A GOOD DAY FISHING BEATS ... WHAT'S THAT AGAIN?
“Hon, I’m heading out to fish at Spring Branch today.”
“Okay but I still don’t like the idea of you going there alone. What if something happens?”
Well…if I’m not back by O’dark thirty just call the Sheriff’s office and tell them where I parked the pickup and that I fished upstream no further then the first falls.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better - just so you know!”
The drive would only take about forty minutes and just enough time to appreciate the metamorphosis from inhabited to isolated.
The Branch has as its ancestral beginning at a cleft in the limestone ridges about three miles from the third pull off past the National Forest boundary line. Its water was long ago palatable but not since cattle were introduced on the high mountain plateau that separates two counties. Perching on a stream side rock below one of its many plunge pools will cool you off even in mid June.
The stream holds many treasures; lower level dwellers consist of mostly rainbows in their gaudy raiment while the upper reaches hold a fair number of bejeweled browns.
But, when dropping a nymph or even a drowned dry into the foaming depth of the near side you’d best have your “A” game strike indicator fingers tuned to their finest senses.
This venture commenced at one of my many named landmarks - “arrowhead rock.” It’s a triangular outcropping that dissects the stream for about fifteen feet where it then rejoins at the tip of the arrow and creates a fairly deep, well oxygenated pool about twenty or more feet in circumference. Any floating imitation cast to the far rotating side of the cauldron enables you to observe an eager take on the crystalline surface.
This best ever of days produced two rainbows and one surprising brown all in the eight to ten inch range from the “arrowhead“ pool alone. A brown bead head nymph with brown beaded body was the ticket. Usual rule of thumb on this almost jump across the whole width stream is - “One and done!” The plentiful overhanging foliage furnishes not only sun coverage but plentiful stream shadows to camouflage one from the wary denizens.
My first mistake of the day was the wearing of a pair of shorts for the occasion. That was the first and only time I was dumb enough to do this. While approaching another named landmark, “Split Rock”, I failed to notice a particular growth that now rested in the “split.” The vegetation was green, about waist high with whitish flowering on it and there was no recognition on my part till it was way too late. Mid way through the verdant trap my entire legs felt like hellfire and damnation descended all at once. Ah Ha! I was standing in the middle of a virgin plot of stinging nettles. Virgin you say; how would he know that? Simple; no one had been idiot enough to try and plow their way through yet except for moi! Hoping to escape any brushier payback I opted to lower my left hand to fend off some of the foliage. WRONG! They’re not called Stinging Nettles for nothing. Craving some cool water on my assaulted limbs the reasonable process was to enter the very cold stream up to the thighs and plunge the tainted left hand digits after them. P. S. - it don’t work. The Nettle plant does have a few medicinal properties; one being as a diuretic that can relieve prostate problems. However, as I was prostrated in the middle of the stream just now that wasn’t the relief that was sought. Pain can be short but this lasted a couple of weeks.
Trying to ignore my near brush (little foliage joke here) with death by vegetation a dip in every after fished pool was the choice.
A switch to an ant pattern, with an orange post for old eyes, was now the tool of choice. The first surprising results came in the vibrantly colored body of a six inch brookie. Stockings in the latter years were exclusively, so I was told, of rainbows and browns. Decided to keep this information on my list of don’t tell streams.
The ant was working and it would be perfect for the upcoming whirlpool effect created by the next landmark - “The Logjam.” It was situated in a sharp right turn to the stream bed, with a rock wall facing on one side opposite a fallen boulder strewn corridor on the other. This confluence always created a massive barrier to the passage of any but the smallest floating debris.
Any frog strangling’ rainfall could reconstruct its appearance but it was always there in one form or another.
It could only be fished in two ways. One could go quite above it and try to line an “s” curve drag free drift down to the main pool. Or, one could stand below the wooden dam and try to flip a noiseless as possible offering over the towering structure in the near side of the whirlpool and hope that it’s circular trip around it was successful. I chose the below approach as the upper area was presently bathed in full sun in spite of the heavy canopy guarding most of the branch. Three decent trips around and around were fruitless but the fourth saw a golden rocket clear the water in a voracious leap that startled me. It was headed for the front of the logjam and my below level stance wouldn’t permit any way to stop this progress. It would be necessary to somehow climb higher in the pile in order to put the rod tip above the face of the log tangle and apply an upstream drag to keep the fish away from the snags. The crack I heard and then felt wasn’t my 5X parting.
It was the rotten stub of hemlock that just seconds before was my refuge and now was a launch platform. The lift-off of the Space shuttle is a thing of beauty; I was a whirligig of flailing arms and flapping legs. My Endeavor flight lasted about one millisecond before the abrupt landing and luckily the rod had been released from a non-clutched and now bleeding hand. What the hay? Band-aids are whole lot cheaper than new rods. With all things otherwise intact except pride the day marches on, but having snapped the line while free falling it was time for another item on the trout menu to appear.
While I’m not a dry fly person except for a few moments of weakness now and then a remembered conversation came to mind about a go to fly for this particular stream.
The first bucket full of trout stocker of this stream told me that his secret fly was a size 12 elk hair caddis instead of the twenty something sizes you’d expect to use here. And he was right. The next hour was spent missing most but connecting on enough takes to stay with the floating secret.
A slight breeze had started coursing down through the steep gorge and a lunch break just below the “First Falls” brought enough cooling spray to revive my spirits. It didn’t do a danged thing for my nettle stinging which was rapidly climbing up the charts in the let’s make him cry category. The bleeding fall hand was now “Johnsoned and Johnsoned” via an always carry homemade first aid kit.
Next in progression were: “Hanging Rock”, a rectangular shaped outcropping that actually hung over the stream for about eight feet and was perched twenty-five feet above one’s head. This head never went close enough to give it the opportunity to be renamed “Death Rock!”
The “Slide”, was a fairly smooth rock face about twenty to thirty feet long and elevated at a forty-five degree angle. The pool below it usually held a few good trout even though the day trip hikers and families walking the trail used it for a mini water slide.
Between the steepness of the gorge and the tree shading one had to look almost straight up to observe any skyline. Right about now the view was changing from pillow white clouds to no moon blackness. Five minutes later an enormous fissure of lightning rent the air and reverberated in the narrow spacing. My fight or flight response was to find some kind of shelter as storms here could be very intimidating and dangerous. Before the boom faded away a torrential downpour ensued. No slight splattering start; but, a full fledged monsoon that soaked me in less then a minute.
The second thought consisted of how should I get back to the truck ASAP and would another lightning strike get here before I could dismantle my “lightning rod” rod. Quickest and probably the safest way out and back was to go straight up the steep mossy rock strewn hillside and walk the half mile down the road. First, let me assure one that wet wading foot ware and mossy wet rocks don’t provide any decent purchase especially on about sixty degree up slopes.
Quickly spurred on by the frequent lightning flashes, occasional falling ascent and more bloody body parts, the road was obtained.
There’s no phone reception down in the gorge but one may occasionally get a weak signal road side. I reached for my cell phone to assure my wife that the fishing gods saved me once again but my belt clip was empty. No way to find a cell phone in all that vegetation, rock and last years leaf debris. When later asked why I didn’t go back and try calling from another phone the questioner’s were reminded of the no reception area down there.
The few passing vehicles encountered would slow and stare at the sodden apparition slowly descending the road and upon recognition that it was actually human would wave and try to smother a snicker or just out right burst out laughing. I’d have laughed too if a passenger in a nice dry vehicle.
The uplifted truck cap cover provided scant relief from the continuing downpour while I stripped down to my skivvies and grabbed two large beach sized towels out of the back. A quick dash and the dryness of the seat under one towel felt pretty good and once the heater kicked in it was even better.
When I walked into the house my wife took one look at the shoe sloshing, soaked, skivvied, towel wrapped creature and said, “What the……!”
I quickly retorted, “But it was good day fishing.”
Richard A. (Dick) Taylor