The Church of the Leaping Trout

Though it hosts no reproducing trout, the stretch of water on the upper Rogue River between Lost Creek dam and Cole Rivers Fish Hatchery in Oregon became home to a devout congregation after hatchery fish were occasionally released there in the 1970s. And although two years of high water and no stocking have led to the disappearance of big fish, worshipers are hoping for a return to the good old days. “Fly-casters Phil Henning and Gary Warren consider Sunday mornings catching hatchery-bred rainbows here as services for the Church of the Leaping Trout. ‘I told Gary up there one day that we should feel guilty that we’re not in church, but every time I’m up here I think the purest thoughts I ever do,’ says Henning, 72, of Medford.” Mark Freeman in the southern Oregon Mail Tribune.