The sun has yet to slip below the rim of mountains that rise along the western horizon. Pulling my truck to the side of the logging road, I buckle my hippers to the loops of my jeans, grab my gear and tramp down a path that winds along the edge of a deadfall left behind by a logging crew.
The thorns of unruly brambles grab my shirtsleeves as I pass the jumble of silver-and-gray limbs and branches that time has bleached in the sun.
Ferns grow high in a field where a gaggle of chickadees gossip about the decadence of tent caterpillars writhing in a web-like chamber spun across the notch of a chokecherry tree.
When the field gives way to balsam and spruce, I follow a well-worn deer trail as it ascends the side of a hillock. Stepping around boulders, over roots and the occasional fallen limb, I’m careful to carry my little cane rod with the tip facing backward.
At the top, I take a few minutes to catch my breath. In the distance, the stream stretches through the conifer forest like a black snake through tall grass. From a backwoods pond to its terminus with a well-known river, the woodland stream weaves through marshland before entering the forest, where it slips from sight beneath shadows cast by conifers.
A few stones dribble down the hillside when I begin my descent. Thirty minutes later, my pace quickens at the sound of the brook. The banks are lush with vegetation. Delicate blue forget-me-nots poke out from among patches of blue bead lilies, trout lilies and dogwood bunchberries. A yellowthroat flits among the streamside verdancy, its notes tumbling along with the current.
The sun has nearly set, its rays slanting through the evergreen canopy. Although the heat has begun to recede, the humidity remains. My shirt is damp with perspiration. I sit on the trunk of a fallen tree, staring across at the tannin-stained current that parts on either side of a partially submerged boulder before washing against the branches of a fallen spruce extending from one bank to the other.
Debris caught in the conifer’s spindly branches creates a dark pool a few feet across. There is a rustling along the far shore. A moment later, a mink slinks around the branches and over the tree’s trunk. The cautious predator turns its beady eyes in my direction, then moves on, slipping from sight.
Talk of global warming hangs like a shroud over the stream’s surface. During the last few years, heat and humidity have descended sooner while drought and extreme weather events have become more frequent.
I’m reminded of a song written by Joni Mitchell in which she reminds us that “we are stardust, one-billion-year-old carbon.” But although those bits of stardust may appear eternal, the unique combinations of carbon that result in the wild trout I hope to find on this July evening, the mayflies, the insects that crawl along the stream bottom and flutter in the air, the forget-me-nots and blue bead lilies that grace its banks, the mink, red squirrels, moose, bears and even you and me, dear reader, are certainly not.
Whether guided by the Almighty or nature’s elegant plan, our time here is short, making our fragile place in this universal wonderland that much more precious.
I draw a neckerchief from the back pocket of my jeans. Dipping it into the water, I wipe away the perspiration from my face and neck. The coolness of the stream dampens the back of my shirt as it dribbles between my shoulders.
In the gloaming, a few caddisflies skitter across the shimmering surface as a gibbous moon makes its appearance. I hear a splash. Thoughts of mortality recede when, a few moments later, a trout’s maw clears the surface.
Opening the tin carried in my shirt pocket, I select a pattern to imitate the caddisflies that earlier in the afternoon rose from the stream bottom and have now returned to continue the cycle of life by depositing their eggs on its tea-stained surface.
After knotting on my fly, I cast toward the head of the pool.
With darkness continuing to fall, I’m unable to make out the fish that continue to rise through the surface, but upon hearing another splash, I pull back on the fly rod, its cane tip now trembling with life.
Not long after, a brook trout, perhaps six inches long, its back as dark as the forest and its flanks resplendent with yellow-and-red jewel-like spots, some containing blue dots, slips from my moist palm.
My faith in the resilience of these fish restored, I call it a night after releasing two more trout. As I climb back up the trail, a field mouse scampers through a shadow cast by the moon’s muted light. In the distance, I hear the hoot of an owl.