LATE AFTERNOON BROWNS



Today my wife and I decided to hit a local small creek. It was a spontaneous decision for the most part. We talked about maybe going but nothing was planned until we decided to go. Even with the decision to go, we were not sure where we were going. I had an idea or two in the back of my brain, but it wasn't until I was in the car and driving that I decided on the location.

Isolated thunderstorms had me second guessing my decision, but by the time we arrived at the stream, the skies were clearing. I put my fly rod together, tied on a hopper, and started fishing. I missed a decent brown in the first spot I tried and then hooked up with a good little trout on the next hole.



It was so fun. I didn't worry about putting on waders. I left the chest pack in the trunk of the car. I didn't even take a fly box or floatant or tippet. I greased the hopper at the car and then walked down to the nearest opening and began to cast. I didn't even put on my sunglasses or hat. Of course, with a little overcast, they were not critical. After hooking about 4 or 5 trout and missing about that many, I was good for the rest of the evening.

It's nice to have a few trout creeks within an hour drive from home or less.


I stuck a fly in the trees behind me with a backcast and had to break it off. We went to the car to get another fly. As we were standing in the quiet, I could hear the wind coming. I've heard this before. You can hear wind before you feel it on your skin and hair. My wife wasn't sure what it was. She thought an animal was coming through the trees. Just before the wisp of wind got to us, we could hear the raindrops hanging on the leaves start to drop. The wind was shaking them loose and it sounded like a small sprinkle from a storm. To be honest, it was giving my wife a bit of an eerie feeling. She had never experienced those sounds or those feelings. Those are the types of things you can hear and feel as you spend time outdoors. I didn't explain what was happening until hours after the experience.

Typical feisty brown

 My wife had discovered, a while back, that she had some pioneer relatives buried in a cemetery in a small town in Cache Valley. Here is the "strange" part of this whole experience. Remember, I mentioned that we left for this trip without full knowledge of where we were going until we were heading down the freeway. For some reason, I just decided to go to this particular stream. As we passed one of the small, country towns on our way to the canyon, my wife read the town sign and said, "Hey I have some pioneer relatives buried in this town cemetery." I responded with a "hm mm." I had fishing on my mind. As I was fishing and my wife was looking at wildflowers, she was also thinking about those ancestors in that cemetery. She was trying to remember their names. She remembered their last name but couldn't remember their first names. It wasn't until I had caught two fish when two names came to her. She mentioned to me that their names were Henry and Jane. Again, I shrugged it off and continued to fish.

Normally, I will fish until I can't see, but the last area I wanted to fish had a truck parked in it. We decided to head home. As we entered the small town where my wife's ancestors were buried we decided to drive up to the cemetery and look for their graves. We looked up on the hillside as we slowly drove looking for the cemetery but not seeing one. I finally said, "Lets turn up this road and look for someone in their yard and ask them where the cemetery is." (I know, brave and unusual thing for a guy to do--asking someone for directions.) I turned up the road and noticed a guy with a small child about three blocks up the road and a couple blocks to the north. We drove up to him and asked about the cemetery. "Your on the right road. Just drive to the next two stop signs and then you will see a road angling up to the cemetery," he said. We thanked him and drove according to his directions. I know things happen that are coincidences, I really do, but as we drove up the angled road I asked my wife what the chances were that we just happened to drive up that particular road, and turn on the road to talk to that gentleman, and find that we were on the road to the cemetery? This strange story isn't quite done yet. As we entered the cemetery, it was bigger than what we expected. What are the chances of finding the graves, I thought. I stopped the car and said, "Usually a cemetery will have a directory somewhere." Just as I said it we looked to the right of the car and there was the directory. At first my wife couldn't find the names she was looking for. I went over and looked and missed them the first time through. We thought maybe there was an older cemetery for people from the 1800s. Then I noticed some of the names were out of alphabetical order. I looked closer and we found the names. As coincidence would have it, we were parked right on the row of graves were the ancestors were located. We walked down and found the graves. After a couple of digital photos of the graves, we were on the road and headed home. Everything that happened on this evening could be considered coincidence, but in a small corner of our hearts and minds, we feel that it just might be more than that. Later in the week, I penned a short poem to capsulize the evening.

A simplified approach

PARADISE CANYON

You can hear the wind
long before you feel it.
It sounds like a person
crashing through the brush.
Sometimes, it helps you hear
the rain again, hours after
a storm has passed.
It shakes the drops resting on leaves,
sends them tumbling to the forest floor.
Henry and Jane buried in Paradise Cemetery
move around on the wind.
You can feel them too,
but you have to practice pausing.