Part 1

There is a stretch of stream, on home water, where my obsession with brown trout began over fifty years ago. Never great water but always good enough. Water that was a playground for a collection of six friends . Three of which no longer with us. One of the remaining three continues to walk its bank and wade its water in search of what brought them all together over a half a century ago. 

For a number of years this particular piece of water was ours. We claimed it! Only intruded upon during the opening weekend and for a few weeks by a small handful of older gentlemen during the late night Hex hatch. We named several stretches in order to relate where one had been or where one was heading. Names such as The Tunnel, Cleveland’s Bend, The Island, The Dock and Bret’s Bend. Names that remain with me today, all these years later, as I continue to fish these hallowed waters. 

The Tunnel was located at the upper end of our water. Tree lined, slow, deep in spots with a bottom of boot sucking silt. A great place to be hidden for hours. Time well spent drowning a night crawler, chain smoking cigarettes that someone had found and navigating those teenage years. 

The home of my first 20” brown. A heavy female quickly dragged up onto a silt bed, jumped on and wrestled by a friend to insure its capture. Years later, after entering the world of fly fishing, the piece of water that almost did me in. 

Look at that grin, the belly on that brown, those silt covered fingers

Wearing a new pair of heavy, rubber chest waders I made my first attempt at wading up through the Tunnel. I hadn’t gone ten feet when my right foot lodged under a branch buried underneath all that silt. Down I went, waders starting to fill. I managed to stand upright, briefly, only to go down a second time. Completely submerged it hit me that this might not end well. Somehow I managed to emerge and made my way to the bank. Once the waders were emptied I made a quick exit to my car, home was only three minutes away. After a change of clothes I did what any sane fisherman would do. With a couple hours of daylight left I put on hip boots and made my way back to the stream. After all, there were fish to be caught. 

Downstream from the Tunnel was Cleveland’s Bend. A slow, deep bend that was home to Suckers, Red Horse, Carp and the occasional large Brown. Named after one member of the group who spent most of his angling hours there, often with his best friend. Usually fishing crawlers, occasionally kernels of corn, eventually Spinning lures. The best Brown I remember him ever catching, falling prey to a Panther Martin. A piece of water, that I discovered later, to have tremendous Hex fishing and more Brown Trout than I ever would have guessed. 

Cleveland’s Bend holds a special place to me because of a life long friendship I made, on a warm Hex evening more than forty years ago. Arriving early that night, as was customary, I came upon an angler already sitting near the bend I had intended to fish. Being the only two there we soon broke into conversation. He’d fill his pipe, I asked the questions, he would answer them all. He spoke to me not as a newbie but as a fellow angler, sharing all his experiences fishing the Hex. What I treasured most that evening wasn’t the fish I caught, it was his gift of time. 

To be continued……