Slippery Slope

Slippery Slopes and Ultra Scans

Labor Day has come and gone. Mid-season is over. We wait, we wait for rain. In days past, at this time of year, we would get dumped on by left-over hurricanes. The’canes are forming, they track towards the east coast, but, so far, they haven’t the umpf of days past and they veer off into the Southern Appalachins, at best. We miss them up here in the headwaters country. In many years past they produced some good, occasionally, very good fall fishing.

So, this is three years in a row with drought or near-drought conditions. Sure, there is water of a sort, and, frankly, probably better than downstate. But it does not exactly entice one to spend every waking moment on stream. So, I’ve little to report. Except, of course, for my most recent foray. In near-drought stream conditions, to boot!

On the 17^th of August, back when there was shin-deep water in the runs, and a few of the better holes still produced a rise or two, I couldn’t stand it any longer and set off upstream on Mill Creek to where I knew there were both trout and water. Early evening.

And sure enough, with great difficulty, I managed to bring up a small brown. The stretch is one that probably no more than a dozen fishermen know about, and of those dozen, only one or two fly fishermen venture into it over the season. On your left is the well-established watering hole of former servicemen, the Legion, while on your right is the graveyard of Potter County pioneers that dates back to the early years of the 19^th century. What you’re standing in (there is no possibility of bank fishing this short stretch) is probably a channel bull dozed years and years ago to make saleable real estate in the hamlet of Ladona.

Somewhat trashy, somewhat less than the picture-postcard stream of the slicks, but it holds trout. All you have to do it figure out how to get to them. And that means getting down and dirty…wading slowly and carefully, with short, punch casts for the one or two 10-yard open spots, roll casting for the most part as the canopy is like a low-hanging greenhouse vault of every plant, tree and bush imaginable. Only occasionally have I been able to fish the entire length (about 100 yards) without a major foul-up. And these are wild, wild trout so the slightest commotion and they go down. One minute you watch slurping, big bellied browns peacefully rolling over on a take leaving a hellacious rise form, the next, you’ve gotten yourself hung up on a bad cast and when you’ve extricated yourself, they are gone.

During normal water times, unless one is equipped with chest waders, you have to stop halfway through as the mother hole, the hole that harbors the bruisers, is almost chest deep. I figured that with the extra low water, I could extend the beat even in hips. Wishful thinking? Well, I did, up to a point.

Dumb me. I figured I’d outsmart the stream. At the limit of the hippers, I figured I could cross to the far side (the old cemetery), climb out, skirt around some big old alders, come back into the stream and be further up into the hole than normally possible. And get at the risers at the head. What I didn’t figure on was the slippery slope. And my felts.

Despite the brambles, despite the rusted barbed wire fence, I did get around, then stepped onto the steeply sloping bank…and started my slide. The bottom was good old Potter County clay, wet, slippery and because of my careful scouting, there was no friendly tree branch to grab onto. And no traction, of course, from the felts. Down, down I went…ending up waist deep in the pool.

Well, once dunked, no need to stop fishing – some trout were still rising and the water wasn’t that cold. And so I continued to fish, albeit very laboriously and slowly. It would be nice to report that it was then that I connected with the biggest brown of the season. And because I couldn’t do the two-step, lost him (or her). The biggest brown was probably by then hunkered in his favorite hiding spot, far from the action. A few middling strikes at the very head was all I could pull off. But then to get out, get home, get dry!

Water is heavy. Both boots were brim full. I weigh about 135 pounds. My short, laborious climb out of the stream meant lugging about an extra 200 pounds. And that’s when it happened, though I wasn’t to fully realize it until the next morning when I could hardly get out of bed.

I had managed to rupture several of my old varicosed veins in the right leg. The same veins that I had carefully nursed and protected for some forty years. Gone, and in their place a playing-card sized swollen reddish-blue tender bulge on my leg below the knee. (V-veins run in the family…my father stepped from the bath tub once as a middle-aged man, and yelled as blood spurted all over the bathroom. Only the quick thinking of my oldest brother, who had taken up drum lessons and who rammed a drum stick into my father’s torn vein, prevented serious complications).

Needless to say all thoughts of fishing disappeared and I finally had to seek medical attention. Fortunately, the ultra scans showed no sign of an errant blood clot just waiting to shoot upstream causing a life-threatening emergency. Fortunately, the old body is still a-cookin’ and the leg seems to be healing pretty well on its own. But it has been mostly desk work for the past month.

You say, “Well, why not wear chest waders in the first place.” Good question. I have a pair and there are times when there is no question. Then I wear them. But I also, at my advanced age, have another little problem. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, yet we rarely hear anything about it from the older, veteran, fly fishers. If I get anywhere near running water, then, were I wearing the blasted chest waders, I’d have to strip down to answer the call of nature. Damned inconvenient for a fisherman, to say the least! So…I prefer the hippers for obvious reasons. And let’s face it – at this time of year hippers – light, cooler, easier on and off - cover all but the most unusual stream conditions.

The rains? We still need them. We need them badly. Chests, hippers, what have you - fall fishin ‘s comin’!