The Secret Gardens of Trout

Words and Images by C. H. Daniels

It was a cool, gray day in late January—custom-made for fireplaces, bird dogs, and strong whiskey. Too cool for a light jacket, but too warm for a proper coat. Occasionally, the gloomy, drizzle-laden clouds would part, and wisps of cirrus clouds drifted past streaks of blue sky, creating a dramatic mackerel-skin sky. But just at this moment it was damp and breezy. I stepped out of the car with my mind clouded like the weather—full of spreadsheets and deadlines, the residue of too much time spent indoors. At one of my favorite waterways, I assembled my gear with a growing impatience. Impatient, as I was eager to be released from the confines of those responsibilities, and to lose myself to the elegant simplicity of trout water and trout.

Crossing the river just above the trailhead, I hurried upstream past a few small groups of anglers along the narrow, well-worn trail. Even in this weather, even midweek, the water near the trailhead is never empty. But I was not here to compete for the best run or swap stories on the bank, I was here to slip the leash and find the quiet only the woods and water can offer.

The path paralleled the river, winding through a cathedral of naked hardwoods and the evergreen tunnels of rhododendron, their leaves glossy and dark in the waning winter. The sound of the river was a constant companion, and I simply let my feet choose the pace. After another mile and a few river crossings upstream, I arrived at the lower end of the deep run I was seeking. A long sweeping curve of water protected by a looming rock wall draped in rhododendron, their branches reaching out over the water like the arms of a guardian.

I paused to catch my breath before I crossed the river. When my son was in the first or second grade, he had me come outside during a heavy snowfall and stand with him under the cedars. “Listen,” he said softly, “they are whispering.” This day the sound was much the same, but the whispers deeper and more resonant. For a moment, I was no longer a man with a job and obligations, but a boy again, discovering a world that is secret and unspoiled.

Smiling at the recollection, I carefully made my way across the river to a steep, mossy, clay and sand bank littered with droxy under the ancient, overhanging rhododendrons. Crawling under the wet canopy, I slid quietly into a cool, damp vestibule on the river’s edge. A narrow rock ledge stretched across the river—a faint shadow beneath the clear surface of the water. At my feet, hard against the near bank, a furrow cut through the rock ledge perhaps three feet deep and eight or nine feet across. The ledge itself funnels the main flow of the water through this opening where the current settles into a channel along the bank and under the overhanging rhododendrons.

The depths below that gray-green curtain were unfathomable. The water slid dark and slow along the bank perhaps fifty yards before re-emerging from the gloaming at the rock wall. It is shadowy and lovely and foreboding. Smooth, dark currents and eddies intertwine with gnarled roots knotted into the mossy banks creating a fine haven for trout. The water here always lies in murky twilight, screened from the sun by the watchful rhododendrons, the brooding silence broken only by the occasional plop of a water droplet striking the river’s surface. Like a secret garden—but in the place of an iron gate, an old stone wall and English ivy hiding magical creatures—there were strong currents, a rock ledge and impenetrable rhododendron canopies hiding magical creatures. A prickling frisson of apprehension rippled through me as I crouched there. All truly secret places have a little tension…an air of danger associated with unknown places. My hair slowly stood on end. But I have been wanting to fish it. Just open the gate and quickly slip in and perhaps my trespass will go unnoticed…

I breathed once, deep and slow, letting the presence of the secret garden—a quiet companion as tangible as the mist—settle around me. Then instinct took over—the quiet ritual of knots and tippet, of preparation before trespass.

My fly rod was rigged for streamer fishing: a short, heavy butt-section and a two-foot-long mid-section affixed to a ten-pound leader. From my streamer box I chose a big, olive-bodied woolly bugger wrapped with a grizzled hackle and culminating in a black tail laced with light green tinsel. Beneath the quicksilver surface of the river, the streamer descended smoothly, heavy BB shot propelling it downward into the dusky haunts of the Garden of the King.

The first strike was vicious. Jarring. A surge of cold muscle that snapped my leader when I overreacted. I laughed, breathless, then patiently re-tied my leader, and again sent my woolly bugger into the depths. This time, as the streamer descended into the shadow, a quiet fell over my thoughts. My world narrowed to only this moment, only this place, every muscle tuned to the possibility of a strike. Each cast became a patient question; each retrieve a silent hope. Time fell away, replaced by only water, shadow and the gentle breathing of the woods themselves.

Four fish found their way into my net over the course of the afternoon in the secret garden. All were long, thick, muscular fish, “big ones,” in almost any trout river. The colors were deep and iridescent in the manner of rainbow trout, subtly changing with the angle of the viewing. Now pink, now dark rose, now lavender, then bronze and olive. Magnificent, royal creatures safe from almost everything and everyone in the shadowy depths of their cool, secret lair. Each was a gift; a secret shared between the river and me, walled off from the world by rock and root.

On the way out, as I neared the parking area, I ran into a couple of fellow anglers braving the dismal weather. As I approached through the drizzle, an angler stooped to release a fish back into the water. In the friendly manner of most fly fishermen seeking tips, but not really wanting a conversation, he spoke.

“How’s it going?”

“Good. A good day.”

“Do any good?”

“Yeah, pretty good. Nice afternoon. Some good fish in here.”

“Yeah, where were you? What were they taking?”

“Up the river, way above the big hole where the trail crosses. I was stripping streamers.”

“Huh. You look more like you were noodling for them! You got clothes at the car? You look like you took a swim!”

“Yeah, I got a little wet. Looked like a pretty nice fish you caught yourself there below the shoal. Nymph?”

“Yeah, nothing coming off, so we’re nymphing.”

“Well, good luck. Gotta head out. Catch you guys next time.”

And off I went at a fast clip through the woods back to the car without another word. It can’t very well be a secret garden if everyone talks about it, can it?

The shivering? Well, without too much drama, I ended up swimming with the fishes, briefly. I took one or two steps out on the ledge to gain some leverage while fighting one of the fish and next thing I knew, I was in the water. Not under the rhododendrons, but closer than I would have liked. And I would like to think if I had ended up in the water under the mossy bank beneath the cover of the rhododendrons, the trout would have taken a few photos with my iPhone, and then gently released me, gasping for oxygen up on the bank. Catch and release and all.