103 ~ February food, and flow

The world is generous in all seasons, and even a rather dull winter like this one holds nourishment for the body and soul. My year of food collection began this month, with three quite different things, yet all of them share something important: flow.  

First up was a trip across the Mississippi River to the Driftless Area of Iowa, for my first trout fishing foray of 2024. I headed to Iowa because Wisconsin’s main catch-and-keep trout season doesn’t open until May; on the Iowa side of the Big Muddy it never closes. God bless Iowa, and its fields (and streams) of dreams.

  Trout, like many of us, take it slower in winter. Colder water reduces their metabolism, leaving them with less oomph to move, and less need to, since they require less food. The key to winter trout fishing is to watch and wait for a day when the water temperature is rising, which energizes the trout a bit.  On a recent calm, still morning on such a day I arrived at one of my favorite streams, in Iowa’s Yellow River State Forest, a patch of beauty like a bit of New England dropped onto the Midwest. Better still, it was overcast, which trout prefer. I pulled on my waders, rigged my flyrod, and was soon feeling again the comforting press of water moving around my legs.  

Despite the good, trouty conditions, the stream was empty of other bipedal hominids, and I was soon immersed alone in the quiet of winter. Ever stand alone in the chilly stillness of an ancient stone church in Europe?  This felt similar. Pileated woodpeckers in the forest behind and the tumbling current at my feet were the only ones talking.

Two of the most soothing sounds I know are moving water  -  the rhythmical break of surf, and the proverbial babbling brook. Perhaps this is no surprise, since we humans originated in water millions of years ago, and more recently each of us was born (again) from water. Isak Dinesen insightfully wrote, “The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.”  In addition to salt, something those three have in common is motion. I don’t live on a coast or along the shore of a Great Lake, and so I go to Driftless trout streams for restoration and inspiration. An hour in a flowing trout stream is cheaper than an hour with a therapist (helpful as the latter can also be), plus I often leave with nourishment for my body as well.  

  I like the name of the stream I was in – Little Paint Creek. What a charmer. And the clear water along its bottom held an encouraging abundance of winter trout food  –  the protective tubes of caddis fly larvae crowded the rocks, and tiny freshwater shrimps (“scuds”) scattered from my wading boots.  And, indeed, the trout responded.  Before long I’d landed more than a dozen (keeping four to eat). In addition, this inaugural day of 2024 trout fishing yielded two personal firsts.

  One was a Driftless ‘trifecta’ – my first time to catch all three of our stream trout species - rainbow, brown and brook - on one outing in the same water.  And the wild, self-sustaining brown trout in Little Paint are particularly gorgeous. I texted the photo above to a trout fishing pal in Cody, Wyoming, and he replied, “What the hell is that, a yellow-bellied sapsucker??”.  Indeed, what a splash of gorgeous to fill one’s eyes on an otherwise monochrome February day.

  My second first (is that an oxymoron?) came at a small pool I knew from previous trout explorations in other years. I promptly backcast my fly into some overhead branches, and set my rod aside and pulled with steady hope on the line. Fortunately, the branch snapped before the line  - at which time I discovered another fly hooked in the same small twig, snuggled up to mine. And, hey, it was also my fly! It’s an unusual pattern of trout fly (known as a “Keeper Kebari”) available from just one little-known source (and which, in fact, no longer carries them). I’ve used it often, and it was at least two years ago that I lost this fly to the same branch. It’s not unusual while fishing to find flies lost by other anglers, but this was the first time to find my own. A reunion with an old and valued friend, and the rust on its hook can be readily cured with a bit of fine sandpaper.

As I moved further upstream through the flow, with the satisfying heft of some trout in my creel, Little Paint became even littler as it neared its source springs. Soon, another burst of color proclaimed some good eating on offer: watercress, in radiant profusion.

Watercress is a special plant - it’s a winterphile (like me), and graces the world with its brightest, freshest color at the otherwise drabbest time of year. It’s most alive when much else in nature is dead or dormant. And, like trout, it’s a gift of beauty and of food that is dependent on clear, flowing water.  It’s also interesting that, while I get the devotion many of us feel to native species, glorious brown trout and watercress are both imports to North America. Welcome, immigrants.  After munching some of the spicy leaves streamside, I collected more of the beauty in a plastic bag to take home.  

Finally, I’m pleased to report that the third nourishing flow of February commenced with the same mild days that opened an opportunity for trout fishing – it’s maple season! Like a bear from its winter den, the maples have roused themselves, sap is flowing upwards to their limbs, taps are in some trees, and syrup is on the boil.  

The maple season got an early jump this year, with the recent mild days, but I’m sure we’ll still have plenty to do at my maple sugaring class here at the farmhouse on March 9. If you’d like to join us, please click here. 

  These gifts of February, all collected with remembrance and gestures of gratitude, can be summed up in a meal I recently enjoyed:  Fried wild trout, with a watercress salad and maple vinaigrette. What a fine feast for February - a feast of flow.

  It’s good to go with the flow, and we can always find some, even in an otherwise cold and quiet time.

What I’m reading and can recommend: 

Two different yet beautiful constellations of love story (and thus appropriate for a post just after Valentine’s Day), and stories about the endurance of love in difficult times.

Silas Marner, by George Eliot. Also about the power of letting things flow (and if anyone wants to learn to write clear, compelling English prose, read Eliot.

A Long Petal of the Sea, by Isabel Allende.  A compelling journey through the Spanish Civil War, the flight of Spanish Republican refugees to Chile, and their suffering yet again during the 1973 US-backed military coup and brutal repression in Chile.  Still, one of the main themes of the novel is love, and its power and resilience. A simultaneously heartrending and uplifting work.