Up A Creek

I was always curious about the creeks.  Usually on the way to some stretch of the main branch we would cross any number of creeks.  Some fairly large ones and lots of tiny ones. Eventually I’d seek them out. It was usually by myself on the way home from somewhere, when I could steal away for a few hours. 

One of the most memorable creeks I found drained into the Jordan.  It was a bright morning in late July and the sun was hot. I had three hours until I was planning on meeting my family on the beach in Charlevoix.  We drove separately in order to spot our car at the end of our canoe trip the next day. I had the canoe strapped on top but I wouldn’t need it here.  

The air was moist and I started sweating instantly upon opening my car door.  The mosquitoes swarmed in. I removed my sunglasses, closed my eyes, and applied the magic. I put the little bottle in my shirt pocket for later.  I grabbed the 2 piece spinning rod from the backseat and strung it up. I tied on a black spinner with a silver blade that has always worked for brookies.  I pulled up my waders and grabbed the tobacco tin full of lures. It held 4 spinners in white and black and one small floating rapala. I was off into the unknown where eventually I dreamed of finding the confluence of the main river.  Somewhere in between I would find a place or two where some of my wildest fish dreams would come true.  

I hadn’t made many trips like this yet, alone, into some of the thickest woods I’d ever tread through, rivaling the toughest deer track deep into a swamp that I can remember. But I loved every step I took further along the creek.  At first it was open forest and woody with plenty of logs fallen across the water providing lots of deep holes and cover for fish. Casting here was nearly impossible though. The stream averaged 5 to 6 feet wide in most places.  The water was fast and bubbly as it forced its way around the decaying timber of varying ages. There was a noticeable fall to the water as I marched down its gradient until the woods ended abruptly and a large meadow emerged with a few old dead trees still standing among tall grass and thorn bushes.  As I pushed into the meadow the stream condensed into a thin ditch of only 2 or 3 feet wide. I wondered how deep it was as I crept along it’s banks, making sure not to lose track of it below the overhanging grass. The water was fast and dark. It looked deep. At one point, without realizing it until I was face down, I fell forward off a small cliff of logs that were hidden in the grass.  After getting up and wiping the mud off my shirt sleeves I found the creek and a little waterfall plunging into a small pool below the log bank I had fallen over. I felt like a young boy again, full of wonder and excitement. I could barely see the bottom through the clear water where the force of the waterfall exposed the pale sand and gravel that was hidden below the black silt that quickly swallowed the remaining few feet of exposed creek bed before it was further swallowed by the tall green grass that grew up to my forehead in some places.  I stepped into the pool which was about three feet across onto the sand, and started into the grassy ditch which seemed to close in over my head as both the depth and current increased around my waist. I couldn’t believe it was deeper than it was wide. And it was ice cold. The bottom felt very firm but silty. In some places the banks were undercut, so much so, that in one spot where the stream turned sharply, I reached my leg as far back under the grass ledge as I could, and never found the bank with my foot. How far back could it go and how many big fish might live under there in the dark void? I was amazed and bewildered at the thought. A sudden chill fell across my back and felt a tinge of panic. I quickly climbed onto the spongy top of the undercut bank and scanned my surroundings. I was alone and it was quiet, except for the gurgle of the water below me. This was where I started thinking less about the brook trout that were likely taking cover under the banks below my feet, and more about the possibility that I would spook a bear in this thick grass in the middle of nowhere more than a mile from the nearest dirt road with no cell phone service, alone.  It gave me the jitters, and I started yelling like a madman hoping any bear in the area knew I was coming.  

I pushed on, clearing the grass from my face with each step.  It was harder to walk through the grass on the bank, but the water was too cold, and I figured it was better for the trout that I’d be after downstream, hoping that the less silt disturbed in the stream the better.  I also had a better vantage point up on the bank and realized there was an opening ahead, where I might have a chance to finally make a cast. I was having so much fun exploring I had almost forgot about the fishing until I saw the pool where another little stream joined it.  It was about a 10 by 15 feet wide oval pool with 2 streams filling it and larger stream that drained it. I positioned myself on a clump of grass and soil at the edge of the water. I made just one cast to the far side and had a healthy Brookie hooked in seconds. It really was like I had imagined it could be.  As the fish fought, jerking wildly from side to side and finally breaking the surface, I noticed a few other fish following the action. After landing and releasing the trout I kept at it, pulling 3 more fish of equal size from the pool. They were eager to bite, and it occurred to me that these fish may never have seen a lure before.  The pool seemed like a miracle or a dream.  

Finding the pool, and catching the brook trout was something I had dreamed of and hoped for.  I always knew places like this existed when I crossed creeks in the car. But here I was, I had found it.  I could come back and explore more. I realized I didn’t even know the name of this creek. That made it even better.  Reality was even better than my dreams. In my dreams I hadn’t accounted for the adventure in getting there. I never dreamed of falling over a waterfall, or marching nearly blind through a jungle of grass over my head while wading through ice cold water surrounded by countless unseen trout.  I had immersed myself in what seems an anomaly of stream morphology where depth exceeds width. All this under a bluebird sky on public land. In that moment beside the pool after all the trout had been caught, and nothing but chubs would bite, I considered going further. Maybe next time. My family was waiting for me on a beach. I followed my tracks back to the car with a huge smile sweating profusely. Dreaming. Fulfilled.