110 ~ The big generosity of small friends

After being housebound with a recent bout of Covid, followed by a visit of a few days by a fine friend from California, I dove into my Subaru Outback for an overnight of car camping and trout fishing in my home of the Wisconsin Driftless Area. The Wild was calling to reconnect, and search for some food.

            By late afternoon I was parked at a bridge over a stream I'd never fished before, Pine Creek in southern Crawford County, a stream that friendly locals on barstools had recommended to me a couple of weeks earlier. My plan was to give it a try, then fish another nearby stream before dark, sleep in the Outback near another stream I knew, and have a go there in the church light of early morning.  But as sometimes happens, things didn't quite work out - or rather, they did, but not as I planned and expected. 

            From the bridge, with the late afternoon sun on my back, I peered down into the Pine and it looked promising - clear, moving water and plenty of rocky structure in view. All things trout like. I could feel mojo gathering as I rigged up my Japanese-style fly rod (known as tenkara). I walked cross-country downstream to fish back up towards the bridge, and soon discovered it was all less enticing than first appeared. Most of the stream’s bottom was in fact sand - not conducive to supporting the growth of invertebrate food for trout. Aquatic insects and the like need the 3-dimensional structure of stones, pebbles and gravel to thrive. Working upstream for about an hour, I had no bites (other than mosquitoes) and lost four flies to back casts into unforgiving elms and box elders. Not a good run…  

When I reached the car, enough daylight remained for a try at the next stream, but I realized something - I was too tired.  After the previous full-on couple of weeks, plus a late one the night before (American Players Theatre), there just wasn’t enough juice left in the tank to wade another stream, or to roll out for the night in the marginal comfort of the back of my Subaru. Instead, I found the nearest Gujarati family motel (named ironically, or at least appropriately, "Sands Motel"), and checked in.  Dinner was a root beer float from A&W, and I fell asleep watching reruns of "Law & Order".

            I didn't set an alarm, forfeited fishing at dawn, and slept in. After an unhurried breakfast (at the wonderful, old-timey Unique Café in Boscobel), the Outback and I scoped a couple of other nearby streams, but the recon from their bridges didn't inspire - either the water was still murky from recent rain, or so much late summer vegetation crowded the banks that it looked beyond my current reserves of energy to outwit and outmaneuver. Instead, I pointed the car home, resigned to simply bag it, cut my losses, and live to cast a fly another day.

            But then it occurred to me, 'What about that little stream? The one that's more or less on the way home, and has never let me down...'  I was thinking of one of those places I regard as 'small friends':  inconspicuous small creeks, ones that other anglers barely notice, but which hold trout, and are not difficult to fish. Over the years I've discovered and filed away a few such small friends around the Driftless, and this was just the right morning to visit this one. I needed some easy trout, in easy solitude.            

            I parked along a road parallel to the stream, about a mile above the nearest bridge, where the stream narrows further and is even less likely to attract the interest of other anglers. Keeping it simple on this sluggish morning, I didn't bother to put on waders, or tie on a different fly more suitable to this small creek. Couldn't be bothered with either, not on this morning.

I stepped into the spring-fed water, and the cool touch of its living flow offered up instant rejuvenation.

And as I hoped and believed it would, the stream came through with trout. Within minutes, out of the first small pool I caught and released four Brown Trout. The energy of their intensely alive tugging and thrashing vibrated up through the rod and into my hand and body. The world, at least my small view of it, was good and right again.

Granted, this small water probably holds no trophy trout. But it doesn't have to. It has plenty of modest trout, more than enough to feed me. The stream curves gently yet with pleasant, tumbling music through a meadow, and so the fishing is carefree (no tar baby elms and box elders), and its waters are generous. Gentle and kind, like one of the good nuns. 

Less than an hour later I’d landed the twentieth trout, a fair sized fish I added to my creel, which put me at the bag limit of three for this county, and plenty for my dinner. I coiled my line, spoke some gratitude to my small friend, with hopes to see one another again, and finished the drive home. 

            This stream fits my key criteria of a small friend: Trout know it well, better than most anglers do, and it winds through easy, open country, absent a lot of fringing vegetation that can get me cursing. Fishing for gentlemen and ladies - or the weary.

Perhaps you have your own ‘small friends’ - not trout streams necessarily, but maybe a favorite quiet hiking trail, or biking route, or a spot only you know to search for mushrooms, uncommon wildflowers or spring warblers. Tell us about it in the Comments below.

Summertime in Wisconsin, and with the help of small friends, living is easy…