Stream Feathers: Fly Fishing with a Naturalist

By Wally Rentsch

If you have ever fly-fished or wished you had, Stream Feathers is a must read book to experience the mystique of fly-fishing in the wild Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. Something quite unexpected happens to those who fish downstream for two miles in the company of the naturalist, Hoxie.
There are adventures and unexpected encounters with wildlife around each bend. All combined with the thrill of fighting a pugnacious trout.

In a sequence of 16 episodes, each farther down stream from the other, we follow Hoxie in his valiant quest to catch a trout larger than his dads 24 inch Brown Trout. In the end -- through deep truths found -- beating his dads trout becomes inconsequential. Photographs and Haiku reveal Hoxies adventures and chance discoveries in each chapter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479782437

Wally Rentsch

Wally became a naturalist and fly-fisher when his parents moved to a forested hillside bungalow; he was in the third grade. Two nearby streams and a pond became his playmates and source of his lifetime interests culminating in a PhD from the University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources. He retired as Director of Environmental Studies, Montclair (NJ) State University. Wally keeps busy writing and as docent at Muir Woods as well as in three Trout Unlimited Trout in the Classroom programs. Wally has written two books of poems The Angler Poet and Shimmy a Birch: Haiku. He has filmed two 16mm films for the National Audubon Society's Wildlife Screen Tours: The Waters Edge and South of (lake) Superior. Wally believes it is through fly-fishing the deep truths can make themselves known and anglers might find their inner essence and a sense of place.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I was raised a rural out-of-doors boy, living on a would-be-farm in New Jersey. Nature has always been my driving force. As far back as I can remember I began fishing with a cheap bamboo fly rod. Choice of bait back then was mostly garden hackle and live crickets or grasshoppers.

Stream Feathers came about when I learned of the Bushkill Creek from friends. Eager to check out its trout, even though snow was flying, I drove to Pennsylvania to see it. I have fly-fished the creek and discovered its natural resources frequently through all four seasons.

This adventure concerns fly-fishing approximately two miles of the creek and documenting each season unfolding in the valley’s riffles and pools. This novel is about hanging loose with a naturalist on Bushkill Creek and being captivated by the stream valley’s beauty. Though not a text on how to fly fish, there are sensible revelations on a naturalist’s approach to fly-fishing, having binoculars, 3X5 index cards, and often a digital camera.

CHAPTER ONE JANUARY

Bushkill Creek

O verhearing the words wild trout waters at a New Year’s Party and not one to pass up a promising stream, I eavesdropped. You should try it Hoxie, someone urged. The Bushkill Creek in Pennsylvania became my year’s obsession.

Considering the cold weather, at first I decided not to go, the unknown source and wanting to finish tying a dozen peacock bead-heads, but then I thought—how many flies do I really need? Not able to resist the nagging inside, I knew I had to see the creek, now! Catching snowbound trout could be a long shot, but with my priorities straight and a renewed sense of urgency—any fly fisher knows it—the need became overwhelming. I had to go. I drove up to the creek on a quiet still winter day that had spring tucked far far away.

A secret obsession haunts me. My quest from childhood has been to catch a trout larger than my dad’s 24-inch Brown.

Armed with my favorite 7-weight to handle heavy water, and streamers, stoneflies, and nymphs packed I headed for the Delaware Water Gap and into Pennsylvania.

During the drive, I mulled over the guest’s story of a wild stream valley with no roads… no houses… nothing other than mind-boggling trout; I could hardly wait to see the stream in this ice-dominated landscape.

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At the gap, the Aboriginal Trail along the Delaware River is claimed to be 8,000 years old, the Delaware has an incredibly rich legacy including fishing, with the Late Woodland people AD900-1550, Dutch settlers in 1652, the French and Indian War 1754-1763, the Civil War 1861-1865, and a link to the Underground Railroad. Just think, I told myself, soon I’ll be fly-fishing this legendary land.

Crossing the Delaware Gap Bridge and looking down at the ice-filled River and hoped that a huge trout might find its way to the creek so I could catch one larger than my dad’s bragger. It is so desolate this January day it is hard to believe the visitor center’s claim that the Gap is the fourteenth most-visited destination in the United States. My only hope is that such numbers don’t crowd my newly found stream! After a left turn out of Marshal Creek and a right at the firehouse Y I spot the sign Bushkill Creek.

Visible from the road, an 1883 stone schoolhouse stands minus its roof. Typically, villages grow up within reach of watercourses. Here twenty-five tannery families worked the Creek’s Valley, cutting predominately Hemlocks and Chestnut Oak.

Crossing a snow-covered bridge, I skidded a bit into the parking area. After a brief struggle to put on my blue neoprene’s, I was finally ready. I followed deer tracks through the woods to the creek. On hearing the falls and seeing the rushing stream, I felt an authentic excitement of adventure.

The creek runs through a ravine with steep-sides. Nearby foundations of the original 1847 tannery are visible. The falls provided the power-source for the water wheel and I could see 75 feet of the old millrace. It was easy to visualize the workers, cutting the Hemlocks (now grown back) and Chestnut Oaks used for tanning leather. Much of the leather was used for Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and the American Civil War (1860-1865) purposes. Belts, scabbards, cartridge boxes, and musket slings as well as shoes, horse needs, and farm equipment, all made with leather. Did these workers fish? I couldn’t find any data on it, but I would bet some did, at least the kids!

Wearing neoprenes I feel out-of-the ordinary warmth in this snow-wrapped stream valley. This is a special comfy you can’t get wearing waders.

The pleasant odor of wood smoke drifted invisibly through the trees. Somewhere a kitchen stove was being stoked for its special warmth. It stirs memories of our old kitchen stove with mom letting the flame reach out of the top ring giving us raw flame comfort and something to play with.

Snowdrifts filled the valley. Trees trimmed with snow and tree trunk moats, where swirling winds had blown the crystals away, have turned the valley into a shimmering wonderland. A trail curved from the hillside to the creek, so riddled with turkey and deer tracks it appears to be a woodland highway.

My mindset was winter and until today, winter meant the climax of each trout season, usually coming at the end of October or November. Now Bushkill Creek twists my reality and psyche. Blanketed in snow, today’s winter was not the end, but the beginning of a new fishing season. The month is January not April, a weird notion for me.

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The sound of distant falls stirred

wilderness sensations I had put aside when I stashed the rod and resurrected a winter fly tying bench. It wasn’t Niagara, but loud enough to ricochet through these tranquil woods, setting a back ground timbre for the entire valley. It gave me an irresistible craving for fly-fishing adventure and discovery.

The trail ended at the stream under a statuesque wolf White Oak. This huge tree dominated the surrounding environment with a wide-spreading crown of shade to inhibit the growth of smaller trees beneath it. Spreading its powerful branches across the stream, I imagine trout sculling in its summer shadows while waiting for inchworms to drop from its leaves.

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Wild turkey had scratched around the giant tree’s base, probably looking for acorn the deer hadn’t eaten. I wondered if they ever roosted on branches over the creek—what a sunrise spectacle it would be to see at dawn. Five months later my wish came true and I was able to take this digital shot before it pounded through the foliage for takeoff.

The strong, flowing waters edged in ice were challenging for presentation and choice of flies. Hoping to crack the secrecy of the dark waters I felt somewhat intimidated in making decisions this morning. A lull surrounded me while all around winter’s silence was as loud as ever.

My image of where to cast depends on seeing the shapes and sizes of boulders and cobble stones down to gravel, showing stream depth. It was difficult to see the streams substrate within these dark waters. It is on these rock surfaces organisms live and grow in a food chain sequence from algae and periphyton (grow on free surfaces of submerged objects) to insects, to minnows and trout.

A standing wave pushing over an unusual block-like boulder—flat on top and somewhat square like a card table—gave me challenge. To place a fly into its side currents might bring a strike.

Assessment of the moment, if only I were on the other side of the stream casting a streamer to drift past the roots of this oak. The grass is always greener! Insect life is stymied by the cold, thus a streamer is a natural choice. To tie on a 9-3 imitating a baitfish is perfect, I thought. What of my old favorite, Mickey Finn? It doesn’t imitate anything in the stream, but works!

This is no time for a sentimental debate with myself.

On goes the #6 9-3 with its colorful black over green rooster neck feathers attached to the hook’s eye and flowing back as though from a Bavarian hat, an unpretentious fly.

Eager to wet a line, from under the oak I cast upstream. A timid cast, the rushing waters quickly carried it past the card-table boulder. With sidearm I quarter cast a dozen or so times, covering the dark waters, working the 9-3 down one side and then the other. Once I thought there was a nudge but the hook was probably scratching a rock’s periphyton. I wonder if the fly sank deep enough? Time to move on and see what’s downstream.

Under the oak lay a single turkey breast feather, like a dinghy on the snow. It had the makings of a soft-hackle fly if ever I saw one. I’ve got to get it. A breeze scooted its elegance into the stream before I could pick it up.

Another ill-timed strike, teased my mind. The feather floated across a monstrous rock slab, around a ledge, and into the riffles. My fantasy of its being a fly and seeing a trout rise to it was a dream, the kind fly fishers have throughout the day, a trout in each pocket, a #22 dry gliding with the current and sucked in by a trout leaving gentle rings.

A ledge rock both above and under the water made me marvel at the extent of it. It was enormous. Even in the best of times, not many insects could survive the swift currents washing over it. No trout food here, not even caddis houses. Areas like this are fine for birding; that’s about it.

Walking downstream, the next section had boulders, riffles, cascades, and precisely the pocket-water habitat I had hoped to find. I envisioned a trout in each pocket waiting for my presentation; maybe that’s stretching it too far—icicles in the brain!

Bursts of sunlight glittered off the soft riffles going hand-in-hand with the sounds of bubbles and swirls. An angler at a TU meeting once used the phrase stream applause, this must have been the sound he had in mind—nature’s emotion at its most charming.

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Without question, this is magnificent trout habitat where stream, rocks, and trees fill the valley as perfectly as the sun, moon, and stars fill the sky. Winter fly-fishing offers a harmonious combination of forest and stream in natural symphony, and I should probably add chilled toes and freezing cheeks. I wanted to start casting, though believing it was still a long shot. A series of casts near each boulder to entice any trout lying in the swelling waters gave much needed practice. In the past on similar streams, I’ve caught trout in boulder eddies where debris and invertebrate life get caught in the swirl. I don’t yet know the secrets of fishing in ice and snow, but I hope it’s the same.

My strategy was to use a short 5X leader 7 feet long, and to cast upstream into rocky pockets where the stream has gouged out holes. My guess was that the stream temperature was in the 40s and 50s, too cold to gain knowledge of the waters by wading and risking a spill. It will have to wait for a bit of spring warmth. Casting the 9-3 upstream to pockets, letting the streamer drift across each, at times with manipulation, produced no takes. My challenge and strategy is to cover the pockets and deep runs where fish might hold up.

Ice and snow extending out from the stream’s edge seemed to protect the trout lie forming an ice roof over the stream. Casting a long double haul upstream onto the ice, the fly needed but a twitch to roll into the stream and be worked to me. The fun of it was to place the fly where the current quickly takes it to trout, and just as quickly trout must make a decision whether to eat the streamer before it’s swished out of their window of opportunity. Trying to create a darting presentation, imitating large insects or baitfish, is good theory but not so easy to do with the fly speeding downstream at 7-miles an hour.

However, did I really have to cast right this minute, my first day on the stream? I thought about it and decided not to fish for a while. It was time to enjoy the valley covered in snow and take in the sounds of the water and the winds swishing through cracks and crevices of the barren trees.

Beams of sunlight trace a visible slanting path through the trees by reflecting cones of light on small particles in the air, the Tyndall scattering effect still amazes though letting me know the out-of-doors air is not so pure.

Observing shimmers of brightness against iced bark is an easy choice over handling wet line and ensuing freezing fingers so I resist casting. This natural valley has a deep forest’s mystical nature to it that my senses want to explore.

Through the better part of an hour I sat on a fallen tree without fishing. A Tufted titmouse, a nuthatch, and a pair of Golden Crowned Kinglets fluttered around where I sat. A Blue Jay called in the distance. After sipping a bit of Rusty Nail from my flask, I decided to try my fly selections. A #6 9-3 was my choice for the cascades, spanning half the width of a football field and having snowcapped boulders meticulously spaced by nature.

A winter landscape where underwater life must be unhurried and swift water trout retain their cunning fills my senses. A time of simple pleasure, so that I barely notice the chill of winter.

I cast the 9-3 into the dark current; it swung into and through a small eddy. As luck has it, after I tied it on the line I spotted a clump of midges riding high. My size six streamer was a giant compared with a size eighteen or twenty midge cluster. I watched the clump hoping to see a rise.

I’m always amazed at the midge’s four-season life, their importance to trout and angler alike, and my sheer joy in seeing them. In winter, hardly any critters hang around, but the midges, the trout and I form a natural bond.

I was tempted to change to a Griffith’s gnat cluster but gloves, freezing fingers and the rig-a-ma-roe of fly boxes, eye loops and threading 6X through #22 eye and making knots, took prescience. Even though I’m well aware that midges and trout go together in winter as nicely as a grilled cheese and hot soup!

Thus, I continue to cast with the 9-3. On the fourth cast my line dumped. What the heck was going on? I tried again, it dumped again. The line wasn’t cooperating. It wasn’t shooting out. It was as though someone was holding the line stuck in the rod. Checking the rod’s eyes, that’s exactly what was happening. The thin water coating on each line retrieve was building up and freezing in the eyes, holding the line and me hostage. With thumb and finger, I popped the ice from the eyes with the same motion as shooting marbles. It was fun of sorts, a nine-foot satisfaction when completed. So I changed flies.

Casting the Griffith’s into the riffles, I thought of how the winter water column differs from summer. Freestone streams by nature are sparse with trout food. The winter season must be doubly so.

Insects that usually hatch where sky rests on the water, on the surface tension, don’t seem to be around during winter except for the midges and possibly stoneflies.