Stony Fork

This piece was meant to be a subject review concerning delight. The subject being Stony Fork Creek. It turned into an ode to place and eldership.

Stony Fork starts out in rural society and ends nowhere. Driving through random dilapidated dairy farms and trailer parks primes expectations of cigars and hastens the desire for beer. Once through the maze of Americana, there is a pullover (the first of many) that has been expanded to a muddy parking loop. Norman Maclean is nowhere to be seen. This first real view of the stream is disappointing. Shallow pools of cigarette butts are no guarantee of delight. It shows that everyone and their brother have tracked up this same spot in hopes of an easy catch. Wide banks with a narrow streambed will turn away hedonist anglers. The ones who want it now, and if it does not come, will light up another one and get back in the truck.

Flowing in from a mountain gully in the west is a native trout stream that the hedonist will never notice. The choice at this point is to take the path downstream (the banks are too narrow to walk) or explore the native entity to the north. People have been known to pull calm, native Brook Trout from the entity’s waters. The thought of telling friends of this feat is enticing, but one knows that the patience is not there, that is why one comes here in the first place. It is an illusive patience. Grabbing a fish out of water takes a person who has visited Stony Fork many times before and already knows that it has mystery.

So much for this shallow pool of beginners. It reminds too much of everything that I do not want to be. Thistles covering chunky fossilized rocks prohibit streamside travel. The other end of the parking loop has a school bus colored forestry gate. The gate is hardly ever open. If I walk down the path the stream will disappear. Tall maples and short pines take its place, the occasional porcupine is making an escape up one of the unlucky maples. Coming out into a clearing two cabins are resting on the left while on the right the stream has cut a mini canyon in the yard. Where the trees start again is where it begins, the drowning pause of delight. By this time I should take out my rod, reel, and flies. Too many people lose themselves in the debate of fly rods or bait rods. We might as well go back home and compare Audi’s and BMW’s on the Internet. At least then we could see deeper into the mystery of both sides. No one understands the mystery of these two rods, nay Wes Jordan.

Today it is the fly rod, because its mystery seems more relevant to the confusion of life. Its back and forth motions are not unlike systems of belief that never settle. The bait rod just throws its fortune and waits. The fly rod would not settle for this confidence, stretching farther in each direction until it has the fullest amount of Métis to lay itself to rest. Stony Fork is an unforgiving stream for a fly rod. The trees overhang to see what I am up to, apparently ruffled at the disturbance of their beautiful trout.

Matching the hatch, so many bugs fly around that it is difficult to tell what should be mimicked and what should be swatted. After the fourth fly (one vanished due to a faulty knot, so did a second, then a third fell pray to a watching tree) I resume the wandering rhythm of casting. The few casting channels that Stony Fork provides are polluted lines of fluorescent green. Shadow casting is a secret that only Paul knows, but I pretend to have a big brother looking on behind me, describing estranged methods.

In the middle of the deep, elongated pool there lies Stony Fork’s palomino. A fish that will mock all anglers till the end of time. The hedonistic anglers make the trek this far downstream to try their luck with this being. Always they will be eluded. One day I hope to hook the lip of this fish, hold it in my hands with everyone looking on, and then throw it back. Then they will never come back, the ones who don’t look for anything but pleasure. Stony Fork will then prove too strange a place for them, one where people catch the meaning of everything and let it go. I’ll do my part to keep it this kind of place. Not that I really have any power to change it in the first place, but forced ignorance is important from time to time.

Downstream a figure bends over and straightens again. It is my father, his grey wool and worn blue baseball cap distinguishing him from the bend in the river. Too far away to induce the smell of his pipe smoke. He most often passes the domain of the palomino as if they have an understanding. He sees through the enticement of large, deep, and still pools. Life has pulled him under too many times for him to be fooled by the dormant waters. Besides, his son has a fascination with the grandeur of space and depth, let him have the big places.

After I learn this lesson again, I pull in my line and start treading down to meet my father. I come up behind him and watch him with his bait rod in a swift pool. Most who come this far pass by this small angular part of the stream. I can see his delight in this. A corner of rock that will some day be worn in his footprints holds him like a babe. A sly but cheerful look as he gently pulls a reluctant trout out of the rapids. I sigh and move on, all the while envious of his ability to simultaneously smoke his pipe and fish.

Onward down the stream I look for my own place of delight, my own small spot in the stream. Rapids after logs after spooked deer, it is nowhere to be found. Eventually I am in a glen of leaves and trees. In front of me is a boulder that was moved from Stony Fork with some unspeakable force. Most likely the fossilized rocks witnessed this feat. I witness the result. There is no one in sight, the sun razing through the trees and flickering with the wind. There are no fish in my bag but my heart is full. I have forgotten everything in the wonder of not knowing. Delight of this kind cannot be held in one place, my heart is not big enough for these kinds of things. I follow Stony Fork back to a place I hope to one day understand, and cast my line, timidly, beside my father’s.