No Name Creek

Image by Michael Edgerly

After parking at the bridge and fighting deer flies, buckthorn, stinging nettles, and summer humidity, I stepped from chin-high foxtail into the creek. Or rather fell, throwing my rod to keep it from breaking. I didn’t get mad. Far from it. Laughing, I had what every trout angler dreams about: A hot lead on a forgotten creek.

“I don’t fish anymore,” the old guy said. “Bad knees. But I know where you can find some ungodly big trout.” We sat in a backwoods saloon twenty miles from La Crosse. The clack of billiard balls mixed with the clink of pint glasses. I love it when my vices pay off.

“Take the county road following Middle Creek,” my new friend continued. “Then take a left where it meets Long Creek.” I smiled. They aren’t big on names around here. “You’ll climb a steep bluff into the next valley. When you see wild turkeys hang a right. That’s Mel Johnson’s place, right on the water. Tell him I sent you. Mel owes me one, and knows it.”

“What’s the name of the creek?”

“Hasn’t got one. That’s what makes it so good.” He stood from his barstool, chalked a cue, and leaned over the table. The eight ball vanished and money changed hands, real money. They play some serious pool in creek and bluff country. Put up a twenty or be prepared to watch.

I was watching. And writing on a napkin. “What do you mean by turkeys?”

“You’ll see them.”

I did, a whole flock, including a clutch of pint-sized juveniles. After parking I walked to the river through foxtail grass. You have to watch where you place your feet. The grass grows chin-high and that last step, as they say, is a doozy.

I wondered if I’d been given a bum lead. The water, ankle deep, flowed through a wide, sunny valley. Ahead I saw a bend loaded up with fallen trees. Splashing along, I halted and tied on my favorite searching fly, a big, fluffy Royal Wulff. Sand glowed yellow under my feet.

At the bend the river swung deep and purple-black. I stayed well away and stripped line. The broad valley meant I could really wind up and throw. False casting once, twice, I let the fly drop just outside the logs. Nothing. I tried casting a dozen more times

I knew what was wrong. Fish don’t like staring into the sun any more than you do. Whatever was in there was down deep.

I removed the Wulff and knotted up a tungsten bead head. Tungsten drops the fly right to the bottom, sure to be filled with snags. Well, you have to lose a fly sometime.

I cast the bead and counted to three before retrieving line. I tried again, admiring a red tail hawk high above, turning on a thermal. I cast again. Feeling a sort of electric shock I brought the rod up, hard.

Fish on!

As the hook bit the fish went airborne. It was a big brown, sides flashing in the sun. He dove and I held line, gauging tippet strength. Finally the trout came up. Seeing me he made a run for it. Right into shallow water. I scooped him from behind, a fine, big-eyed, leopard-spotted eighteen-incher. When I released him he shot across riffles and back to his hole. He was plenty angry. I was a little afraid of him.

The oldster had been right. There were trout in this unknown creek, big trout. But catching them would not be easy.

When is it ever easy?

I decided to go all space age. I Googled the valley and clicked satellite view. Upstream, I saw the creek flowing through a series of intriguing switchbacks. The only problem: A four mile hike through that blistering valley.

Now, a tough fly angler would take this head on, slathering on sunscreen and hiking in with a pack. A tough angler might even spend the night. This angler found himself back at the saloon sipping a cold one and watching money change hands.

The old guy was there. “That’s Lois Berg’s land,” he said, sitting between games. “It’s good water.”

I asked if it was worth the walk.

“Why walk? Drive east four miles and turn right at the cows. You’ll see a pink house. That’s Lois. Tell her I sent you.”

“Cows?”

“You’ll see them.”

I drove over the next day. At the creek pea-size gravel crunched under my boots. Water fell from pool to pool, with rock walls rising to high bluffs. A storybook creek. A dream creek.

Wading upriver, I saw first one feeding fish “pop” the surface, then another. I kept the streamside ferns at my back and crept along the bank. A mayfly dropped in the water and I scooped it up. A gray caddis. Searching my box I tied on the most likely suspect, a #16 Adams.

The first cast brought an acrobatic take, the fish clearing the water. After a few more jumps I netted a fine, two pound brown. That’s a lot of trout for a little stream. That’s a lot of trout for any stream.

I caught two more, casting from thirty feet. After the fly dropped, dimpling the surface, I watched it drift back, not knowing when or where the fish would strike. Then the heart-stopping splash. And rod-bending take. You can’t catch too many fish on a dry fly. It just never gets old.

A couple days later I was back in the bar. I didn’t have to wait long. My old pal walked in, case in hand. “Glad you had luck,” he said, screwing his stick together. “But the real fishing is even further upstream, off an old trestle. The pylons are still there. The trout rest behind.”

“How big?”

“As big as you’ll ever see.”

I asked him how to find it.

“Go another six miles. Turn at Mickey Lowry’s place. You’ll see a red setter on the porch.”

“A dog?”

“Yep.”

I found Mickey Lowry’s house, and his dog. And I found more trout, big ones. But I believe this is where the story ends. I’ve never seen another angler on this no name trout creek. I aim to keep it that way.