In the midst of a busy event / travel / job prep week, I took advantage of a meeting-less afternoon this past week and ran up into the mountains. Temps were hovering in the upper 40s here in the valley, and as I turned south I could see heavy clouds blanketing the Gallatins. I worked my way up a local canyon stream system, stopping at various points as I drove up the canyon. As the wind picked up and the snow started to fall, an assortment of fish nibbled at my flies, coming in nicely on my little fiberglass 3-weight.
That’s the thing about small streams; the fish inhabiting them are rarely large, but what they lack in size they make up for in personality. Small but mighty is always the phrase that comes to mind. Brightly colored, glossy with health, and powerful enough to sweep upstream when they take the fly, I’m always surprised when they come to hand and are as small as they are.
I’ve only learned to appreciate small streams in the past few years. As a kid and even well into my early 20s, tight casting quarters and small waters frustrated the hell out of me. I’m a kid of the West, used to fishing big water — often from a drift boat — with plenty of space for my backcast and a lot of room to pick and choose my water.
When I moved to Vermont that changed; big water was rare and I found myself burning through a lot of lunch breaks on a very small stream close to the Orvis office. (I eventually lost track of how many meetings I attended in wet sandals after a quick session.) My big Western cast morphed into a small Eastern cast / roll cast. I adapted. And discovered a newfound love for small streams and the fish that thrive there.
On this week’s jaunt, after fishing my way up the canyon, watching as the ground around me slowly became covered in white the higher I moved, I took a bit of time to play around Hyalite Reservoir. This was the first time all season the place didn’t look like a zoo — it was blissfully quiet and peaceful, a harbinger of the winter to come. Got the Subaru a little dirty on some muddy dirt roads and just spent some time favoriting old haunts. Driving back down the canyon, several inches of slush on the roads meant it was time to switch into “winter driving brain,” methodically watching the turns and listening to the slush whir beneath my tires.
By the time I popped back down into the valley, I was greeted with sunshine and temperatures nearing 50, a kind remainder that, although winter is looming, we still have a few more weeks of autumn.
