“What’s wrong with the creek?”
It was a legitimate question. We were catching fish. We always caught fish. Not dozens, but a dozen maybe. Although it was a pretty pressured fishery, it consistently produced trout.
“We just want to try something different,” I said.
The man behind the counter gave us a mildly exasperated look. I think he knew. He knew that what we had was pretty good for where we were. That our experience was nothing to sniff at. He was often the one we went to for information. What have they been hitting? Where were people catching them? Simple stuff that we appreciated, and needed, as teenagers. Now, we wanted something else. Not more, necessarily. Just different.
He pulled out a DeLorme Atlas. The edges of the maps were frayed and the cover looked as if it had been folded over on itself daily for the past decade. He opened the map to the area where we were currently standing. Then, he turned the map toward us. He leaned over the counter a bit so that we had the same perspective. Using a finger, he traced a route back into the mountains. We’d go over a ridge, through a small Appalachian crossroads, and into a hollow.
“That’s probably your best bet for big fish. Well, second best. The creek out back is as good as it gets.”
