No, this is NOT a map to my secret stream.
So. I’ve discovered this little trout stream that I suspect could be a real find. I’ve found excitingly few references to it in the literature. It’s got all the prerequisites of the “Secret Honey Hole.” It’s either a good nine mile hike through the backcountry or a perfectly short jaunt across private property on its lower end. The stream lies at a low enough elevation that it’s liable to be marginal trout habitat and full of suckers, or it could get enough spring-fed flows to make it ideal. It lies in an area often overlooked due to its lack of pretty much anything noteworthy. The only photo I’ve found of the thing is an old one featuring a guy holding a four pound rainbow.
Don’t ask me because I won’t tell you its name. I won’t even name what state it’s in. Could be Virginia, North or South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia or even Alabama. Somewhere in Southern Appalachia. Let’s just call it Little Two-Hearted Creek for the sake of easy reference. Another thing, when I say that I’ve discovered it, what I mean is that I’ve located it on a map and performed the required research on it’s fishing. There wasn’t much to be found. Basically it’s a small stream in not-that-great-in-the-first-place trout country that most people don’t bother to fish. There are a few intriguing points on it’s downstream end, but truthfully I can’t find much information at all. It goes without saying that I’ve already got a trip planned, as would any fisherman worth his salt, coinciding with prime spring conditions, or as closely as I can guess when that’ll be. Spring is always unpredictable.
It’s things like this that keep me coming back for more. There’s a distinct edge of adventure to it all. The same sort of thing that makes locked spare rooms, old barns, abandoned homesteads and dark wood lots irresistible to kids. In the adult world, adventure is something there’s far too little of these days. I mean, we sanitize and safety-fy everything. The wise and practical part of my brain understands there’s a point to all that, but my wilder side mourns. We create artificial adrenaline to replace lost adventure. Things like bungee jumping, sky diving, roller coasters and the like. Even sports watching has replaced real adventure for many. You can toss certain types of drug addiction in this category as well. I’ve even engaged in some of this stuff myself (not the drugs). Nothing major. I’m more the roller coaster/sports type of guy as opposed to the bungee jumping/sky diving crowd. But it all just feels a tad too “artificial” to me. I know there are some who truly enjoy all this stuff for its own sake, but many do it just for the rush. It’s the motive here that’s important, not the actual activity. I guess there’s something of the primitive man lingering in my psyche that tells me what should really get my blood pumping is running from a saber tooth tiger or trying to kill a woolly mammoth with a 6 ft spear. Trekking nine miles through beautiful, new, potentially dangerous country to catch a few trout, whether or not I plan to eat them, strikes closer to the mark for me. That’s honest adventure in a mad, modern world. Adrenaline as a footnote to other worthy pursuits, not an end in itself. That all may be fuzzy logic, but it makes sense to me.
Realistically speaking, Little Two-Hearted Creek probably harbors 6-10″ rainbows by the bunches in a setting far from asphalt. Maybe a few browns are mixed in. Which would all be fine. But there’s a chance the drought last year wiped out any fishing that might have existed there. There’s a good chance there never was much fishing. The only way to know is to hike up there and find out. I get all tingly thinking about it. There is that chance, a tiny one, that there are a few, un-harassed 15″ browns up there.
What Little Two-Hearted Creek really offers is hope. Hope that there are still undiscovered gems buried among the grime of this often ugly and despair-filled world. Hope that, although there is very little true wilderness left, a man can still find solitude and space to test himself and clear water on which to float a fly. That’s way too dramatic sounding. What I mean to say is, it’ll be a lot of fun. There are thousands of these little streams around the country. Go find yourself one. The planning and dreaming will be half the fun.
Winter’s been cold lately. There’s another chance of snow this week, but my mind will be on a warm spring day and a heavy pack on my back and a sweet, fresh stream at the end of the trail.
Take care,
Nathan
That’s exciting. There is nothing like finding a new place to fish. That is why I like Ontario trips with portage locations so much. You aren’t the first person to fish there usually but you may be the first one for awhile. Can’t wait to hear the reports from Little Two-Hearted Creek
I know how it feels to discover a new fishing spot. I grew up with a good-sized creek running through the lower portion of my family’s property. I guess a good mile of the creek stretched out over the place. There was even an overpass on the south side of the creek that made for a neat fishing spot under that bridge (who hasn’t fished under a bridge?). The whole length of the creek was surrounded on both sides by a lot of trees and low hanging branches. This made finding a non-treacherous spot to fish very difficult. I must have lost a couple miles of fishing line to the trees.
We liked fishing with live bait on bobbers for bluegill and crappie with an occasional bass (or even trout) ending up on the hook. I’ll never forget the time my little sister hooked the biggest fish that we’ve ever seen come out of that creek – a 20-lb channel cat; or the time my dad caught our first trout (it was only a fingerling) on a rooster tail. Both events sparked an interest in fishing and raised our hopes of catching bigger and/or greater things from the body of water that we often took for granted. I often went to bed at night wondering what kinds of fish were in that creek and where I could find them.
When all our spots were “fished out”, I’d go walking through the woods, sometimes for a mile or two into the connecting properties which were really unattended pastures. I’d walk around with a light open-faced reel and a backpack, looking for the perfect spot to fish. It had to be just right. The banks had to be a certain width apart or the creek had to be so deep, else, the water would be too swift (or “swooft†as we sometimes said). There had to be clear spots on the banks so that we weren’t being eat up with briars, weeds, and grasses while we fish. The surface of the water needed to show no signs of violent turbulence. And then finally, I had to feel that there was a monster fish just under the water. I mean, why fish there if there isn’t going to be a monster fish residing in that area?
On several occasions, we were able to pick out a nice fishing spot full of sun perch or bluegill. The whole family would spend a few hours a week together on the banks fishing for really any kind of fish that would take our waxworms and light tackle. It was always good knowing that you had a reliable fishing spot. A couple of spots were just excellent fishing holes. On just about any given day, you could walk down to a hole a catch some kind of fish. Good times.
After a heavy rain, the creek would sometimes run violently out of its banks. This would often drastically change the face of the creek. Some of the saddest times were walking up on a favorite fishing spot and seeing that it had literally washed away after a big rain. It would often be filled with trees and limbs that were knocked free from the banks upstream. Sometimes it would be full of trash that was washed down from the flooded land upstream. Other times, the flood waters would be strong enough to erode the banks — leaving nowhere to establish a setup or creating new turbulence that made the waters too fast. (Yes, I’ve fished from a tree before.)
This happened to our primary fishing hole after a large rain. It simply was transfigured and unfishable. It wasn’t just that we couldn’t get into that spot to fish, but the very fish themselves probably wouldn’t have hung out on that mess of a place – full of trash, limbs, and some kind of foam that grew from the now swift waters. Suddenly, that fishing hole was gone. Also gone were the hopes of catching fish from those spots. Often times, the spot was so devastated and I’m sure no fish were there.
However, just as the flood washed away our faithful holes, it would create new ones – you just had to find them.
In a way, the creek was our “secret stream†– especially when the big trout start running up the creek from the Hiwassee.