Fishing a Small Friend

I recently hosted for a few days the visit of an out-of-state friend, a non-angler (close on the heels of my recovery from a bout of Covid).  We had a good time but, natch, his visit coincided with two of the most pleasantly cool days for fishing in this heretofore hot, muggy Wisconsin summer of 2024. After his departure, I was itching to get feet wet and make some tenkara use of the remnants of the nice weather, and so I dove into my Subaru Outback for an overnight of car camping and fixed lining in the Driftless Area.

By late afternoon I was peering down from a bridge into a stream in southern Crawford County, one I’d never fished before but that friendly locals on barstools had recommended a couple of weeks earlier.  It looked promising – clear, moving water and rocky structure in view below the bridge.  I could feel mojo rising as I started to rig up. My plan was to give it a try, then fish another nearby stream before dark, sleep in the Outback near another stream I knew, and have a go there in the church light of early morning.  But as often happens, things didn’t quite work out – or rather, they did, but not as I planned and expected.             

I walked cross-country downstream to fish back up towards the bridge, but soon discovered it was all less enticing than first appeared. The water temp was OK, at 64°F, but most of the bottom was in fact sand – not much to support the growth of invertebrate food for trout. Working upstream for about an hour, I had zero takes (and saw no fish) and lost four flies to unforgiving elms and box elders – a net result that made it one of my least enthralling tenkara outings ever.

Back at the car, enough daylight remained for a try at the next stream, but I realized something – I was too tired.  After the previous full-on couple of weeks, plus a late one the night before (theater tickets), there just wasn’t enough juice left in the tank to work another stream, or to roll out for the night in the marginal comfort of the back of my Subaru. Instead, I found the nearest Punjabi family motel (named ironically, or at least appropriately, “Sands Motel”), and checked in. Dinner was a root beer float from A&W, and I fell asleep watching reruns of “Law & Order”.

I didn’t set an alarm, forfeited fishing in the early morning cool, and slept in. After an unhurried breakfast in the town’s café, the Outback and I scoped a couple of other nearby streams, but the recon from their bridges didn’t inspire – either the water was still turbid from recent rain, or so much late summer vegetation crowded the banks that it looked beyond my current reserves of energy to outwit and outmaneuver. Instead, I pointed the car home, resigned to simply bag it, cut my losses, and live to cast a kebari another day.

But then it occurred to me, ‘What about that little creek? The one that’s more or less on the way home, and has never let me down…’

What came to mind was one of those reliable ‘small friends’, of the sort I hope many of us have tucked in our back pockets. Inconspicuous small streams, ones that other anglers barely notice, but which hold trout, and are not difficult to fish. (Watching his videos, I think Tom Davis knows exactly about such ‘small friends’ in his homeground of the Tetons, perhaps like this one). Over the years I’ve discovered and filed away a few such small friends around the Driftless Area, and this was just the right morning to visit this one. I needed some easy trout, in easy solitude.            

I parked along a road parallel to the stream, about a half mile above the nearest bridge, where the stream narrows further and is even less likely to attract the attention of other anglers. Keeping it simple on this sluggish morning, I didn’t reach for one of my high-end tenkara rods, but my modest ‘old reliable’, my DRAGONtail Mutant (and on tighter, more enclosed streams, my old reliable is my DRAGONtail Mizuchi). The Mutant still carried a #14 Pink Squirrel from the last time I’d fished with it, and I just thought whatever, I can make this work here. Couldn’t be bothered to change flies, not this morning. Still keeping it simple, I wet waded into the 57°F spring-fed water. Its flow and coolness offered up instant rejuvenation.

And as I hoped and believed, the wee stream came through with trout. Within minutes I landed and released four browns out of the first small pool. The energy of their intensely alive tugging and wriggling vibrated up through the rod and into my hand and body. The world, at least my small view of it, was good and right again.

Granted, this small water probably holds no 18-inch trout. But it doesn’t need to. It has plenty of 9 and 10-inch fish, and a few that reach a foot long. It curves gently yet with pleasant, tumbling music through a meadow, and so the fishing is carefree (no tar baby elms and box elders), and its waters are generous. Gentle and kind, like one of the good nuns. 

Less than an hour later I landed the twentieth trout, an 11-inch brown I added to my creel, which put me at the bag limit of three for this county, and plenty for my dinner. I closed the Mutant, spoke some gratitude to my small friend, with hopes to see one another again, and finished the drive home. 

This stream fits my key criteria of a small friend: Trout know it well, better than most anglers do, and it traverses manageably open country, absent a lot of fringing vegetation that can get me cursing. Fishing for gentlemen and ladies – or the weary.

One last thing – small friends are not streams to share with your fishing buddies, and that’s OK. Best to keep them to yourself, tucked in your pocket for a day you need one – just you and the small friend keeping one another company.              

If this rings a bell, share something in the Comments below about one of your fave small friends (but not precisely where…). 

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