By Jim Mize
My daughter named this hole. I was sitting back in the woods watching her cast repeatedly to a twenty-inch rainbow, and all the while it refused her offering she was muttering under her breath, “Hateful, hateful, hateful.”
The Hateful Fish Hole, in case you lack good sense and want to fish there, lies on the upper end of Humility Creek, the stream where hemlocks crossed with Venus flytraps consume enough flies to keep the local fly-tackle shop in business. The fish on this stream are said to sport rearview mirrors, so regardless of your direction of approach, they take off with a wave of their tails.
The Hateful Fish Hole looks like any other nondescript flat run, with a riffle at the top and a small ledge at the bottom that brings the flow to a stop before plummeting three feet into the next hole. Only hip deep at its deepest point, in this hole the fish usually can be seen lined up in a feeding lane that ranges from the bottom to the top, parallel to the flow. Bump one fish and he bumps the next, who bumps the next until all have gone to hide.
My daughter can fling a fly with the best of them and knows enough about bugs and branches to guide edible flies through the overhangs on Humility Creek and catch these wild trout. Upstream or downstream, rainbows or browns, the fish fall to the temptations she floats past them. It’s just this one hole that won’t share its fish.
On this particular day, she had tried an assortment of flies from small caddis to stonefly nymphs, only to have trout inspect her offering and politely decline. All during this episode, I could see fish rise to sip midges, open their mouths underwater in a flash of white, or roll sideways to nudge a nymph loose.
After she had flailed to her dissatisfaction, I eased into the hole and tried a tan caddis with a midge dropper, usually the ticket for picky trout in these parts. Rainbows would rise to look, drift backwards with the fly, then settle into their original positions. After a while, they didn’t even rise to look.
I went through my box of tricks to see what else I could drift past these masters of indecision. Considering the possibilities, I first thought that maybe my midge was the wrong color. But how can you spot the color of an insect too small to see? We had already drifted larger flies and I had presented my smallest flies, both with the same result.
We concluded that these trout were just hateful.
Whenever we fish this stretch of Humility Creek, we give extra effort to the Hateful Fish Hole. It’s become a challenge, knowing that if we can catch these fish, we can catch any fish.
Last fall, on an afternoon when the browns were battering a Foxee Clouser, I came to the Hateful Fish Hole with renewed confidence. After all, I’d had enough luck already to almost lose my humility and replace it with confidence.
At the head of the pool, the last storm had pushed a log into the hole and wedged it against a boulder on the far side. The gorge in these mountains channels an inch of rainfall into a foot of stream flow, so the debris gets rearranged with every major storm. With that log providing cover, any big brown holed up here would lie in its shadow. So I drifted the Clouser a breath off the log and without hesitation the brown rolled on the fly.
He just didn’t take it.
It looked like one of those football drills where linemen jump over each other while another one rolls under them. The fish rolled over the fly, flashed that big bronze belly at me, and came down on the other side of my line with no fly in its mouth.
I set the hook, sent a perfectly-good Clouser into the hemlock behind me, which took it in one big gulp and I swear I heard it belch. The brown went back into his ambush spot in the Hateful Fish Hole and waited for the next unsuspecting fisherman.
During the dark hours of the night, I often ponder the secret to the Hateful Fish Hole. I tie ever-smaller midges in various colors, plot approaches to stay more concealed, and constantly buy smaller Fluorocarbon tippet every time a new brand comes out. I concluded that I needed to wait them out, wait for the perfect season, the perfect water, and the perfect weather. Then, this week it came.
Late in the summer, Humility Creek gets a little warm and the water a little low. So I leave the fish alone until the nights cool. Then, if a piece of a tropical storm breaks off, we can get several days of back-to-back drizzle. Not enough to muddy the water, just enough to perk up the fish. Give them a good dose of oxygen and a few more inches of current to hide in.
So when that storm came, I took off and headed to the Hateful Fish Hole.
Using the stretch downstream to fine-tune my offer, I found the browns most receptive to an inchworm. I tie a small one with a curled tail and it looks like it just fell from the sky. Maybe my tippet passes for its web, but the browns strike like they haven’t had a meal since spring.
I had already released a handful of browns and rainbows when I had fished my way up to the hole. I watched it before moving in to see if any fish were active. On this day, nothing moved.
I tried the tail of the hole first to avoid bumping any browns that had moved into the shallows to feed. Three quick casts, left, center, and right of the stream flow produced nothing.
Up near the boulder, subsequent storms had taken the log downstream, so the most likely spot now for a big fish was behind the rock and under a mountain laurel branch. I carefully worked about fifteen feet of line and twelve more of leader side-armed to keep it low and landed the inchworm with a noticeable “kerplop”, just the way browns like it. Before the rings could expand, a brown pounced and I set the hook.
To my amazement, the brown actually was on my line, in the Hateful Fish Hole, just like any other fish and hole. Maybe the curse was broken.
Or maybe not.
The brown took off on a tear toward me at the lower end of the hole. On the opposite bank, brush had piled up and the brown streaked toward it. I leaned into the three-weight and 6X-tippet as much as I dared, but knew I would be better off risking a broken line than letting that fish get into the brush.
Even with his head of steam I managed to turn him enough to skirt the brush pile and as soon as I did, I discovered it had all been a ruse. He never meant to go into the brush. Instead, he immediately dived under a flat rock. This rock looked like any other part of the stream bed, flat, three feet across, and at first glance, flush with the bottom. There couldn’t have been more than a couple inches of clearance on the back side but he squeezed in with my line scraping over the top. I tried pulling him out but he found a hold and I couldn’t.
Not wanting to lose my first hateful fish, I waded out to get an angle from the back side and pry him loose. But by the time I got there, he’d found some leverage on tippet or fly, worked it loose, and made his departure just as I got there.
From where I stood, his tail seemed to wave good-bye.
So in the wee hours when it’s quiet and dark, I still plot strategies for the Hateful Fish Hole. I will keep buying smaller tippets with each new technological breakthrough. I will track my fishing log for hatches and stream conditions to plan the time of attack. And maybe I will come up with a different color midge that a trout with good eyesight can’t resist.
But on a creek that teaches humility, hateful fish are master instructors.
“The Hateful Fish Hole” is an excerpt from the award-winning book, A Creek Trickles Through It. You can order copies online or purchase autographed copies at www.acreektricklesthroughit.com, Jimmize1@cs.com
Award-Winning Book of Fly-Fishing Humor
Award-winning author, Jim Mize, has written a humorous book specifically for fly fishermen. Titled, A Creek Trickles Through It, this collection delves into such topics as carnivorous trees, persnickety trout, and the dangers of fly-tying. This book was awarded first place in the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association’s Excellence in Craft competition. Whether you are an arm-chair fisherman or one with well-earned leaky waders, it will be a welcome addition to your fishing library.
Jim has received over one hundred Excellence-In-Craft awards including one for each of his other books including The Winter of Our Discount Tent, Fishing With Beanpole, Hunting With Beanpole, and The Jon Boat Years. His articles have appeared in Gray’s Sporting Journal, Fly Fisherman Magazine, Fly Fishing & Tying Journal, as well as many conservation publications. You may order copies through Amazon or get autographed copies from his website at www.acreektricklesthroughit.com