Spring/Summer 2000 One Year Later

Spring/Summer 2000 - One Year Later

Rocky Ford
by Liam Wood, 1980 - 1999

It was a cool and damp morning, typical of western Washington in the spring. The rain sloshed off the windshield of Matt’s pickup as he flew down Interstate 5 in the early, pre-dawn light. His window was cracked slightly, letting in a cold draft to wash out the smoke of his lit cigarette. The sun was beginning to illuminate the eastern sky, defining the crags of the Cascades against its bluish hue. Lightning flashed intermittently over the mountains. Matt glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the reflection of a trailing car’s headlights in his eyes. The same eyes that were alive with excitement and expectations of wonderful things. He concentrated on the road, watching the white lines flash by, watching his steady procession. Matt’s truck was handling beautifully, it’s bed weighted down with gear and a canopy.

With a flick of his hand, Matt flipped on his right hand signal and threw his dying cigarette out the window, and then swerved and sped off down the off-ramp. At the intersection under the freeway, he turned left and sped east, towards Steven’s Pass, towards the light. Matt drove through the early morning as the sky lightened. He passed the towns of Monroe and Sultan as the road kissed the Skykomish River and then started climbing in elevation towards the peaks that loomed above, lost in the gray, boiling clouds. The engine of the pickup worked against the steep climb, making steady progress. Tall, thick Douglas Firs gave way to spindly high-elevation spruce and huge flakes of driving snow. Road conditions deteriorated rapidly giving way to a four-lane ice rink.

At the Steven’s Pass ski area, Matt pulled off the road and parked on a large shoulder, in the summer, the parking lot to a trailhead, but now bordered by a fifteen-foot high snow bank. Before getting out of his truck, Matt donned his parka, boots and a wool hat. After stepping out into the weather, he grimaced in the face of that wicked snow. It stung his face and slapped against the back of his head. Trying to light a smoke out in the open was out of the question, so he ducked back inside his truck to light up. After Matt had taken a couple of deep, cancerous lungfulls, he walked quickly over to a snow bank that was out of view of the road and made yellow snow. His stomach growled fiercely. Jogging, he made it to the ski lodge before the snow really showed its teeth. Inside, it was warm and light; smells of burgers and sweaty ski clothing abounded. Matt was stoked for some grub so he sat at a table and flagged down a waitress. Within seconds, a pretty blonde came to take his order.

"What can I getcha?" she asked while chewing a stick of gum.

"I’ll take a cheeseburger, no mayo, fries, and a banana milkshake please," Matt replied. "And could I get a bowl of clam chowder to start?"

"Sure, I’ll have that right up for you. Are you gonna ski today?"

Matt smiled and said, "No, I’m a flyfisherman. I’m heading to Rocky Ford."

Speeding east, Matt smoothly crossed the pass and headed downward. Soon, the beautiful Wenatchee River paralleled the road. As the steep mountains gave way to rolling hills sparsely covered in Ponderosa Pine, the ominous gray clouds that had cloaked the western part of the state in a suffocating, wet blanket began to part. Brilliant sunshine peaked through, and the azure sky beckoned Matt. What a release! Matt rolled down his window and let out a joyous whoop. He opened the glove compartment and donned his shades.

Wenatchee, Quincy, Ephrata, and other, smaller desert towns with obscure names were left behind. Matt was cruising down a flat two-lane highway that cut a straight line through the desolate, but magnificent plains. The plains that were brown and covered in small bunches of sage and dotted with large boulders that seemed way out of place in that almost mythical environment. Matt had not seen another car or sign of people in over an hour of constant driving. His legs and butt were beginning to ache with the strain of sitting in the truck and working the pedals without a break. His turn was somewhere close so he began to slow, but ended up passing it anyway. In all the trips he had made to this unbelievable creek, he had never been able to make the turn without passing it first.

His truck made that weird reversing sound after he stopped and began to back up. He got to the turn-off and peeled out down the narrow, rust colored dirt and gravel road. Matt loved to drive fast down rough roads, but he slowed as he neared the creek. It was a peaceful place, and quite sacred, at least for Matt. As he rounded a bend, a small oasis was revealed before him. Cutting through the desert wasteland was a narrow green swath in the middle of which, was Rocky Ford Creek. The creek flowed clear and slow, with a clean oily sort of current common to spring creeks. Bordered by green grass and tall reeds, red-winged black birds flew quickly around the reeds and a blue heron lifted off from the to of a boulder next to the creek. The creek itself was no more than twenty to twenty-five feet wide and not any deeper than four or five feet. There were a couple of sections where the current quickened through boulders, but for the most part the surface of the creek was like glass, green weeds waving like untiring exotic dancers in it’s slow, hypnotizing currents. Moreover, in those rich currents were trout, and lots of them.

Matt parked his pickup off the road on the rim above the creek. He got out and stretched mightily, his bones and muscles screaming in uninhibited joy after being cramped up from the long ride. It was quite warm in the brilliant sunshine, at least for April. Making his way to the back of the truck, Matt opened the canopy and then the tailgate. He pulled out a short aluminum case containing a delicate three-weight fly that measured seven and a half feet long. He took the rod from the case and screwed on the little black reel. After stringing the line through the rod guides, Matt put on his fishing vest over a short sleeved cotton shirt and tied on a tiny size-eighteen Humpy dry fly to a fourteen foot leader tapered to 6X. He greased his leader with floatant and then began the short walk down to the creek.

Before arriving at the creek he could see the rise forms of dozens of large trout. He put on his polarized glasses and stared into the clear waters. Big rainbows were lined up all over the place, gently sipping tiny flies from the surface film.

While making his way through the tall grass that bordered the creek, Matt scared up a large doe mule deer. She scampered off up the hill, throwing clods of grass and dust behind her hooves. Matt waded through clumps of sage and stopped about fifteen feet short of the bank of the creek. In front of him, numerous snouts poked above the surface, followed by large tails. These kind of "head-to-tail" rises signaled that the trout were feeding on emerging nymphs just under the surface. Matt quickly clipped off the humpy that he’d planned on using and switched to a size 20 olive midge pupae. He released his leader again within an inch of the fly. This would allow the fly to sink just an inch below the surface and the floating portion of the larder would signal a strike.

This was it, the first cast. The cast that is always the most awkward, the most pleasing and the quickest one to forget. Matt stripped out a bunch of line and then kneeled down on the bank. He gently began casting his light rod, making beautiful loops that sailed out over the glassy water. He quickly pinpointed a large rising fish and shot out his line slightly up stream. The fly landed harshly sending ripples out over the quiet water. Large wakes crisscrossed the creek as large trout made a mad dash to get the hell away from Matt. He cursed softly and then got up and walked down the creek, searching for another pod of hungry rainbows. Matt didn’t have to go far. He spotted a huge fish sipping tiny midges off the surface right next to the near bank. Positioning himself well upstream of the fish, Matt let loose one perfect cast. The fly hit the water about six feet above the fish without so much as a ripple. Feeding line to the drifting fly, Matt watched as the gargantuan rainbow rose up and sucked down his fly. He wrist-snapped the hook home and held on for dear life as the trout put on its burners and headed upstream. The fish would not stop running. Finally, just before Matt’s backing ran out the fish jumped and then sat on the bottom burrowing its head into the weeds. Matt quickly reeled up the fish and walked across the surface, throwing spray. The fish finally tired and Matt lifted his crimson-sided trout in his arms. He took a quick photo and then released it back into the river.

Smiling, Matt stretched and wiped the fish slime on his pants. He lit a smoke and walked down the creek to catch another trophy.

Spring/Summer 2000 - One Year Later

Rocky Ford by Liam Wood, 1980 - 1999

Rocky Ford
by Liam Wood, 1980 - 1999