The beginning of trout season is something that has rang through me like an alarm clock bell since the time I’d begun swatting the water with flies.
That came at a not-so-young age. I was, I think, 21, and I’d received the gift of a fly rod, reel and a vest from an old girlfriend who ended up being my ex-wife. It was a Fenwick rod, I think a 6-weight, with a crumby graphite reel. I still have the reel, which is no more than a paperweight, and probably shouldn’t have been anything but. The rod tip, however, skid unnoticed down the wall and right into the space between the door and the doorjamb just as she slammed the door to leave me for good.
The irony is no exaggeration.
We both heard the crunch, and she stopped on the outside doorstep, looked down, saw the broken tip, opened the door and apologized sincerely. She really meant it, I could tell.
At the time, she probably realized it although I didn’t: The rod meant a lot more.
Now, I was a young man, and had fished with my dad my whole life with the traditional-for-my-generation bait-casting method that I today have only rare occasion for (see Outer Banks/Surfcasting). And, of course, there was my dad and I each trout season opening with our bait casters shivering in the cold New York Aprils generally not catching fish but having a good time nonetheless.
And some 20-odd years later, opening day in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania also came. Although I didn’t reach the bank on opening day, I did so soon after. Good Friday, actually. (What better way to honor the Lord by spending a half day in His glory of solitude, nature and catch-and-release trophy waters?)
Turned out I didn’t need the alarm clock at all to wake me at 5 a.m. My oldest son, Kostyn, just shy of two years, was awake, and had crawled into bed with us pleading with me not to leave.
I said I’d be back, and I was, although that didn’t assuage the enormous pang of guilt that tugged at me for the 20-minute trip to Clark’s Creek and sporadically throughout the rest of that morning.
But the commonwealth had spent a lot of taxpayer dollars to both dedicate the 2-plus-mile stretch of the creek as restricted waters and stock it with a portion of the 150,000 trout it raised for just this occasion, and, by God, I should at least reap a return on my investment.
It rained, it was cold, the water was colder. Bone-chilling, really. And a little north wind was bearing down the 30-foot-wide creek, skirting between the tight canopy and high banks as a shivered like an old man in the green-black water.
It kept the crowds away, and that’s not a bad thing.
Unfortunately, it kept the fish at the bottom, and no nymph was going to draw it out.
At least none of mine.
Clark’s Creek is a great little spot. It’s probably eight miles from my house in Susquehanna Township as the crow flies, but since I’ve no wings, just a Blazer, it’s a good 18 miles down to the flats of the Susquehanna, than horseshoe it back around the Chinese Wall – a 1500-or-so foot Ice Age scar, and one of five or so between my back deck and the icy-cold Clark’s Creek.
One day, I hope to find an old logging trail that brings me to the near side, or to one of the other more rivers right in this region – Fishing Creek, Stoney Creek and Manada Creek. It looks like the Blue Mountain Parkway reaches the first. The others are a tad more remote, and I will explore them.
Which is exactly what I should have done with Jerry, who visited with his wife and two really fantastic 7-year-old twins. Instead, I thought I’d go for the sure thing (and glad I did, knowing that this little tick I have about exploring dirt roads might have meant we would have wasted precious fishing time in the Blazer … but there’s always that chance, right?)
Jerry’s new to the sport of fly fishing, he’s happy to be here, we’re happy to have him. He, like me and a good deal of my friends, has an inherent appreciation for Brother Wilderness. Of course, the last time this old college roommate of mine and I had hooks within a few hundred feet of us goes back to the banks of the Barge Canal under the rising moon on Muck Road in our hometown of Rome, N.Y. At least I’m pretty sure Jerry was there: There was a contingent of guys, a lot of car trunks filled with coolers and a campfire. The year, I’m guessing, might have been around 1985 or ’86 … before we both headed up to Plattsburgh State University.
If I remember correctly, we didn’t catch fish that day, either.
Clark’s Creek on Saturday morning, however, was colder than opening weekend and much colder than the late spring night air chill of central New York. We should have brought the Thermos of coffee down with us. Next time, I swear.
Within a few casts of sunrise, my feet and fingers were numb. I’m pretty certain Jerry’s were, too, because, despite his novice, tying a fly in the river took quite a few extra ticks off the clock.
We fished a good stretch of the restricted area – flies only, and catch-and-release – without catching a thing. Three times I had fish on my green weenies, and each time, they spit them before I could set the hook. That seems to be a recurring issue with me.
Half the battle of being transplanted back into the great Northeast streams, where weighted nymphs bolt and bobble among the rocks and pebbles, branches and dendrites of a river bed, and where the plentiful fish are just plain smaller and smarter than their Southern cousins, either everything feels like a strike or, in my case, nothing does.
I tug here and there, the electricity of the fish travels from fly to tippet to leader to line to backing to rod to reel to fingers to wrist to arm to shoulder to neck to God only knows where to my brain before I think, NOW!
It’s like trying to connect your bat to a softball when you’ve surpassed your limit of Budweiser.
We moved both up and downriver, and I hogged a hole that’s been heralded to be one of the best spots on the river (thus getting up an hour and 18 minutes before sunup to secure the spot: sort of the equivalent of waiting in line for Springsteen tickets…). After awhile, I climbed a steep bank, tied on maybe the 14th pattern of the morning and set out for another riffle a thousand yards below Jerry.
When I climbed the bank just before noon in search of Jerry, I couldn’t feel three of my left toes, and my hands itched from being cold and wet.
Once I rounded the bend and convinced Jerry, who also wasn’t having much luck, to abandon his spot and join me for a mug of coffee back up at the truck, we felt a warm breeze blowing right down the stream. By the time we got back to the truck, we had taken off our jackets.
Ah, spring in the Northeast.
Another hour and a half north spent swatting rising gnats, watching the buds literally bloom on trees above as the sun warmed the air, we called it a day, drove back down the road that parallels most of Clark’s Creek and vowed to get together again soon.
Jerry guaranteed as much: He bought a year tourist license even though he lives four hours north and across the border in New York.
That’s a good fishing buddy right there.
