future?
At the pool, I made a long cast of the Adams to the far end of the pool. Its grizzly hackle, its tiny feathers mottled gray and russet like a wise old head, reflected light and vision. A trout rose and missed it, but I brought the line in, made another cast… And finally, a Slate Run brown, or two– buttery gems for contemplation.
some nice browns rose to it…
Many teens and young folk in the world are out there doing excellent work. Some of them fish or ski or hike or study previously unimagined maps of our existence. Their work can be transformative–doing stuff like trying to convince our leadership that climate change is real and needs to be addressed. They’re living as fully as they’re able.
Does this mean I’m optimistic about our future? Not necessarily, and not because our youthful saviors are becoming self-involved. They’re working. And when their hairs turn slowly gray, more than a few will be sitting in those meeting chairs the elders left behind.
the first of several on meeting day…
Adams, emerger, small…
a Slate Run brown, late summer…
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