A Local Haunt

The author finds a sense of place in an overlooked creek, close to home

- T. Edward Nickens

I CAUGHT THE FIRST fish in a small pool that clung to the rock face like lichen, 15 feet below the top drop of a double waterfall, just before the creek plunged over a 120-foot cliff. I was simply messing around as we took a breather before the trail’s final descent to the bottom of the gorge. Nothing could live in there, I’d figured, as I halfheartedly rolled a yellow Sweat Bee into the hole.

The fly held less than two seconds on the edge of a foam line before a little trout smacked it as if it were the last piece of a pizza at a frat party. The trout ping-ponged around the pool, with nowhere to go. I was just as surprised as the fish. It seemed incredible that a trout could live in this crack in the cliff. The fish must have washed down from upstream at some point, and unless high water swept it over the waterfall— a ride it likely wouldn’t survive— its life forevermore would be constrained by this one plunge pool hardly four steps wide. These days, we all know how that feels.

GIVE IT TIME