The Sunday drive is as much a part of my tradition as the dread of Christmas shopping, which of course, is really not much more than weeks away for many. For this laggard, you must be kidding, there's a lifetime to be lived between now and any shopping.I carry the platinum Federated Laggards of America Membership Card.
So it was that this Sunday past I tossed camera gear in the truck, tossed myself in along with it, then headed for...well, I really didn't know where.
The weekend previous it was south to Hickory Run in Carbon County, so this week I went north into Wyoming County. There was a destination in mind, but my guts were nagging me toward somewhere else.
Going with my guts, I let the journey take me.
In a broad sense, that somewhere else is a location known by many as Sugar Hollow. Others call it The Stretch, or you'll hear the the term the Barn Pool used for this area. Barn Pool no longer applies, since nature (weren't we just talking about nature?) did some reclamation work in recent years and erased the Barn Pool.
Once the road goes from hard to soft, you're there, at least by my own accepted coordinates. The rutted swath you see is not for those still among us with rear wheel drive. It's either front or four-wheel drive, with the
only alternative being, get out and walk.I'd come home. More accurately, I'd returned to my "home water." Most everyone who's ever fly fished has a stream they consider home, their home water. For me, it's here in Sugar Hollow.
For far too many years, I'd been away, busy with things other than those which make me content, happy, at peace. This is a place that once chased errant thoughts away, slowed and calmed a busy and racing mind. A place that offered tangible meditation. Roll your eyes at me saying so, if you will, but this place holds a Zen like quality for me. That may be the first time I ever used the word Zen in any situation. It'll likely be the last.
There may or may not be great enlightenment here, but there is an undeniable peace and tranquility. Each path you see is a means to an end, both lead somewhere, and that somewhere is a little piece of Bowmans Creek that I love, as do so many others.
Fly fishing, be assured, is not a better way to fish, merely a different way to fish. Fly fishing is also a solitary pursuit, in itself rewarding.
To catch a fish is seldom the point. If for you it always is, you've missed said point. Fly fishing, therefore, may not be fishing at all, it could be something else. I see that as a very real possibility.It's now almost twenty-five years since first discovering a personal immutable: Fly fishing empties my mind of all else. Once I step into a stream, my consciousness becomes as clean and clear as the stream itself, and remains so for as along as I wade its waters.
The gentleman to the left arrived on Bowmans Creek just about the same time as me that day, only he'd come to fish. I'd come alone to reminisce. He was fully outfitted in stream gear, all functional, while my gear was a camera and a lot of great memories.
We had a good chat. On one page we both solidly landed; working a stream is good for the soul, it has magical soothing not to be found elsewhere. Stream etiquette has always been important in fly fishing, so with his happy consent, I stood, watched, and photographed.
Some say there is nothing so good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse. Having spent but a scant couple hours of my entire life on the back of a horse, there's no challenging that claim.
Instead, I'd offer that, for many, nothing is so good for the mind as the ever moving and never changing waters of a trout stream.
Waving the wand we call a fly rod is little more than giving your hands something rhythmic to do while the sounds of chilly rippling mountain water wash away useless thoughts and distractions.
That day, while I watched, my new acquaintance caught and released two beautiful brown trout. When not looking at him, or following his fly upon the water, I looked skyward.
Within no more than fifteen minutes, an osprey and a great blue heron passed closely enough that we might have looked each other in the eye. And while I can't raise my right hand to it, I'm near positive of glimpsing the brief flash of a bald eagle riding a thermal into view no more than fifty feet away.
Last Sunday was a fine day.
