Grading trout streams on a curve

It would seem that Fillmore County's townships have never heard of section line roads. Few, if any local roads run straight for any significant distance. In the valleys. they parallel the creeks. On the ridge tops they follow the ridge tops. In between, there's a number of switchbacks to get between ridge tops and valleys. Here's a sample (local roads in brown, section lines in red).

some local roads in Fillmore County

Despite what you may have read about the richness of river bottom lands for farming, the farms are on the heights for the most part. Campgrounds, and cabins  are scattered along valley bottoms and state forest land covers hillsides. It's an interesting and scenic pattern, but very different than what some of us who live in more level parts of Minnesota are used to.

trout might see you even if you don't see them

Photo by J. Harrington

Much of our morning was spent reconnoitering several designated trout streams. The one that seemed  most "fishable," without requiring a machete to get near the water, or looking so shallow as to be barely short of being declared "intermittent," had a nice view, from the bridge, of a stretch where we could see several trout feeding underwater on something. We tried a soft hackle on our tenkara rod and the fish responded with the old "if you can see them they can see you and probably won't play." The Better Half tried dapping a dry fly a little further downstream with the same result. It will, no doubt, take awhile to get back in the swing of fly fishing small streams. Meanwhile, we enjoyed the wild flowers, butterflies, and what, as far as we remember, was our first "in the wild" view of a hummingbird (ruby-throated female?) feeding on streamside jewelweed.

                     Speckled Trout

By Ron Rash

Water-flesh gleamed like mica:

orange fins, red flankspots, a char

shy as ginseng, found only

in spring-flow gaps, the thin clear

of faraway creeks no map

could name. My cousin showed me

those hidden places. I loved

how we found them, the way we

followed no trail, just stream-sound

tangled in rhododendron,

to where slow water opened

a hole to slip a line in,

and lift as from a well bright

shadows of another world,

held in my hand, their color

already starting to fade.

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