I suited up, rigged my rod and headed upstream. I was picking up some small brookies in the riffles with a very buoyant Adams and missed a couple strikes from obviously larger fish. There was a bend ahead with a deep run on the outside corner that always held larger fish, so I changed to a hare’s ear and put on a small split shot about 18” above the fly. As I crouched and started my approach to the bend, a movement caught my eye and I saw a flash above the alders. I tried to peer through the brush and an angler materialized. It was clear that he was fishing downstream, so I backed out and yielded the stream to him with the intent of circling around him and continue fishing up. From the dark shadows of the balsam fir and hemlocks, I saw the angler was an elderly gentleman dressed in a red flannel shirt, canvas waders, tattered vest, a wicker creel slung over his shoulder, and wielded an old bamboo fly rod. I became fixated in how he worked every seam with exact precision and surgically dissected the water. He picked up fish after fish. I noticed the green metal bait container on his wader belt, then I figured out he was fishing with worms, but he fished it much like I would with nymphs except much more thoroughly and successfully. He continued fishing past me, creeling a fish occasionally, releasing the rest. Finally he melted into the brush downstream and I returned to the stream and resumed my fishing.
After a while, I started hearing rumbling to the west and it was getting quite dark, so I decided to reel up and bushwack my way back to the road. I was half-hoping to be able maybe intercept the old guy at his vehicle, I really wanted to hear how he did and maybe he could impart some wisdom. But when I finally stumbled onto the road, his vehicle was gone and it suddenly felt lonelier than usual. I walked back to my car, listening to grouse drumming and woodcock peenting…rain drops began to pelt me just as I got to the car. The image of that elderly angler never left me…the way he so thoroughly fished the stream and though he was at least 50 years my senior, he moved with such stealth. I hope one day to be that gentleman.
Postscript: About 8 years after that encounter, while grouse hunting I found this plaque on an ancient spruce tree overlooking the creek downstream of where the old man was parked. Speculation from those who were aware of this site was that an old doctor from Rice Lake had his ashes, fly vest, waders, and Southbend cane rod buried under the pile of rock at the base of the tree. I never did find out the identity of the old angler or who was memorialized on the plaque....it's perhaps best that way. I like to think it was the same old man.
