Long TR: Leaving the Letort

I was really nervous Thursday and Friday. In fact, I looked at the
weather report every ten minutes and looked out the window twice as
often. No matter how often I looked, the news was the same: it was
still raining.

I've been rained on before while fishing, so it isn't a new
experience, just one I would prefer to avoid while tenting. There was
nothing to do but pack the car and go.

I left work early, four in the afternoon, making sure to buy the
silence of my fellow employees with growlers of Iron Hill's Ironbound
Pale Ale. The office is minutes from the Turnpike and in short order,
I was rolling westward under full steam. That lasted three minutes. I
spent the next hour crawling at stall speeds towards the Blue Route.
The rain alternated between heavy downpours and Biblical torrents.

Finally, the traffic cleared and I resumed my head of steam towards
the Letort. The sky remained heavy, but the rain lost strength as I
got further west. Just as I crossed the Susquehanna, the only thing
left of the rain was a light cloud cover and full humidity. The Susky
was in bad shape. It looked like a million cubic feet per second of
Quik rushing to the Chesapeake.

I rolled into the Carlisle Campground at a quarter to seven. Roger
beat me there by a few minutes, and he was already down at the Letort,
taking it all in with polarized glasses. Everything was soaked, and
after setting up the tent, so were we.

Before dinner, we tried fishing the stream right there in the
campground. It was high and milky, but we tried anyway. In an hour, I
saw one rise and we caught no fish.

Dinner was steaks in an old cast iron pan on the fire, and since I
forgot paper plates, we ate chunks off a fork in the style called
"grip and rip." We drank a bunch of martinis, carefully made to
exacting standards and guarded closely against accidental bug
drownings. Rog did end up with a moth in his, but that was his third
see-through and the bug went down with an olive. Friday night, it got
awful drunk out.

We woke up late Saturday morning to fantastic weather and slight
hangovers. There was a light breeze, sun and a few high small clouds.
Breakfast was camp coffee, bacon, bacon and eggs. No paper plates, so
we put it all on a bun.

Having no idea what we were doing, we decided to hit Cold Spring
Anglers in town for some local flies and advice. That was a fantastic
shop. They had all sorts of good stuff and the staff was great. They
had coffee, and it was a whole lot better than the stuff we had with
breakfast. For starters, their coffee didn't have any bugs in it. I
got a new fly line, a bunch of flies, a neat nail-knot tool with a
demonstration, and I almost got a divorce. The guy started showing me
these fantastic Winston and Sage rods, where the ink on the price tag
outweighed the rod itself. If I had bought one, I'd have had to use it
as a tent pole because I wouldn't be allowed back in the house.
Fortunately, Rog saved me. "Step away from the rod!"

We asked where to go. They gave us some cherry spots, how to get there
and how to get access. Most of the Letort is on private property, I
guess, and some people are very picky about who uses the land. Some
will let you fish if you ask nicely, and some will shoot at you. I
suppose that if I lived on a trout stream with the reputation of the
Letort, I might limit access, too.

We asked what to use. The guy laughed. "It doesn't matter. They won't
take anything, so just throw whatever you want in whatever size you
want. Try some terrestrials."

As we headed back to camp, we realized that we were in town the same
time as a motorcycle show. Hogs, fat boys, soft tails, choppers and
trikes rolled, rumbled, howled and were towed all over the place. We
saw a fascinating array of people on top of these motorcycles. All
sorts of shapes and colors. The one thing we noticed about motorcycle
enthusiasts is that they cannot start a motorcycle without ten minutes
of throttle work, especially early in the morning or late at night.

We loaded our stuff and headed to the first spot on the Letort. The
fly shop guys told us to ask permission from a certain place to fish a
certain stretch, so we went into the store. I can't imagine her
impression: two giant, wild-eyed men, incongruous in the store, asking
to fish. She let us, fly-fishing only, catch-and-release only. I
hadn't figured on catching enough to eat, anyway.

I remember reading Marinaro's In the Ring of the Rise and thinking,
how did he get such great pictures of a trout rising to a fly? Such
clear water and perfectly placed trout, well lit and camera-friendly.
Now I know. The Letort is as clear as a chilled shot of vodka, and
instead of the massive canopy of trees and dense brush I'm used to, it
has fairly short grasses and reeds. The sun shines down into that
river and smiles on its trout.

The river was polluted with fish. Holding everywhere on the bottom, we
found browns. They all looked to be about ten inchers, plus or minus.
Surprisingly, they weren't spooky. I stood on the bank behind a clump
of grass, half a rod length from the fish holding on the bottom.
Surprisingly, they ignored everything. Wet, dry, top, bottom, big,
small, any color, it all just went past the trout. Still, the creek
was as beautiful as it was unique, there under the infinitely high
skies. My usual fishing finds me under the trees, wading and firmly
stuck to the ground. The open sky and the uncluttered stream bank made
it feel like I wasn't anchored to the planet, and unless I
concentrated on the water, I might float off into space.

While working one pod of decidedly uninterested trout, I made several
casts beyond the lie, hoping that I'd see sources of drag and better
present the fly. One of those casts got a rise. For a second or two, I
was hooked into a tiny terror. The trout was small, perhaps six or
seven inches, but it thrashed and flipped and splashed enough to throw
the hook. That was the extent of my trouty action on that stretch of
the Letort. I can't decide whether the fishing was the best I'd ever
seen or the worst I'd ever seen.

Rog had a rise from a good fish, but it was while he was scoping the
creek for another cast, so he wasn't prepared. He probably learned
something about fishing out the cast.

We'd been taunted enough, and it was time to eat. We put our gear in
the truck and went in to thank the lady. I can't imagine we made a
better impression than the first time: two giant, wild-eyed men,
sunburned, mud-spattered and excited about catching no fish. We
thanked her profusely and joined the lines of traffic snaking through
town.

Lunch was smoked venison sausage, eaten off a fork, with a tepid Hop
Devil IPA. Despite the unappetizing description, it was a terrific
lunch. Once again packed up, we took off for the Yellow Breeches. From
some of the reports we heard, the Breeches was an easier place to fish
than the Letort, and we needed an ego booster.

We rode through the farm country listening to the blues in the
slanting afternoon light. We crossed the Letort at another spot, in a
small glen. The creek was braided and very skinny. It looked even more
difficult than the first spot we tried.

Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania seems to be centered on the Children's
Lake. The roads all seem to lead to it. After a few false starts, we
got into the parking lot for the catch-and-release area and were
amazed at the crowd. We'd had the Letort all to ourselves all
afternoon, and now we had to share a stream with what looked like the
entire non-motorcycling population of Cumberland County.

Still, we came to fish. We hiked down the river, found a likely spot
and commenced fishing. The Yellow Breeches is another cold spring-fed
stream, but completely different than the Letort in configuration. It
looks like a free-stone stream in the classic sense. There was the
canopy of trees, muck at the edges, stony riffles and slow pools. It
could be a stream anywhere. A few rhododendrons mixed in with the
sycamores and hemlocks on the banks.

It was also packed with fish. There were rainbows in every riffle and
pool, a couple of 18" palominos and a brown or two thrown in for
variety. There were no rises, but who could tell with all the fly
lines whipping the surface to a froth? We found a mixed bag of
fishermen. Some seemed to be playing fish continuously and some seemed
to be playing with their fly boxes continuously. We changed flies
fairly frequently, trying to pick something these fish had never seen.

I went with a bead head dropper and dry at one point, and managed to
take a standard-issue stocker rainbow on the dropper. The colors on
the fish were excellent, so I snapped a picture and turned it out of
the net. It hung in the current below me for a second, then returned
to feeding right at my feet. It flailed on its side trying to dislodge
nymphs from the streambed a scant four inches from the tip of my
boots.

Rog found a pool with a few fish and while I played ghillie and
cameraman, he took a perfectly-formed six-inch wild brook trout. It
was an excellent little fish, full of color and vigor. I can't imagine
the torments that little fish's ancestors went through on that river
to survive. The logging, the iron mining, the blast furnace on the
bank, the over fishing and stocking must have been true tribulations.
Surely, that little brookie's lineage has real balls.

Enough was, eventually, enough. We unkitted in the still-full parking
lot, chatting with a great old guy and his (grand?)son. He had a
virtually unlimited collection of fly boxes in his vest, each one
completely packed with his own beautifully-tied flies. The boy waded
in, and with quick sure casts, hooked into a nice fish in less than
three minutes. I liked seeing the confidence and skill on that kid.
He'll be one hell of a fisherman some day. A budding Marinaro.

Back at camp, while I set up the kitchen and started dinner, Rog made
the martinis. There in the dusk, the Harleys roaring around, raucous
screeching, country music and cell phones making themselves known, the
martini shaker stood out. Rog and I have been making martinis since
right after college. The recipe is solid and now has the weight of
tradition. It bears recording:

Per serving:
(5) drops lime juice into a martini glass
Fill a martini shaker with ice
(2) shots Skyy vodka into the shaker
(5) drops dry vermouth into the shaker
Shake it until frost forms on the outside of the shaker
Decant the martini into the glass
Spoon in an odd number of manzanilla olives, draining only slightly
If the olives are small, use (5)
If the olives are large, use (3)

We looked at Cassiopeia and the Ursae, and I toasted:
Today we fished:
We paid our way and relied on the kindness of strangers,
We caught fish and got skunked,
We fished private land and public,
We fished alone and in a crowd,
We fished for stockies and wild fish,
And here's to the fish we couldn't catch.

To which Rog replied, "It was a good day."

Saturday night, inebriation settled its heavy dank blanket all over
the campground.

Sunday morning, we were up earlier than our neighbors. After the
story-book weather Saturday, Sunday looked fantastically fishy. Low
clouds crowded the humid air and promised rain softly stroking
everything with their clammy fingers. We made breakfast, did our
ablutions and packed before the neighbors got up.

We had one more piece to fish, in the interests of tradition.
Marinaro's Meadow beckoned. After a short drive though town, pointedly
ignoring the church bells, the fishing presented itself. We walked
down to survey the water, and again found vodka-clear water with reedy
banks. We kitted up and walked downstream, staying well away from the
stream, so as not to spook fish. At one spot, we found a battered
mailbox bearing a tag, "Hagn's Letort Log." We found a business card
book with a front piece asking that we put the name, date and put a
sample of a fly that caught fish. I don't carry cards – they encourage
people to call me. Rog had one and put our names and the date on one.
It felt good to be a part of a club universally flailing at a nearly
unattainable goal called "Letort Brown."

I watched one holding next to a weed stromatolite (well, that's what
they LOOK like). It was a small brown, hanging effortlessly in the
current. I watched it rise three times to something I couldn't see. It
was just like Vince Marinaro said it would be.

We fished, slow and carefully, but we only saw fish when they
scattered at our coming. I consider myself a patient and enduring
fisherman. I will happily make the thousand casts for a steelhead and
wait a lifetime for a muskie but these little trout had me
exasperated. I smoked a reflective cigarette and considered my
imminent defeat.

Rog is made of sterner stuff. His will has the strength of Lukens
steel plate, the resiliency of a cockroach and all the majesty of a
bull elephant. He was stymied, too. By the time we had fished back up
to Marinaro's meadow, even he was prepared to concede. We were bested
by beautiful little trout with brains like lima beans.

In the parking lot, after we took off our waders, we shook hands and
promised to do it again, but somewhere with dumber fish. In town, Rog
veered off south and I continued to the Turnpike. As I accelerated
through the onramp, the rain began in earnest.

Nice report Steve i'll have to go to the Letort and catch all those trout you
saw...........


Handyman Mike
Standing in a river waving a stick

Stephen,
Nice TR!!! A mirror to the first 3 or 4 times I attempted the LeTort. I
haven't gotten much more successful, but there is something to practice. Nice
piece of writing all around!!!
Tom

Stephen,
Nice TR!!! A mirror to the first 3 or 4 times I attempted the LeTort. I
haven't gotten much more successful, but there is something to practice. Nice
piece of writing all around!!!
Tom

uh...you had me until those damnable olives appeared...couldn't go on.
g til then, it was fun. thanks...

jeff

Stephen L. Cain wrote:

I was really nervous Thursday and Friday. In fact, I looked at the
weather report every ten minutes and looked out the window twice as
often. No matter how often I looked, the news was the same: it was
still raining.

I've been rained on before while fishing, so it isn't a new
experience, just one I would prefer to avoid while tenting. There was
nothing to do but pack the car and go.

I left work early, four in the afternoon, making sure to buy the
silence of my fellow employees with growlers of Iron Hill's Ironbound
Pale Ale. The office is minutes from the Turnpike and in short order,
I was rolling westward under full steam. That lasted three minutes. I
spent the next hour crawling at stall speeds towards the Blue Route.
The rain alternated between heavy downpours and Biblical torrents.

Finally, the traffic cleared and I resumed my head of steam towards
the Letort. The sky remained heavy, but the rain lost strength as I
got further west. Just as I crossed the Susquehanna, the only thing
left of the rain was a light cloud cover and full humidity. The Susky
was in bad shape. It looked like a million cubic feet per second of
Quik rushing to the Chesapeake.

I rolled into the Carlisle Campground at a quarter to seven. Roger
beat me there by a few minutes, and he was already down at the Letort,
taking it all in with polarized glasses. Everything was soaked, and
after setting up the tent, so were we.

Before dinner, we tried fishing the stream right there in the
campground. It was high and milky, but we tried anyway. In an hour, I
saw one rise and we caught no fish.

Dinner was steaks in an old cast iron pan on the fire, and since I
forgot paper plates, we ate chunks off a fork in the style called
"grip and rip." We drank a bunch of martinis, carefully made to
exacting standards and guarded closely against accidental bug
drownings. Rog did end up with a moth in his, but that was his third
see-through and the bug went down with an olive. Friday night, it got
awful drunk out.

We woke up late Saturday morning to fantastic weather and slight
hangovers. There was a light breeze, sun and a few high small clouds.
Breakfast was camp coffee, bacon, bacon and eggs. No paper plates, so
we put it all on a bun.

Having no idea what we were doing, we decided to hit Cold Spring
Anglers in town for some local flies and advice. That was a fantastic
shop. They had all sorts of good stuff and the staff was great. They
had coffee, and it was a whole lot better than the stuff we had with
breakfast. For starters, their coffee didn't have any bugs in it. I
got a new fly line, a bunch of flies, a neat nail-knot tool with a
demonstration, and I almost got a divorce. The guy started showing me
these fantastic Winston and Sage rods, where the ink on the price tag
outweighed the rod itself. If I had bought one, I'd have had to use it
as a tent pole because I wouldn't be allowed back in the house.
Fortunately, Rog saved me. "Step away from the rod!"

We asked where to go. They gave us some cherry spots, how to get there
and how to get access. Most of the Letort is on private property, I
guess, and some people are very picky about who uses the land. Some
will let you fish if you ask nicely, and some will shoot at you. I
suppose that if I lived on a trout stream with the reputation of the
Letort, I might limit access, too.

We asked what to use. The guy laughed. "It doesn't matter. They won't
take anything, so just throw whatever you want in whatever size you
want. Try some terrestrials."

As we headed back to camp, we realized that we were in town the same
time as a motorcycle show. Hogs, fat boys, soft tails, choppers and
trikes rolled, rumbled, howled and were towed all over the place. We
saw a fascinating array of people on top of these motorcycles. All
sorts of shapes and colors. The one thing we noticed about motorcycle
enthusiasts is that they cannot start a motorcycle without ten minutes
of throttle work, especially early in the morning or late at night.

We loaded our stuff and headed to the first spot on the Letort. The
fly shop guys told us to ask permission from a certain place to fish a
certain stretch, so we went into the store. I can't imagine her
impression: two giant, wild-eyed men, incongruous in the store, asking
to fish. She let us, fly-fishing only, catch-and-release only. I
hadn't figured on catching enough to eat, anyway.

I remember reading Marinaro's In the Ring of the Rise and thinking,
how did he get such great pictures of a trout rising to a fly? Such
clear water and perfectly placed trout, well lit and camera-friendly.
Now I know. The Letort is as clear as a chilled shot of vodka, and
instead of the massive canopy of trees and dense brush I'm used to, it
has fairly short grasses and reeds. The sun shines down into that
river and smiles on its trout.

The river was polluted with fish. Holding everywhere on the bottom, we
found browns. They all looked to be about ten inchers, plus or minus.
Surprisingly, they weren't spooky. I stood on the bank behind a clump
of grass, half a rod length from the fish holding on the bottom.
Surprisingly, they ignored everything. Wet, dry, top, bottom, big,
small, any color, it all just went past the trout. Still, the creek
was as beautiful as it was unique, there under the infinitely high
skies. My usual fishing finds me under the trees, wading and firmly
stuck to the ground. The open sky and the uncluttered stream bank made
it feel like I wasn't anchored to the planet, and unless I
concentrated on the water, I might float off into space.

While working one pod of decidedly uninterested trout, I made several
casts beyond the lie, hoping that I'd see sources of drag and better
present the fly. One of those casts got a rise. For a second or two, I
was hooked into a tiny terror. The trout was small, perhaps six or
seven inches, but it thrashed and flipped and splashed enough to throw
the hook. That was the extent of my trouty action on that stretch of
the Letort. I can't decide whether the fishing was the best I'd ever
seen or the worst I'd ever seen.

Rog had a rise from a good fish, but it was while he was scoping the
creek for another cast, so he wasn't prepared. He probably learned
something about fishing out the cast.

We'd been taunted enough, and it was time to eat. We put our gear in
the truck and went in to thank the lady. I can't imagine we made a
better impression than the first time: two giant, wild-eyed men,
sunburned, mud-spattered and excited about catching no fish. We
thanked her profusely and joined the lines of traffic snaking through
town.

Lunch was smoked venison sausage, eaten off a fork, with a tepid Hop
Devil IPA. Despite the unappetizing description, it was a terrific
lunch. Once again packed up, we took off for the Yellow Breeches. From
some of the reports we heard, the Breeches was an easier place to fish
than the Letort, and we needed an ego booster.

We rode through the farm country listening to the blues in the
slanting afternoon light. We crossed the Letort at another spot, in a
small glen. The creek was braided and very skinny. It looked even more
difficult than the first spot we tried.

Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania seems to be centered on the Children's
Lake. The roads all seem to lead to it. After a few false starts, we
got into the parking lot for the catch-and-release area and were
amazed at the crowd. We'd had the Letort all to ourselves all
afternoon, and now we had to share a stream with what looked like the
entire non-motorcycling population of Cumberland County.

Still, we came to fish. We hiked down the river, found a likely spot
and commenced fishing. The Yellow Breeches is another cold spring-fed
stream, but completely different than the Letort in configuration. It
looks like a free-stone stream in the classic sense. There was the
canopy of trees, muck at the edges, stony riffles and slow pools. It
could be a stream anywhere. A few rhododendrons mixed in with the
sycamores and hemlocks on the banks.

It was also packed with fish. There were rainbows in every riffle and
pool, a couple of 18" palominos and a brown or two thrown in for
variety. There were no rises, but who could tell with all the fly
lines whipping the surface to a froth? We found a mixed bag of
fishermen. Some seemed to be playing fish continuously and some seemed
to be playing with their fly boxes continuously. We changed flies
fairly frequently, trying to pick something these fish had never seen.

I went with a bead head dropper and dry at one point, and managed to
take a standard-issue stocker rainbow on the dropper. The colors on
the fish were excellent, so I snapped a picture and turned it out of
the net. It hung in the current below me for a second, then returned
to feeding right at my feet. It flailed on its side trying to dislodge
nymphs from the streambed a scant four inches from the tip of my
boots.

Rog found a pool with a few fish and while I played ghillie and
cameraman, he took a perfectly-formed six-inch wild brook trout. It
was an excellent little fish, full of color and vigor. I can't imagine
the torments that little fish's ancestors went through on that river
to survive. The logging, the iron mining, the blast furnace on the
bank, the over fishing and stocking must have been true tribulations.
Surely, that little brookie's lineage has real balls.

Enough was, eventually, enough. We unkitted in the still-full parking
lot, chatting with a great old guy and his (grand?)son. He had a
virtually unlimited collection of fly boxes in his vest, each one
completely packed with his own beautifully-tied flies. The boy waded
in, and with quick sure casts, hooked into a nice fish in less than
three minutes. I liked seeing the confidence and skill on that kid.
He'll be one hell of a fisherman some day. A budding Marinaro.

Back at camp, while I set up the kitchen and started dinner, Rog made
the martinis. There in the dusk, the Harleys roaring around, raucous
screeching, country music and cell phones making themselves known, the
martini shaker stood out. Rog and I have been making martinis since
right after college. The recipe is solid and now has the weight of
tradition. It bears recording:

Per serving:
(5) drops lime juice into a martini glass
Fill a martini shaker with ice
(2) shots Skyy vodka into the shaker
(5) drops dry vermouth into the shaker
Shake it until frost forms on the outside of the shaker
Decant the martini into the glass
Spoon in an odd number of manzanilla olives, draining only slightly
If the olives are small, use (5)
If the olives are large, use (3)

We looked at Cassiopeia and the Ursae, and I toasted:
Today we fished:
We paid our way and relied on the kindness of strangers,
We caught fish and got skunked,
We fished private land and public,
We fished alone and in a crowd,
We fished for stockies and wild fish,
And here's to the fish we couldn't catch.

To which Rog replied, "It was a good day."

Saturday night, inebriation settled its heavy dank blanket all over
the campground.

Sunday morning, we were up earlier than our neighbors. After the
story-book weather Saturday, Sunday looked fantastically fishy. Low
clouds crowded the humid air and promised rain softly stroking
everything with their clammy fingers. We made breakfast, did our
ablutions and packed before the neighbors got up.

We had one more piece to fish, in the interests of tradition.
Marinaro's Meadow beckoned. After a short drive though town, pointedly
ignoring the church bells, the fishing presented itself. We walked
down to survey the water, and again found vodka-clear water with reedy
banks. We kitted up and walked downstream, staying well away from the
stream, so as not to spook fish. At one spot, we found a battered
mailbox bearing a tag, "Hagn's Letort Log." We found a business card
book with a front piece asking that we put the name, date and put a
sample of a fly that caught fish. I don't carry cards – they encourage
people to call me. Rog had one and put our names and the date on one.
It felt good to be a part of a club universally flailing at a nearly
unattainable goal called "Letort Brown."

I watched one holding next to a weed stromatolite (well, that's what
they LOOK like). It was a small brown, hanging effortlessly in the
current. I watched it rise three times to something I couldn't see. It
was just like Vince Marinaro said it would be.

We fished, slow and carefully, but we only saw fish when they
scattered at our coming. I consider myself a patient and enduring
fisherman. I will happily make the thousand casts for a steelhead and
wait a lifetime for a muskie but these little trout had me
exasperated. I smoked a reflective cigarette and considered my
imminent defeat.

Rog is made of sterner stuff. His will has the strength of Lukens
steel plate, the resiliency of a cockroach and all the majesty of a
bull elephant. He was stymied, too. By the time we had fished back up
to Marinaro's meadow, even he was prepared to concede. We were bested
by beautiful little trout with brains like lima beans.

In the parking lot, after we took off our waders, we shook hands and
promised to do it again, but somewhere with dumber fish. In town, Rog
veered off south and I continued to the Turnpike. As I accelerated
through the onramp, the rain began in earnest.

uh...you had me until those damnable olives appeared...couldn't go on.
g til then, it was fun. thanks...

jeff

Stephen L. Cain wrote:

I was really nervous Thursday and Friday. In fact, I looked at the
weather report every ten minutes and looked out the window twice as
often. No matter how often I looked, the news was the same: it was
still raining.

I've been rained on before while fishing, so it isn't a new
experience, just one I would prefer to avoid while tenting. There was
nothing to do but pack the car and go.

I left work early, four in the afternoon, making sure to buy the
silence of my fellow employees with growlers of Iron Hill's Ironbound
Pale Ale. The office is minutes from the Turnpike and in short order,
I was rolling westward under full steam. That lasted three minutes. I
spent the next hour crawling at stall speeds towards the Blue Route.
The rain alternated between heavy downpours and Biblical torrents.

Finally, the traffic cleared and I resumed my head of steam towards
the Letort. The sky remained heavy, but the rain lost strength as I
got further west. Just as I crossed the Susquehanna, the only thing
left of the rain was a light cloud cover and full humidity. The Susky
was in bad shape. It looked like a million cubic feet per second of
Quik rushing to the Chesapeake.

I rolled into the Carlisle Campground at a quarter to seven. Roger
beat me there by a few minutes, and he was already down at the Letort,
taking it all in with polarized glasses. Everything was soaked, and
after setting up the tent, so were we.

Before dinner, we tried fishing the stream right there in the
campground. It was high and milky, but we tried anyway. In an hour, I
saw one rise and we caught no fish.

Dinner was steaks in an old cast iron pan on the fire, and since I
forgot paper plates, we ate chunks off a fork in the style called
"grip and rip." We drank a bunch of martinis, carefully made to
exacting standards and guarded closely against accidental bug
drownings. Rog did end up with a moth in his, but that was his third
see-through and the bug went down with an olive. Friday night, it got
awful drunk out.

We woke up late Saturday morning to fantastic weather and slight
hangovers. There was a light breeze, sun and a few high small clouds.
Breakfast was camp coffee, bacon, bacon and eggs. No paper plates, so
we put it all on a bun.

Having no idea what we were doing, we decided to hit Cold Spring
Anglers in town for some local flies and advice. That was a fantastic
shop. They had all sorts of good stuff and the staff was great. They
had coffee, and it was a whole lot better than the stuff we had with
breakfast. For starters, their coffee didn't have any bugs in it. I
got a new fly line, a bunch of flies, a neat nail-knot tool with a
demonstration, and I almost got a divorce. The guy started showing me
these fantastic Winston and Sage rods, where the ink on the price tag
outweighed the rod itself. If I had bought one, I'd have had to use it
as a tent pole because I wouldn't be allowed back in the house.
Fortunately, Rog saved me. "Step away from the rod!"

We asked where to go. They gave us some cherry spots, how to get there
and how to get access. Most of the Letort is on private property, I
guess, and some people are very picky about who uses the land. Some
will let you fish if you ask nicely, and some will shoot at you. I
suppose that if I lived on a trout stream with the reputation of the
Letort, I might limit access, too.

We asked what to use. The guy laughed. "It doesn't matter. They won't
take anything, so just throw whatever you want in whatever size you
want. Try some terrestrials."

As we headed back to camp, we realized that we were in town the same
time as a motorcycle show. Hogs, fat boys, soft tails, choppers and
trikes rolled, rumbled, howled and were towed all over the place. We
saw a fascinating array of people on top of these motorcycles. All
sorts of shapes and colors. The one thing we noticed about motorcycle
enthusiasts is that they cannot start a motorcycle without ten minutes
of throttle work, especially early in the morning or late at night.

We loaded our stuff and headed to the first spot on the Letort. The
fly shop guys told us to ask permission from a certain place to fish a
certain stretch, so we went into the store. I can't imagine her
impression: two giant, wild-eyed men, incongruous in the store, asking
to fish. She let us, fly-fishing only, catch-and-release only. I
hadn't figured on catching enough to eat, anyway.

I remember reading Marinaro's In the Ring of the Rise and thinking,
how did he get such great pictures of a trout rising to a fly? Such
clear water and perfectly placed trout, well lit and camera-friendly.
Now I know. The Letort is as clear as a chilled shot of vodka, and
instead of the massive canopy of trees and dense brush I'm used to, it
has fairly short grasses and reeds. The sun shines down into that
river and smiles on its trout.

The river was polluted with fish. Holding everywhere on the bottom, we
found browns. They all looked to be about ten inchers, plus or minus.
Surprisingly, they weren't spooky. I stood on the bank behind a clump
of grass, half a rod length from the fish holding on the bottom.
Surprisingly, they ignored everything. Wet, dry, top, bottom, big,
small, any color, it all just went past the trout. Still, the creek
was as beautiful as it was unique, there under the infinitely high
skies. My usual fishing finds me under the trees, wading and firmly
stuck to the ground. The open sky and the uncluttered stream bank made
it feel like I wasn't anchored to the planet, and unless I
concentrated on the water, I might float off into space.

While working one pod of decidedly uninterested trout, I made several
casts beyond the lie, hoping that I'd see sources of drag and better
present the fly. One of those casts got a rise. For a second or two, I
was hooked into a tiny terror. The trout was small, perhaps six or
seven inches, but it thrashed and flipped and splashed enough to throw
the hook. That was the extent of my trouty action on that stretch of
the Letort. I can't decide whether the fishing was the best I'd ever
seen or the worst I'd ever seen.

Rog had a rise from a good fish, but it was while he was scoping the
creek for another cast, so he wasn't prepared. He probably learned
something about fishing out the cast.

We'd been taunted enough, and it was time to eat. We put our gear in
the truck and went in to thank the lady. I can't imagine we made a
better impression than the first time: two giant, wild-eyed men,
sunburned, mud-spattered and excited about catching no fish. We
thanked her profusely and joined the lines of traffic snaking through
town.

Lunch was smoked venison sausage, eaten off a fork, with a tepid Hop
Devil IPA. Despite the unappetizing description, it was a terrific
lunch. Once again packed up, we took off for the Yellow Breeches. From
some of the reports we heard, the Breeches was an easier place to fish
than the Letort, and we needed an ego booster.

We rode through the farm country listening to the blues in the
slanting afternoon light. We crossed the Letort at another spot, in a
small glen. The creek was braided and very skinny. It looked even more
difficult than the first spot we tried.

Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania seems to be centered on the Children's
Lake. The roads all seem to lead to it. After a few false starts, we
got into the parking lot for the catch-and-release area and were
amazed at the crowd. We'd had the Letort all to ourselves all
afternoon, and now we had to share a stream with what looked like the
entire non-motorcycling population of Cumberland County.

Still, we came to fish. We hiked down the river, found a likely spot
and commenced fishing. The Yellow Breeches is another cold spring-fed
stream, but completely different than the Letort in configuration. It
looks like a free-stone stream in the classic sense. There was the
canopy of trees, muck at the edges, stony riffles and slow pools. It
could be a stream anywhere. A few rhododendrons mixed in with the
sycamores and hemlocks on the banks.

It was also packed with fish. There were rainbows in every riffle and
pool, a couple of 18" palominos and a brown or two thrown in for
variety. There were no rises, but who could tell with all the fly
lines whipping the surface to a froth? We found a mixed bag of
fishermen. Some seemed to be playing fish continuously and some seemed
to be playing with their fly boxes continuously. We changed flies
fairly frequently, trying to pick something these fish had never seen.

I went with a bead head dropper and dry at one point, and managed to
take a standard-issue stocker rainbow on the dropper. The colors on
the fish were excellent, so I snapped a picture and turned it out of
the net. It hung in the current below me for a second, then returned
to feeding right at my feet. It flailed on its side trying to dislodge
nymphs from the streambed a scant four inches from the tip of my
boots.

Rog found a pool with a few fish and while I played ghillie and
cameraman, he took a perfectly-formed six-inch wild brook trout. It
was an excellent little fish, full of color and vigor. I can't imagine
the torments that little fish's ancestors went through on that river
to survive. The logging, the iron mining, the blast furnace on the
bank, the over fishing and stocking must have been true tribulations.
Surely, that little brookie's lineage has real balls.

Enough was, eventually, enough. We unkitted in the still-full parking
lot, chatting with a great old guy and his (grand?)son. He had a
virtually unlimited collection of fly boxes in his vest, each one
completely packed with his own beautifully-tied flies. The boy waded
in, and with quick sure casts, hooked into a nice fish in less than
three minutes. I liked seeing the confidence and skill on that kid.
He'll be one hell of a fisherman some day. A budding Marinaro.

Back at camp, while I set up the kitchen and started dinner, Rog made
the martinis. There in the dusk, the Harleys roaring around, raucous
screeching, country music and cell phones making themselves known, the
martini shaker stood out. Rog and I have been making martinis since
right after college. The recipe is solid and now has the weight of
tradition. It bears recording:

Per serving:
(5) drops lime juice into a martini glass
Fill a martini shaker with ice
(2) shots Skyy vodka into the shaker
(5) drops dry vermouth into the shaker
Shake it until frost forms on the outside of the shaker
Decant the martini into the glass
Spoon in an odd number of manzanilla olives, draining only slightly
If the olives are small, use (5)
If the olives are large, use (3)

We looked at Cassiopeia and the Ursae, and I toasted:
Today we fished:
We paid our way and relied on the kindness of strangers,
We caught fish and got skunked,
We fished private land and public,
We fished alone and in a crowd,
We fished for stockies and wild fish,
And here's to the fish we couldn't catch.

To which Rog replied, "It was a good day."

Saturday night, inebriation settled its heavy dank blanket all over
the campground.

Sunday morning, we were up earlier than our neighbors. After the
story-book weather Saturday, Sunday looked fantastically fishy. Low
clouds crowded the humid air and promised rain softly stroking
everything with their clammy fingers. We made breakfast, did our
ablutions and packed before the neighbors got up.

We had one more piece to fish, in the interests of tradition.
Marinaro's Meadow beckoned. After a short drive though town, pointedly
ignoring the church bells, the fishing presented itself. We walked
down to survey the water, and again found vodka-clear water with reedy
banks. We kitted up and walked downstream, staying well away from the
stream, so as not to spook fish. At one spot, we found a battered
mailbox bearing a tag, "Hagn's Letort Log." We found a business card
book with a front piece asking that we put the name, date and put a
sample of a fly that caught fish. I don't carry cards – they encourage
people to call me. Rog had one and put our names and the date on one.
It felt good to be a part of a club universally flailing at a nearly
unattainable goal called "Letort Brown."

I watched one holding next to a weed stromatolite (well, that's what
they LOOK like). It was a small brown, hanging effortlessly in the
current. I watched it rise three times to something I couldn't see. It
was just like Vince Marinaro said it would be.

We fished, slow and carefully, but we only saw fish when they
scattered at our coming. I consider myself a patient and enduring
fisherman. I will happily make the thousand casts for a steelhead and
wait a lifetime for a muskie but these little trout had me
exasperated. I smoked a reflective cigarette and considered my
imminent defeat.

Rog is made of sterner stuff. His will has the strength of Lukens
steel plate, the resiliency of a cockroach and all the majesty of a
bull elephant. He was stymied, too. By the time we had fished back up
to Marinaro's meadow, even he was prepared to concede. We were bested
by beautiful little trout with brains like lima beans.

In the parking lot, after we took off our waders, we shook hands and
promised to do it again, but somewhere with dumber fish. In town, Rog
veered off south and I continued to the Turnpike. As I accelerated
through the onramp, the rain began in earnest.

"Stephen L. Cain" wrote in message
om...
I was really nervous Thursday and Friday....

Most excellent prose. Deserves a wider audience. Thank you.

Wolfgang

"Stephen L. Cain" wrote in message
om...
I was really nervous Thursday and Friday....

Most excellent prose. Deserves a wider audience. Thank you.

Wolfgang

wulf - went to b&n today...bought jim harrison's "true north". it's set
in the u.p. p.14 mentions ontonagon. thanks again....

jeff

Wolfgang wrote:

"Stephen L. Cain" wrote in message
om...

I was really nervous Thursday and Friday....


Most excellent prose. Deserves a wider audience. Thank you.

Wolfgang

wulf - went to b&n today...bought jim harrison's "true north". it's set
in the u.p. p.14 mentions ontonagon. thanks again....

jeff

Wolfgang wrote:

"Stephen L. Cain" wrote in message
om...

I was really nervous Thursday and Friday....


Most excellent prose. Deserves a wider audience. Thank you.

Wolfgang