An unparalleled optimism accompanies the evening hours on the night before fishing. Psychologically speaking, one could say that all the potentially negative thoughts become obscure behind the grand promise of a morning filled with trout.  Regardless of the previous day’s events, this optimism burrows itself into the brain with an intensity that creates a sense of euphoria. The uncomfortable becomes comfortable.  The inconvenient becomes novel. The prior occasions where this delusion didn’t pay off become irretrievable to the mind fixed upon fishing tomorrow.

A warm sleeping bag, a hot cup of coffee, and a morning filled with trout.

Not, mind you, being roused from sleep at two in the morning because the woods are on fire.

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This is part 2: you can start from the beginning here.

Upon leaving the main offices of the RV park and campsite, we maneuvered through the snow using the all-terrain capabilities of a late 90s Toyota sedan. There were close spots, spots that were less likely to sink the car up to the fenders and necessitate a call to a towing service. But these spots didn’t sit adjacent to the creek. This small spring creek was the focus of all our aspirations. It was what compelled us to arrive at this campsite, on this day, in these  unearthly conditions. Why wouldn’t we spend the night as close as possible to our raison dêtre?

Youthful exuberance efforted the campsite together in  a manner of minutes. Tent, sleeping bags, more blankets, and extra layers were all arranged systematically, as if careful placement would forestall the inevitable wet and cold that find their way into any camping enterprise.

Food was next. Food was always hot dogs, potato chips, and 64 ounces of fountain drink. I am sure there was some deviation from that formula over the years of camping and fishing. However, it was so unremarkable and unnecessary that it doesn’t come to mind or bear repeating. These three items were selected with the same kind of perspicacity as the campsite. Potato chips: kettle cooked mandatory, lard as cooking medium preferred. Hot dogs simply needed to be present, as the char from the fire and the mustard were the desired flavor profile. Beverages were procured from a fountain at a gas station. There were debates over the virtue of Gatorade over soda.

Once the campsite and food were at hand, the third essential piece of the experience had to come together: fire. Often, the woods were scoured in order to scavenge kindling and burnable logs. The coarse coating of snow made this difficult. Hunger and teenage impatience made this very difficult. Another trip to the gas station and five dollars later, we had a fire.

Campfire musings ranged from trout fishing to girls to theology to classic rock. The  hot dog to mustard ratio inevitably came up, as did the distrust of anyone who put catsup on the selfsame food. We sat, perched on stumps, enjoying as much of our provisions as we could comfortably consume. The hot dogs, while only a matter of dollars, had to be eaten. The foresight to pack a cooler was not something that we possessed. So it was eat or waste. Conversation moved inversely to the ingestion of hot dogs. At the point when it was quiet and the subject matter turned to gastrointestinal discomfort, turning in was the unanimous opinion.

We scattered the remnants of the still thoroughly burning fire and retreated to our tent. Cocooning ourselves individually within countless layers, we fell asleep alternatively to groans of intestinal discomfort and sounds of the creek. The latter was more winsome. Each splash or trickle easily forming itself into the movement of a trout in our optimistic, and for the moment peaceful, souls.

To be continued…

Much has been written about the uncomfortable state of a kind of overindulging that results from inebriation. The college comedy film genre relies on this trope. I’m not ashamed to say, nor do I boast in the fact that I have no experience with this situation. However I can’t imagine that the disagreeable sensation that accompanies the quotidian university jag is too distinct from four cheap hot dogs and 64 ounces of an irradiated color of Mountain Dew.

Add in an unexpected fire at 2:00am on New Year’s Day and you have the makings of at least one scene from a halfway decent comedy film. And it happened on the bank of a trout stream, so there should be a certain appeal to this audience.

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New Year’s Eve always meant fly fishing. The back-to-back holiday lent itself to getting out for a few days of uninterrupted time on the water. Breaking free from the ordinary pattern of being a student in the winter was also a plus. It wasn’t that the garden-variety teenage trouble wasn’t alluring. It just so happened that my modus operandi was mischief and trout fishing, not binge drinking and general carousing. Waders over keggers, brookies over benders, fishing dry over getting high. So New Year’s Eve meant fly fishing.

Another aspect of being a teenager was the poverty. It wasn’t that my family was insolvent; on  a very personal level I spent all of my money on gas and fly fishing gear. Thus, even the mediocre hotels were far too lavish. And the carpet in the less-than-mediocre hotels were something that I didn’t want to walk  on. So New Year’s Eve meant camping.

Pennsylvania was the destination. It was only an hour and a half from home, and the spring creek trout were amenable to cooperate even in the often brumal Mid Atlantic December/January flux. They would rise to dry flies, mainly midges, even when there was a few feet of ice on the banks and a nearly identical volume built up around the guides of a fly rod. Noses dimpling the surface propelled us, like dehydrated desert travelers faintly glimpsing an oasis. Only we were frozen solid teenage anglers. So New Year’s Eve meant being cold.

On this particular New Year’s it had snowed all day. The weather was significant enough that our parents made us wait. They preferred that we take our chances with the early revelers on the road later in the day as opposed to the flurries on the state highways. By the time we arrived at the campsite it was pitch black. The precipitation had stopped, but it blanketed the landscape with nearly a foot of dense snowpack. The proprietor of the campsite was caught off guard when we stumbled into his office/living room.

He asked if we were sure we wanted to camp. We told him that we were here to fly fish, to camp, and to be cold. He thought about it for a moment, assuredly considering his legal responsibility in the good chance that two teenagers were found frozen solid on his property. Apparently the eighteen dollars was more alluring, as he assigned us a campsite. Then he asked if we wanted to pick our own. This was a safe option for him, as no one else had decided to camp on that particular snow-covered, below-freezing, holiday evening.

The opportunity to pick was a luxury. We had myriad experiences where we had been  relegated to the worst spot on the grounds. Proprietors wanted to keep their eyes on teenage campers, I assume. So we often were placed near the road, near the bathhouse, or near the bright lights and loudspeakers. Picking was something we had been waiting for. This property was adjacent to one of the most famous trout streams in the country. We would have been fools to pass up a such a coveted arrangement, to neglect the favorable circumstances which presented an evening creek side. We pointed. He shrugged.

We walked out and realized that no plow had touched anything, anywhere beyond the manager’s driveway.

But across the glistening tundra, we could see the spring creek shimmering in the moonlight. First we would secure provisions. Then we would make our way to our campsite. For trout. For New Year’s Eve.

To be continued…