May/June 2008 Issue

Fly Fishing the Places Time Forgot
by Bill McMillan

Where I began fly fishing as a boy is where I have returned as a man…a man now past middle age with little remaining time to waste on outdoor experiences that don’t provide both joy and meaning. From the competitive seriousness common to angling on famed trout and steelhead rivers driven by visions of trophy fish, I have come back to the home of little headwater creeks inhabited by trout that never exceed the length of a child’s ruler. The names of these “cricks,” as my father used to call them, are little known beyond those few who look at maps with careful scrutiny…perhaps even with a magnifying glass to make out their names if you are a baby boomer or older. This is much of the joy of creek fishing. It provides the opportunity for exploration in areas often approaching the pristine conditions prior to Lewis and Clark’s opening up the West.

In adulthood I came to live on several Northwest rivers in order to better pursue the increasingly serious business of catching fish on flies, especially steelhead. But it was to become an era of such great salmon and steelhead decline that I lost heart in fishing at my previous level of self-gratification. I turned to fish and habitat conservation as more relevant alternatives — first at the hobby level and later professionally. At the same time it created an inner vacancy in the loss of joy and meaning in life. The “contemplative man’s recreation” had provided a perpetual flow of Nature observations and subsequent analysis — timeless building blocks to human learning ...

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