Devotion 16 - Getting My "AWE" back

WARNING: NOT YOUR TYPICAL STREAMSIDE DEVOTION

The sign said, "Bald River Gorge" and just for good measure below it, "Wilderness Area". That pretty well sums it up - a typical, beautiful East Tennessee mountain stream surrounded by steep walls covered in mountain laurel. It's a young man's river - or maybe just a younger man's river - meant for commando style fishing where you drop straight down off the trail to get to promising pocket water without worrying how you are going to get back up.



For me it's the river of my youth. One of my college roommates, a kid from West Virgina or Virginia or somewhere that loved fishing the small mountain streams and would dance and laugh every time he caught a four inch Brookie, "found" it for us. The "us" was my other roommate and I making a trio of kids with cheap fly rods, little to no money, rare dates, and a love for the wilderness rather than the classroom. Later I would introduce it to my cousin and lifelong partner in, well, everything. Many Fridays after class in the Spring and Fall we would load up the Gran Torino (yep, me and Clint Eastwood) and head to the mountains driving the last five or so miles seemingly straight up the gravel road - fishtailing all the way - to the "wilderness campground". Then, as now, the rules were simple - camp only in the designated camping area, valid fishing license and trout stamp, single hook only artificial with an actual creel limit of three fish - it's still the same today.



Once we parked the car and the dust settled we would string up our fly rods put on our backpacks and immediately leave that designated campsite. After hiking in a mile or so we would set up camp before darkness settled in down in the gorge. Camp usually consisted of sleeping bags, cast iron skillet, flashlight, canned whatever, pancake mix, bourbon, army surplus mess kits and a plastic tarp if we remembered it. Lightweight gear and dehydrated food were just catching on in the early 70's but were still well beyond our budget. The thing I remember most about these camps was the water - straight from the river you could still drink it, mix it with your bourbon, wash you skillet and mess kits with it and not get some disease, chemical or parasite that they have now that I can't even pronounce. To my knowledge today there is no stream or river in Tennessee that you can drink out of without additional purification.

That was then. Now, some 35 years later, it's still a fairly untouched area full of memories for a "middle-aged" "parts is parts" fly fisherman. Last Friday I was able to make another trip for a few hours to this holy water and dang if I didn't have the whole river to myself - not another soul in sight. Intentionally for this trip I had chosen my bamboo rod actually named the "Bald River" intending to fish dries as much as possible. Leaving the truck at the bridge I headed downstream carrying as little gear as I could get away with. I walked for about 20 minutes passing "Bruton's bend" where my cousin took a huge hit of Bruton's powdered snuff one day and went to his knees in pain and confusion in 1973 and came to a fairly level access point to some promising water I remembered near our old campsite. Using a dry dropper rig I tied the magic BHPT on the bottom and a little yellow Elk Hair/foam Hopper attractor fly on top. First cast and BAM! I missed a little rainbow on the top fly - game on. Fishing a few more pools along the way I kept catching creek chubs on the BHPT and a strike here and there on the top fly. Tired of the creek chubs (go figure) I cut off the bottom fly and went strictly top-water. Two more pools and I finally landed a nice little six inch rainbow who thought he was a whole lot bigger.

Time begin to run out as I needed to be back in Chattanooga for dinner with friends so I worked my way back to the bridge and the truck. Crossing the bridge I looked upstream and the water just looked too good to pass up. It's flat water, some current but it's hard to see and you can create those bathtub riffles as you wade upstream. Surprisingly there are some fairly deep holes here and there as well as some rock structure along river right. Casting as I moved upstream I saw a rise river right and some riffle motion to the left that ebbed and flowed like something was stirring the water. I fished the riffle first thinking it might be a brown feeding on chubs in the late afternoon. Nothing. Then I decided to fish the rise river right.

It's one of those times we all have. You feel that this is IT. Perfect water perfectly still with a rise so you KNOW there is a fish there. Now all you have to do is put the fly in the right spot in the right way with the right drift and not too much fly line showing and hoping against hope that your false casts didn't put the fish down like it says in the magazines. I did it. I really did it - it all came together for that one bright moment in time where the fly fell just where it should barely disturbing the water. One second later it was hit by a freight train of a fish taking the fly with no hesitation, pulling the line taunt, feeling the hook and spitting the fly back out on the water and gone leaving it's wake behind. Big fish. Really big fish for that little river. No I didn't see it and no it wasn't one of the 20 inch fish everyone always says they catch but rarely do but it was a nice fish for that river that felt fairly heavy for the spit second it was on and it left a big enough hole in the water to let me know I missed a nice one.

I laughed - out loud. What else could I do. Everything had been there and I missed the fish. He won, I lost - or - we both won. He had a sore jaw and I had another Bald River story and I got my "awe" back in the process.