The pool is barely wider than my 9-foot fly rod. Riffles are mere trickles. The creek itself disappears just beyond the next pool, filtering through porous karst, becoming one with the underground rock for several yards before breaking back to the surface. The stretches of dry, sun-bleached stones appear alabaster from a distance. Closer looks offer a washed-out watercolor spectrum.
The subtlety in mineral chroma is telling of this entire austere experience—you don’t come here for a lot of fish or for big fish, which is why hardly anyone comes here at all.
Most don’t even know this place exists. It’s a tiny tributary cutting through vertical topography in a backwoods county that’s mostly government land. The turnoff from the main dirt road onto what could barely be called a road leading here is subtle, too. You’ve got to know where it is and then you’ve still got to look carefully. The two-track immediately falls into a mud hole that serves as a moat. It keeps two-wheel-drive vehicles out. Greenbrier and overhanging maple limbs guaranteed to dig into paint (leaving a scar that may or may not buff out) frame the chocolate-colored water. No pretty boys allowed…
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