Logan, in northern Utah, was not much different than most early Mormon settlements. White settlers first arrived in 1859 and located near the Logan River. They planted crops, diverted the North Branch of the Logan River for irrigation, and the settlement grew. Canals and ditches were expanded and added to meet the city’s growing needs. Mills sprouted along the canals. Still more people arrived and with them came changes: adobe walls replaced logs, clapboard replaced adobe and brick replaced clapboard. However, one constant through the changes were the canals. Mills along the canals came and went, but the canals remained.

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“What a pretty little town!” My father heard that from my mother several times as they drove through Logan while traveling from California to Yellowstone, or Seattle to the Grand Canyon. That refrain may explain why, when my father’s twenty-one years in the navy were done, they bought ten acres of land near Logan. I was 13 and had already lived in the concrete jungles of San Diego and Los Angeles, the green hills of Seattle and Salinas, and the ocean-sprayed shores of Guam.

canal west of main street

I quickly found that Logan was not as remote as Guam, nor did it offer as many trees as Washington, or provide the opportunity to visit museums, missions and historical sites like California. It did have heat—dry heat—and, as I soon discovered, a large amount of water for such a dry place: like the continuously flowing drinking fountains dotting Main Street’s corners. And gutters flowing with water all summer long. Streets lined with giant maples shaded those gutters. One such maple-shaded gutter flowed in front of our house.

While my parents worked on building their dream home on their ten acres, we rented a red brick house across the street from the front doors of the high school. Two parking lots flanked the house. Across the parking lot to the east, on the corner, stood the nearly one hundred year old mansion of Moses Thatcher, son of Hezekiah Thatcher. Our gutter water mysteriously bubbled from the bottom of the gutter in front of that house.

I traced the source of our gutter water to a canal half a block further to the east. That canal began somewhere east of Main Street, flowed west under the road, then worked its slow course behind the V1 gas station kitty-corner from the Thatcher house, bisected the back of the high school grounds, crossed 300 West Street at 200 South Street then disappeared in backyards. I followed it a total distance of a half mile.

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In 1859, to supply lumber for the small settlement, James Ellis and Ben Williams operated a whipsaw along what is now 100 South Street just west of Main Street, and kitty-corner from the soon-to-be-built Thatcher home. They dug a pit and logs laid across the pit. One man stood in the pit while the other stood above as they operated the large two-handled whipsaw. The following year, Hezekiah Thatcher, Joel Ricks, Sr. and Ezra T. Benson constructed a canal to supply water to a wooden wheel that powered a circular saw blade—Logan’s first sawmill. They called the canal the Mill Race.

The blooming community’s need for flour prompted Thatcher to add a small gristmill to the operation. The gristmill proved so successful they removed the saw and built a larger gristmill on the site in 1865.

In 1880 they replaced the gristmill with a roller mill, calling themselves Thatcher and Sons Union Roller Mill. By 1886 they added a two-story, 40,000 bushel elevator, becoming the Thatcher Milling and Elevator Company. They produced enough flour to sell not only in the Rocky Mountain region, but in Montana, Nebraska and Arizona as well.

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The weather has warmed, the ice in the canal thawed. It is a warm enough early February day for me to have my jacket tied around my waist. My son, Ben, grabs a chunk of snow and throws it into the water near what is now left of the old Thatcher Mill. Signs are tacked to portions of what remains of the mill wall:

WARNING!
NO TRESPASSING
THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY
Will Prosecute Under the Provision of Section 236
FORBIDDEN
CRIMINAL TRESPASS

We continue walking east toward Main Street and spook a dam and drake mallard. They take off careening past buildings, then cross Main Street.

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The first summer we moved to Logan I wandered the banks of the half-mile section of canal that made up my world. I was tempted, but never swam its four foot deep waters. During the spring, summer and fall, it ran at full depth, but in the winter it slowed to a trickle. That trickle puddled and froze. Behind the high school my father taught me how to ice skate beneath huge, leafless cottonwoods.

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Those same cottonwoods were possibly used as cover by Charlie Benson in 1873 while he tried to escape town after shooting David W. Crockett. Benson and Crockett were heading to the Valentine’s Ball when they began arguing. Words were exchanged and the gun-toting Benson shot Crockett, who, according to eyewitnesses, died instantly.

Charlie made his way to his house, told his mother what had happened, grabbed some bread, cheese and a buffalo robe, then hid under the hay in Moses Thatcher’s barn on 200 South Street. He hid there four days while searchers combed the town and guarded the streets heading out of Logan. No doubt while he waited he contemplated his quick temper that led to the death of another man four and a half years earlier in Idaho.

After four days in the barn without food, Charlie made his way to 100 South Street in the early morning light, then west and out of town. A patrolman saw him running and informed Marshall Crockett, David’s uncle. A posse of 100 men tracked Charlie who had few possibilities and was soon captured and put in the County Courthouse—after fourteen years as a city, they still didn’t have a jail.

The posse stayed, working themselves into a lather because of the four days of grief Charlie had given them and their families. Several men from the crowd made their way into Charlie’s cell in the courthouse. They took him out of the cell and to the waiting crowd outside. A noose was already made and quickly put around Charlie’s neck. Throwing the loose end over the “Cache County Courthouse” sign in front of the building, twelve men pulled. Six days after David Crockett’s murder, Charlie Benson was buried.

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Ben and I follow the reverse path of Charlie Benson and wander down to the canal, just behind the old city softball diamond. I point to a small opening in the stump of a large cottonwood. Ben peers in. “Hilary,” his little sister, “could fit in there!” he says.

“When I was a kid and we used to watch the softball games, we could fit in that hole. It was a full tree then, not a stump, and the hole wasn’t half-full of dirt like it is now.” He throws a stick into it. We continue up the bank and onto the old path next to the canal.

I tell him about skating on the ice as a kid, and how the ice we see looks almost ready to skate on. “It’s not very smooth—it has slush on the top,” he points out.

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Before moving to Logan, while living in Guam, I learned about fishing and spent hours with friends tossing a hand line into the ocean, pulling out small, colorful Picasso trigger fish just off the reef. We didn’t buy fishing licenses. We had never heard of limits. We just fished. I saved Christmas and birthday money and bought a blue fiberglass Garcia pole at the PX on the naval base. I fished with it several times before we left the island.

Our second summer in Logan I wandered the banks of the canal to the east of our house to Main Street, and two blocks further to Central Park, thinking about that Garcia pole. I asked some people who lived nearby about fishing in the canal. “There aren’t any fish in the canal, you’ll have to go to the river to fish,” was the typical reply. I never saw fish in the canal, so I figured they were right and the pole stayed at home. Instead I spent hours staring into the rippling canal water where it passed under Main Street.

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In 1879, Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan independently invented the incandescent light. The electrical systems used to power the lights was the hard-to-transport direct current (DC). In 1882, after successfully setting up a power plant in London, Edison built the Pearl Street Station in New York City to generate and distribute direct current to 59 customers. In that same year, Nikola Tesla, born in Austria-Hungary, invented the more reliably transferred alternating current (AC) system. Tesla moved to the United States in 1884, and in the same year invented the AC generator. By 1886, the AC systems were introduced for commercialization and later, in March of 1886, demonstrated to the public.

Christian Garff and Gustave Lundberg built a planing mill on the Mill Race on Logan’s Main Street in the early 1880’s. In January of 1886, two months before the public AC demonstrations, they used their hydropower at the mill to turn an AC generator, becoming the Logan Electric Light and Power Company—one of the earliest AC hydroelectric power plants in the United States.

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Ben and I wait at the traffic light on 100 South Street and Main Street—standing over the canal that passes under Main Street and under “Logan’s Heroes,” the sandwich shop on the corner, just behind us. We cross Main Street and pass the old woolen mill, one of the few mill buildings still standing. A concrete path dotted with new “old-fashioned” lamps follows the curves of the canal on the north. To the south the city created a small landscaped park consisting of a creek, pond, rose garden and gazebo.

Ben runs ahead. He throws sticks into the pond. Then runs ahead again.

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As a kid I found it easy to explore the canal behind the high school where it passed an old brick building—the remains of the Brigham Young College. Founded in the 1880’s, this one building was all that remained. At one time the college’s Mechanic Arts Building tapped the Mill Race, but by the time I moved to Logan, that building was gone.

I visited the late night softball games on the city diamond just west and south of the high school. The outfield fence bordered by the cottonwoods where I learned to skate always collected a crowd. I met a couple of kids there and asked about fishing in the canal, but the only reply I got was, “Nah, there’s no fish in the canal.”

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So I rode my bike along the path under the cottonwoods between the canal and outfield fence further west. At the western edge of the school grounds sapling cottonwoods  clustered around a small field. Old cement work along the canal at 300 West Street and 200 South Street made for exciting bike jumps, and the Garcia pole was still left behind.

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In 1875 Charles O. Card built the Card and Sons Sawmill, Lath and Shingle Mill. In addition to operating his own business, Card was appointed by the Mormon leaders to oversee the construction of both the tabernacle and temple the Mormons built in Logan. As a prominent Mormon leader himself, and a practicing polygamist, Card worried about the roundup of polygamists conducted by the federally appointed state government in the late 1880’s and early 1890’s. He eventually fled to just north of the present-day Glacier National Park into southern Alberta in Canada, settling the area with other Mormons. The land he settled is named Cardston in his honor. He is the great-grandfather of author Orson Scott Card.

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Ben and I walk off the road and into the canal just off 400 South Street, between 300 West Street and 400 West Street. There is no water in the canal and Ben easily points out all of the garbage as we pass an apartment complex: a bicycle, broken glass, scraps of metal, an old jacket. Just beyond the apartments is a field and the canal is cleaner. We spot bird tracks in the fresh snow. A rooster pheasant lifts off twenty feet in front of us, startling me as they always do. We see the spot where he stood, then trace the spot with our fingers where his wings brushed the snow on takeoff.

We get out of the canal, cross 300 South Street and come to the old railroad spur. A fence blocks our way on the far side of the rails, so we hop into the canal between the road and the rails. We crawl on our hands and knees over ice until we pass under the fence. We near a hill where cottonwoods and willows line the canal. To our right is the fenced off yard of the old Anderson Mill. We stumble onto somebody’s tree fort and a lot of concrete, including stairs leading up from the canal. We walk along the concrete wall of the canal’s edge to the top of the old millrun.

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bottom of the millrun

At the spot where the old Mill Race came nearest our brick house, east of the V1 gas station, west of the site of the old Garff and Lundberg planing mill, were the remains of the old Thatcher Milling and Elevator Company after it burned down—a few crumbled stone walls, some giant fallen timbers and the millrun the only clues of what once stood. Fifteen feet below the millrun a small pool and back eddy formed. Although I didn’t see fish, it seemed the most likely place for them of any I visited.

With my blue fiberglass pole finally in hand and a boyish desire for fish, I made my way to the gas station. I might have stopped, as I often did, to talk with Bill about my plans. The old man was my friend and occasional employer. He taught me how to run an old press in the small back room of the gas station. And he trusted me, a teenager, to watch the till on slow days.

I worked my way behind the gas station then down the steep path to the plunge pool at the bottom of the millrun. A few minutes later some salmon eggs and a split shot or two plunked into the eddy.

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The only trout native to Utah’s waters is the Bonneville Cutthroat. By the 1900’s residents so heavily fished the Logan River that in 1917 they stocked the river, but native cutthroat were not use. Records for 1927 show the Logan River was stocked with 25,000 salmon, 86,000 brook trout, 95,000 rainbow trout and 210,000 grayling.

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I was told many times, “Fish don’t live in the canal.” But that day I saw no one. I spoke with no one. My line swirled and tugged below the lichen-covered concrete walls of the old mill. I reeled in an empty hook, put more salmon eggs on, and cast again. More swirling. A decisive tug. And I tugged back.

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Fewer gutters flow with water now than they did 30 years ago when I first moved to Logan. The drinking fountains dotting the corners on Main Street are gone. The red brick house we lived in is no longer flanked by two parking lots—it is part of the parking lot. A single mill is left standing. The last building of the Brigham Young College is being torn down while I write this. The softball games moved from along the canal to the fancy new four-field complex west of town. But summer’s heat is just as dry. Winter water still gathers into frozen puddles. The canal forms the same eddy at the bottom of the millrun.

In a photo album somewhere there is a faded picture of a boy in jeans and a green and yellow T-shirt, a blue fiberglass Garcia pole in one hand and two twelve inch German brown trout in the other. I never fished the canal again.

I point to the spot where I caught the fish. “Awwww, can I go fishing there?” Ben asks.

“There are no fish in the canals,” I say.

Things Men Have Made by D.H. Lawrence Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred touch, and go on glowing for long years. And for this reason, some old things are lovely warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them.

The wood rod was deep amber with burgundy wraps. A three piece rod, its ferrules mottled with a metallic rime that flaked away beneath my fingernail. The deep forest-green backing was like a heavy cotton thread.

Picture (C) Robin Rhyne

I can’t remember now if it was bamboo or just wood. I was 14 and playing around in the abandoned garage/shed at the back of the house we rented. On a high, deep shelf was the rod. I took it down and balanced it in my hands. I fished, but knew nothing of fly fishing, yet this rod had a feel to it.

Thirty years later I wonder what became of it. When I close my eyes and think of this rod, I dare not trust my memories, for I find myself thinking there was something to it, a spark in which someone “put soft life into” it. It is this that draws me to thoughts of owning a bamboo rod—not the so-called “status” of it, but rather the “transferred touch” put into it by the maker.

Sitting near me as I write is a fly tying chest, leaning more toward honey than amber. Brass handles and hinges. In the old house I used to own there was a shed, I think an old chicken coop. A large shelf, about seven feet in depth, spanned the shed’s width. I tore down the shed to make a woodshop on its foundation. I salvaged the shelf, which turned out to be four inch wide Douglas fir tongue-and-groove flooring. It was old growth fir—its growth rings packed tightly together.

I saw a fancy toolbox in a catalog. I was tempted to buy it for my fly tying paraphernalia, but it was nearly $200. When my shop was erected I needed a project to christen it. I thought of the salvaged fir and the tool chest.

I took my time, planing the 7/8″ thick tongue-and-groove to 1/2″ stock—something more delicate for the design I was planning (I had no plans and made much of it up on-the-fly). I ripped it down to 2 5/8″ widths and spent hours gingerly crosscutting to length this species so prone to splintering. In time the box took shape.

I often wonder where it will be in 100 years. Who will have it? Will it be “warm still with the life of [this] forgotten” maker?

Whatever man makes and makes it live
lives because of the life put into it.

*first strophe only

the end of the leaves signifies the end of fishing

Periodically (every few years or so), I find my passion for fishing wanes temporarily, and I actually worry about whether or not I’m all that interested in fishing anymore. It’s kind of weird, but why should I worry about it—if I no longer am interested, so what? But that usually only lasts a couple of months, then I’m ready to hit the water again. I’m not really in one of those phases right now, but with the onset of winter, my preoccupation with school, etc., I did have to take a couple of minutes and reflect on whether or not I was going through a little phase.

It’s been a few weeks, but the last of the fall fishing was a great few hours on the Cub River. Dan and I got into a fair number of cutthroat. The river was quiet. With most of the leaves having dropped it opened the river up, making it feel more expansive than summer fishing. Hardly any canopy and a nice sunshine kept the river well-lit with that sparkle a low-slanting sun provides.

Bonneville Cutthroat Trout

I find myself taking fewer and fewer pictures of fish when I go out. I usually try to take a shot of one fish (just to prove I caught one?). If it is an exceptionally colorful fish, I’ll snap a shot, but otherwise, I’m just not that interested in taking the time to photograph the fish. I find myself taking more shots of the river and surroundings (although I didn’t this last time). I wonder if this says something about me as an angler? I really don’t need to prove anything to anyone else, so why even take one? I’m sure if I caught a “big” fish I’d want a memory of it. Or something unusual about a fish or the catching of one that I’d like to remember I’ll take a shot. Although I have also thought about taking a photo of every fish I catch, but I’m not sure why I’d do that.

So, for those of you who take pictures of the fish you catch, why do you take pictures? And for those of you who don’t, why not?

Bonneville Cutthroat Trout

As we drive the dark road east, I look up where stars dot a narrow path through the morning. I feel the press of hundreds of feet of sheer canyon walls more than see them. Ahead of us the dawn unwinds its hours, slowly unveiling the skyline—a jagged, ancient silhouette stretching for miles.

Today our goals are lofty but we are under the press of time: drive a total of 680 miles; find an undisclosed creek and catch one rare fish discovered in only a one mile section; who knows how many miles to walk; see incredible sites, ranging from redrock sandstone to alpine meadows. And 17 hours to get it done.

Details gradually emerge as time peels away the dark: layer upon layer of vermilions, ecrus, ash, blues. Sand and mud pressed by the weight of one another wait out time, who solidifies them. Thrusts them up. Weathers them down.

The dirt road takes us over the streambed which is surprisingly dry. Do we go up the mountain, where the water may still run, or has it percolated down only to rise again as a trout-bearing creek below us? We go up.

Stands of aspen, scrub oak litter and pine duff, fill the ravine a mile further up. The ravine is steep. An old fence cuts through it marking the forest boundary. An old skull lashed to a wooden post mocks us as it overlooks the bone-dry creekbed. Dan hikes up the far side and into the next, also empty, creekbed, then returns.

How does such a creek support a rare fish? How long does this bed hold water and how often? If there were fish here, where are they now?

A couple of miles further up, after driving an ATV track cut through dense trees in a pickup truck, we hike a mile through healthy, white aspen. Thick-boled, they grow in gentle arcs, this way and that, giving a motion to the trees, as if they are dancing, keeping time for the seasons.

Small seeps feed nearly imperceptible trickles. Taking their time to build to anything substantial, and only two miles above the last dry place, we’re fooled into thinking we’re in the wrong place.

Time to cut our losses, we pack up and head down the mountain, shaking our heads.

This is what I know: As the earth revolves day in and day out, around the great polestar, fixed, immovable, I take my bearing on the here and now, then look forward, past autumn and beyond winter.

The autumnal equinox is no downward tumble to the solstice, rather, a momentary teetering and tipping then continuing its course. Never stopping. Never starting. Eternal revolutions are not acts of death, but renewal—making new again. And again.

“Making new” is a revising, a re-visioning. Unmasking to see what is hidden. Chlorophyl recedes. True colors emerge. A divergence where chromas eventually succumbs to chronos.

Leaves fall, piling their detritus to loam the seeds against the cold. Where they wait, while the colors flame out like so many ashes, and turn to duff—the bedding ground for spring’s genesis. Red as embers, producing oxygen that feeds a fire or fuels a cutthroat (its crimson gill plates squeezing out every element). Its fire warms me while fishing through the season. These leaves, this color, sustains.

To see, really see the enigma autumn holds, one must stand as still as Polaris and look, facing against the current like the trout:

the current of time that turns the leaves,

and leaves one turned against the current.

Perspective.

I also have a gallery of many of these photos but in much more “subdued” colors. It can be found here.

Autumn, to some, brings thoughts of “the end”—the death knell of all that lives and grows in the summer. The coming of a long winter filled with cold and desolation. But these seeds, bursting with the kernel of life, that when sown, will bring next year’s blossoms.

Cradled for a season, they are now sent out to fall upon the land and harbored by winter’s cover which is no end, but rather an incubator for spring.

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.” Henry David Thoreau

Please click on a picture to enlarge it.

Down-drafting night winds cool the canyons. And the plants are shaken. It’s like another spring with everything awakening, only this time rousing from the slumber of hazy summer doldrums. Chilly nights, warm, dry days prep the mountains for fall’s color burst. But now, here at the cusp of autumn, it only flirts with a glimpse of what will come. As many as can busily store energy for the long winter ahead.

The seasons twine about, precessing around each year which are mocked at by the *Jardine Juniper looking down at us from another four miles up the trail. The young-looking aspen surrounds the juniper’s mountain and taunts Jardine’s **youth—Quakies’ braided trunks nothing in comparison to its own roots coursing through acres of soil.

Now, at the end of summer, age spots appear—holes eaten through like so many moths on wool—in stark contrast to the smooth white skin of its bark. Other trees are creased and scarred with branch nodes—millions of eyes turned to our every move. These riddled leaves are a temporary condition, remedied every year for generations.

I will go home and turn my thoughts to cool night air breezing through my windows. To the sun marching southward along the 9000′ spine of mountains a mile from my house. I will hope for the colors splattered across its canvas. And I will dream of cutthroats, their orange slash a reminder year round of autumns that have been and will be.

** Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) reproduce through both sexual reproduction and cloning. Stands of them here in the Great Basin are thought be as old as the last glacial period, 10,000-13,000 years ago.

It kind of worked. Except for the slackers who didn’t show. And those who were too lame to stick with the hopper the whole time (ahem—more on that later, and I’m naming names).

Dan and Doug from Canada (BC) were there to fish with us. I met Doug through Angler’s Life List and Native Fish Network forum. They were doing a two week native fish extravaganza through the desert northwest and Rocky Mountains. They were coming through Utah at the time of the event, so they joined us.

And there was Robert and me. It was great finally meeting Robert face-to-face since I’ve been harassing him for a year to fish together. Robert’s a good man, tying and supplying all the hoppers we’d need (he must have brought three dozen or so). But he’s also a nice guy to hang with. Actually, we still haven’t fished together since I spent the whole time fishing with Doug, and Robert fished with Dan. So you’re not off the hook yet, Robert!

I rode the motorcycle through the canyon, enjoying the bracing air and swooping glide of the corners. We met at the Temple Fork parking lot at 9:00 AM, made introductions, warmed up (I think I’m the only one with that need), then headed up the canyon a couple of miles to divide up and fish. Doug drew the short stick and got stuck with me for the day.

I fished the week before, just a half mile below the Temple Fork turnoff, and had no success with the several grasshopper patterns I tried then. And it seemed to be a repeat on the Hoppertunity day. Although I had never fished the stretch Doug and I were on, the river was familiar enough that I knew we should have been into fish after a good 45 minutes or so of trying. So I made a snap calculated decision to ditch the hopper and go with the fly that brought me luck the previous week: the foam-bodied elk hair caddis. Bam, fish on!

So, Robert, my lame excuse scientifically-sound reasoning is that the fish were taking caddis, not hoppers. I believe the experiment was testing the different hopper patterns, not testing whether the hoppers were enticing enough to get them to take those instead of taking something else. That being the case, I decided to wait until a time when the fish were actually taking hoppers to test the three patterns (which I actually did yesterday fishing the Cub River—more later).

It was interesting to talk with Doug who spends a lot of time steelhead fishing. He asked me several questions about small stream, pocket-water fishing, which is very different from steelhead fishing. I mentioned to him that fishing in front of rocks was a good location, which surprised him. Also the speed of the hook set. After I launched a fingerling over my back because of setting the hook, he asked about how quick he should be striking. I said that it depends on how the fish are taking: sometimes they take sow, but other times they take quick. Usually around here they take quick and the second you see the fish touch the fly, strike! He said that with steelheading, you let the fish take the fly and settle down with it, then strike. Those who strike too soon are the ones who lose the fish.

After a couple of hours, and picking up a handful of fish, we moved up to Franklin Basin and picked up a few more. The leaves were just starting to change colors, which is my favorite time to fish, which was a nice bonus. Although we didn’t really get to test Robert’s flies, it was a good day fishing and an excellent time making new friends.

Our ascent mimics his and we arrive at the top of the canyon at the same time. Aspen, showing the first, faint tinges of yellow, flicker in this early light. Dust kicked up from tires coat trees and shrubs a sagey-grey.

In the long shadows of early light I hike toward the ridge at nine thousand feet, shotgun over the right shoulder. An eleven month hiatus slows my senses—and I forget to look, really look. I’m merely hiking with a weapon, not stalking. My nerves are deadened from the nearly year-long break, spent mostly stalking cutthroat, which is nothing like stalking blue grouse.

Ten minutes into the hunt and a noise to my right, a fluttering, startles me. I swing toward the sound, bring the 12 gauge Winchester around, but do not shoulder it. My eyes sweep left-to-right-then-left. Searching. A winged blur comes into focus bearing away from me to the left. Although it is out of range I snap a quick shot in its direction, at the same time hearing a second flutter of wings to my right. By the time I pick out the bird in the dappled light of trees and shadow, it is quickly lifting. I fire a shot, missing well below it. It settles in a tree eighty feet away.

Grouse are notorious for their ability to completely disappear in plain sight. I move toward the bird, keeping my eyes on the tree while keeping my feet free of the tangled underbrush.

I approach the trunk of the tree and move toward the far side. While still under the lower branches, the bird launches from above in a flurry of wings. The branches shield his flight until he is a hundred and fifty feet away and forty feet off the ground, dodging through the next stand of trees.

I turn back toward the ridge and work my way uphill. A little more alert. More on edge. I periodically stop and let the breeze wash over me, the wind soughing through the fir and aspen trees. Nearing the sharp spine of the stony ridge a rattle comes from below my feet, startling me until I realize I’ve I jostled some lupine seed pods.

I look east over the next half dozen ridges to the mountains in Wyoming, thirty-five miles away. Hundreds of square miles lie before me and I’m blind “casting” for grouse. In a river, blind casting for trout in a river that holds hundreds of fish per mile is doable, considering the fish are contained laterally by banks only separated by twenty or thirty feet. But dozens of miles wide, the land before me does not give of itself so easily.

On the water, the mind works and the eyes pick out pockets and potential lies. Casts are mentally measured then made. All energy seems to flow from eyes to brain to nervous system—all working in concert to determine where the quarry is and then to catch it. The other senses, with maybe the exception of the hearing, seem to fade into the periphery.

In rushing mountain streams and rivers, other sounds are masked by the water’s tumble over rocks. This sound becomes the backdrop for angling. The ears become accustomed to it. Yet amazingly can pick the slurp or splashy rise of aggressive fish. Then I swivel and look for the riseform or shadowy afterimages darting beneath the surface. It’s a curiosity and reaction to sound and movement—but the tension of the hunt isn’t there.

Yet on this ridge I notice something different as I think about the vast possibilities of where grouse might be. My eyes quickly survey the space around me. I have previously found grouse in semi-open areas, more frequently around evergreens than deciduous trees. It is mere milliseconds of brain power used to spot such terrain and move toward it.

And then what? I become aware of my thinking. My mind wanders and wonders why this is so different from fishing. Yet my physical senses are active. My whole body becomes a finely-tuned receptor of stimuli, hyper-sensitive to every nuance and change. The sun on my cheek. The flitting wings of juncos seventy feet away. The flickering tail of a chipmunk, usually camouflaged by leaves and branches, though a hundred feet away, immediately uncloaks. The scent of fir and juniper, crushed below my feet, or brushed against, wafts about me. The index finger of my right hand rests lightly on the safety, feeling its reluctant give as I test it.

I am aware of all this simultaneously and I wonder that since these heightened senses accompany the predator, what are they like for the prey?

It has been several hours and I should probably head back to the others. I move off the ridge thirty yards and circle back, now heading south. I continue scanning with my eyes, but rely more on my ears. After ten minutes and covering a couple of hundred yards I hear flapping to my left and slightly ahead of me. Looking directly into the sun I see a grouse fly to my left sixty feet away. I fire and the bird tilts to the left, momentarily dropping its left leg, then rights itself and continues away. Another bird flushed when I fired and it flies directly away from me toward a small cluster of trees near the ridge.

Instead of approaching directly, like I did the earlier bird that came to roost, I circle a hundred feet to the north, making my way toward the ridge. A thin line of seven trees mark the spot where the bird landed—I think it is in one of the trees toward the south end of the row, although it could have just as easily landed and taken off on foot. I slowly work my way along the trees, keeping thirty feet away so I can see up and down each tree’s height. I stop when I have worked past the first five trees.

This looks like where the bird was heading. I stand as still as possible. A zephyr lifts over the ridge toward the west and ripples the coneflowers, now dried with a dark brown button capping each stalk. I hold my position rotating my head left and right, attuned to each nuance of my surroundings. A minute passes. Then two. I’m not sure if it’s a slight noise or movement in my peripheral vision, but something to the right and slightly above me causes me to turn and stare directly at the blue grouse staring back at me. He’s twenty-five feet away, fifteen feet off the ground.

A head shot drops him and four other grouse flush from the far side of the trees as the shot reverberates off distant cliffs. I get glimpses of them between the branches, but no clear shot. I chamber another shell then pick up the spent, smoking shell from the ground. A handful of feathers flock the Douglas fir. I retrieve the grouse then move north again.

I plan on circling around the far side of the copse of trees the four grouse glided toward. As I move a dozen feet north, a small movement forty feet ahead of me, on the ground, captures my attention. I pause and look up. Another grouse quickly moves between two trees. It is on the far side of a log and I only see its head bobbing past, almost ready to disappear behind a handful of trees to my left. I fire slightly above the bird. She flies directly at me and raises to settle on a branch twenty feet in front of me. I drop her just before her feet touch the branch. The load catches her in the gullet, exploding her crop. Leaves and berries sprinkle about.

Circling around to the stand of trees the other grouse are in I make a cursory glance about me. I feel the heightened perception slowly drain as I realize I need to make my way back to the Jeep. Each step I take seems to bring me back to the task of working my way through the deadfalls and brush, and away from the role of stalker. A dull throb develops in my left knee. I feel a few hotspots on my feet where my boots have rubbed. But I’m relatively unaware of sounds except for a few echoes of other shotguns from several miles away careening off the rock walls of the mountains.

The grouse, hanging upside down from my belt, bounce against my leg, dripping blood and a few leaves and berries. Death is messy. At the Jeep I dress the birds. Later I’ll marinate the breasts in teriyaki, honey, garlic and olive oil. Tonight they will be grilled and served to a handful of friends. And I’ll remember the keen senses of a predator that will have long since left.

There’s a stream I know, a relatively small thing. I like to fish it. My fishing buddy Dan is the one who introduced me to it. I recently had a banner day there. It is called “Bonneville Creek” by us. That is not its name. Dan asked me not to tell anyone about this creek. I keep that promise.

There’s a bigger river, it is wide and long. It has beautiful scenery and even more beautiful fish. It’s a few hours from my house. It is my favorite river to fish. It is the Greys River in Wyoming.

Why would I name one, my favorite river of all time, but not the other?

First, let’s take a look at some of the reasons to take into consideration when revealing your fishing location (I’m sure I missed some too):

• fishing pressure
  • existing
  • projected
  • what it could handle without degrading the fishery
• size of fish
• catchability of the fish
• average number of fish caught
• specific hatches
• location of water
  • remoteness
  • accessibility to urban populations
• accessibility to water
  • distance from parking
  • overgrowth/undergrowth
  • public/private
• regulations
• size of water
• proximity to other, more “famous” waters
• if fish are/aren’t caught
• species present in the water
  • your favorite
  • species of concern
• size of audience of the “publication” that does the naming
• habitat condition
  • pristine
  • need for rehabilitation
• existing information about the water to be fished
  • local knowledge (word of mouth)
  • widespread knowledge (published in books, magazines or popular online sites)
  • research data

Many of these criteria are interrelated and play off each other: size of the water will dictate what kind of fishing pressure might be acceptable. The larger the water, the more widespread the knowledge about the water will be. Etc.

I believe the term “hotspotting” more typically refers to naming a specific location on a water where the fish are being caught. As far as this post is concerned, that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m only referring to naming the creek, river, stream, lake, etc., not the precise location on that water.

Everybody comes up with the criteria that guides their decision as to whether they will name a location or not.  I have noticed that some people tend to be more paranoid than others and feel that all naming of places is unacceptable. That’s their prerogative.

Here’s my theory. I’m not too worried about many of the places I personally go because they are either too far away from major population centers, require too much work to get there, and usually contain too small of fish for most anglers to bother with. Or it’s such a large body of water with so many possibilities that a few more on the river won’t bother the fishing.

I figure almost any water that is an hour or more from any sizable population center (let’s say 20,000 or more), and requires a mile hike or more to get to the water, there probably isn’t too much of a concern naming the water. Most anglers just aren’t going to be bothered with the time and effort to go there. Unless the size of the fish is something special (say the average is 16″ or greater). But let’s face it, there really aren’t a lot of those waters around. Most anglers are too lazy to take the time and effort when the reward is smaller fish.

I also take a slightly snobbish/elitist/misguided (whatever you want to call it) approach that those who are looking for native species, which are often smaller, are typically not your trash-the-habitat and harvest-all-the-fish types of anglers. Part of the psyche of the native species angler is that they like the pristine conditions associated with the species they are after. If anything, they might be a little more of the hardcore environmentalist type. These are just the type of people I would like to see find the locations I fish so they will become involved in the protecting of the habitat and fish species.

Another factor is that my blog has a fairly small readership, and I’m not too worried about those couple of people fishing the waters I mention—it won’t impact the waterways because there aren’t enough readers who live close enough to make an impact. That leaves those who are not regular readers of my blog who may stumble across my blog. But the only way that is going to happen is through a search. If they did a search for a river I have named, they already know the name of the river, so I’m not telling them anything they don’t know, other than a fishing report.

Let’s look at this a bit more closely. Let’s say I have the name of a creek in mind. Let’s make it the Thomas Fork that runs along the eastern edge of Idaho. Trout Unlimited had an article in their magazine about the creek about three years ago, that’s when it first crossed my radar. It’s about an hour and a half drive from my house. Well, I just got finished “naming” the river. Let’s say someone out there really loves fishing this river. Are they now mad because I just named the river? Possibly, even though I didn’t say anything about the quality of the river. Even though Trout Unlimited had an article about it that reached a far larger readership than I can possibly hope to reach. Even though the book, Flyfisher’s Guide to Idaho mentions the river. Even though the following documents online not only mentions Thomas Fork, but has maps, fish density, etc.: Management Plan for Conservation of Bonneville Cutthroat Trout In Idaho; Movements of Fluvial Bonneville Cutthroat Trout in the Thomas Fork of the Bear River, Idaho–Wyoming; Or TU’s famous CSI. Even though all those places mention it, if I happen to mention it on my blog, and somebody out there likes that river, they’ll get mad at me if I talk about that river on my blog. But, like I said before, anyone stumbling across my site is just as likely to stumble across these other sources as well.

Since my main species of concern are native species, I’m really not that worried about naming any place that has nonnative species, no matter the fish size, location, etc.

But there is the conundrum one is faced with when the talk turns to species of concern. There are two camps here: name the waters so something can be done to protect them, don’t them so they remain protected because no one will know, so they won’t get fished out. The problem with the “don’t name them” camp is that considerably more damage is being done to habitats by cattle grazing and improper stocking than by anglers. The more anglers who are aware of the waters, and can see the problems already existing there, then the more pressure can be put on management agencies to do something about it.

So,why do I name Greys but not “Bonneville”? The main reason is that Greys is large (50+ miles) and can handle more pressure. Bonneville is small (about 1 mile of fishable water) and couldn’t handle any more pressure. A couple of ancillary reasons is that Greys is near another, more “famous” river that relieves any pressure Greys would get if the other river weren’t so close. Bonneville—no such luck. Many people in the area around the Greys are already familiar with it. Bonneville, not really, it’s pretty much a “secret” creek in that I’ve never seen it mentioned in any of the popular literature (it is found in research literature).

The overriding reason why I’m a “kiss and a tell” angler is because I like to share—I want others who are willing to put the time and effort in, to find the same joys I find. I don’t want to offend anyone, but it seems almost childish when I come across the paranoid types who withhold all names in all circumstances, even when the likelihood of enough other people angling there that it becomes a problem (and I propose that few waters actually fall into this category). It comes across as, “It’s mine and you can’t have it.” Are there times when some names should be held in reserve? Of course there are, like “Bonneville Creek”—I kiss and hold this one tight to my lips.

Quiz

Let’s look at a couple of scenarios to see if there is any reason someone shouldn’t name the water on their blog or fishing forum:

1. Would you not name any of these: North Umpqua, Sacramento, Madison, Green, Au Sable, Potomac or Delaware.
2. A remote, 18″ wide, 1 mile long desert creek down a 30 mile, two-track dirt road followed by a 6 mile hike with a 3000′ elevation gain to:
   a) potentially catch a couple of 6″
   1. Yellowstone cutthroat.
   2. stocked rainbow.
   3. browns.
   4. bluegills.
   5. yellowfin cutthroat. (this one is thrown in to test your cutthroat smarts)

   b) consistently catch dozens of 6″

   1. Yellowstone cutthroat.
   2. stocked rainbow.
   3. browns.
   4. bluegills.
   5. yellowfin cutthroat.
3. A remote, 20′ wide, 15 mile long desert stream down a 30 mile, two-track dirt road followed by a 6 mile hike with a 3000′ elevation gain to potentially catch one 30″ brown trout.
4. A stream, close to your hometown (population 100,000), that is 4 miles long, 10′ wide, no one ever seems to fish, but you
   a) consistently catch five or so 4″-8″ trout.
   b) consistently catch five or so 14″-18″ trout.
5. A stream, 1500 miles from your hometown, but near a city (population 100,000), that is 4 miles long, 10′ wide, and the one time you went there you caught
   a) five or so 4″-8″ trout.
   b) five or so 14″-18″ trout.
   c) one 23″ trout and one 12″ torut.
   d) no fish, but you saw some rises.

.

There are plenty more scenarios. But I’d like to know, when do you kiss, but not tell?