The Fringe

Today I fished a tiny creek alone. No crowds, but it IS Barney season here. This is the kind of creek that, once it's turned to the ON setting in mid-June, stays ON till closing day. It's tiny, as I already said. You can sprint and jump across all but the widest parts. Once the Great PWNER turns the switch to ON, the fish are not very particular, this isn't the San Juan or some other notable tailwater with dainty ass trout. It's more about what type of fly you want to present. Today it was streamers. Small to medium. We're talking 10's(yes, 10's you 2+ chucking steelhead hipsters) down to a 6, which is respectable on most streams. And this stream doesn't see very many people. There's a trail from the dam that goes about 350 yards and merges into the face of a cliff. Trail ends here, weekend warriors, unless you get some Stallone up in yah, and I seriously doubt the fat fucks above-on-high at the GREAT LAKE have the strength, unless there were a bag of pork rinds and a TV with NASCAR blaring Fail Earnmart's Greatest Blowments at the top. I did see two city types, or Gapers, Barneys, we call them, as I was casting into the Big Cheater Pot, the first pool below the dam. One of the McDonald's Victimized teens blurting "Oh hey, there's some big fishes in there, we caught some this big the other day!" He stretched out his flabbing arms and by my account, he must have caught a chinook on the east side of the Sierras. His shirt was from a summer camp down the way, and I figured that the Xbox was banned for a week so he could go get some "exercise and fresh air" by his disappointed parents. God am I a meeaaaan sum bitch.
It just so happens that this creek runs as a tailwater from a lake that's got quite a rep as a trout trophy breeder. It's world famous. It's been on the damn TV on a bunch of channels ranging from buff faced news anchor channels to the Voice of the Public. This time of year, there are so many people chucking hardware, tar and feathers, trawlin', life guarding worms, floatin' playdon't, swimming their adorable dogs, etc, that you can't find a piece to yourself. No solitude, just tourist attitude. The fish up above are all planted, a real hardy strain of rainbow that get the job done. But they are Farmer's Fish. Not the way the Great PWNER intended. I would take a wild fish half the size of a dull big dumb planter any day.
This border that's hidden in plain site, this fringe of societal blinders and the free world, between my creek and the masses, is just my sort of lurking ground. Everyone sees it, yet it fails to register. Those that know try and keep it that way. When I asked the local fly shop guy about the access, as it had been many years since I fished it, his response was "You can, but we don't talk much about it, you understand?"
"Duly, and with all respect sir."
The fringes, the beautiful edges, the light and the dark, the deep and shallow, the dirty city streets in Reno and my beloved Truckee River running under them, I am drawn to the edges. Not really in that extreme SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM way, but more accurately the edge of acceptance, in social realms, behaviors, actions.
I live in a basement on the edge of downtown Reno, between the revitalized and up and coming neighborhoods of the California St. hood and the Wells Ave. Barrio. I love that I can go a block to the east and get a homemade burrito from a cart and go two blocks west and have some gourmet vegan food (although I don't really eat anything without meat, it's delicious stuff). I live in a house full of Straight Edge kids. No drugs, booze, smoking. I don't smoke, but I got a micro bar and a beer fridge in my room. And a home base to tie flies and write bullshit like this is right next to the damn things. At least I got 4 sober drivers whenever I need it. Fuck Yellowcab.
I can't take the city for more than a day, so I usually run back home to Sattley. It's a half hour north of Truckee, California and an hour from my house in Reno. The sign reads “Population 60” but it’s more about 20 or so. And we live out in the suburbs of this great modern metropolis. A mile out of town in a quiet valley with a private creek running through it. Just Ma and Pa and my dog(who you saw above in the creek on a fish scaring mission).
I love the edges of normalcy, I love to wear rediculous clothes and say odd things to strangers. It’s not a question of sanity, it’s a disregard for it.
Trout love the edges too. Hell, most fish love the edges. The seams, the drop off of the riffle to pool, the shade lines of trees, the pocket water, the barrier reef meeting the sea, the collision of two different currents, the mangrove roots and the open swamps.
Contrasts.
These clashes make life interesting, I’d be dead by now if I couldn’t appreciate them. And most fish would be too if they didn’t naturally gravitate to these places. The rainbow of diversity doesn’t excite me nearly as much as chucking two streamer rigs with trailing hooks through the crowded kayak park downtown. Or going out and dancing at a hip bar till 4 AM with dainty hot girls and rolling out of bed 2 hours later to go fish the backcountry alone and dirty for a few days. I need to balance myself.
Self medicate.
This creek, as I said, is not massive. Nor does it breed massive trout, though occasionally there has to be a hog in the brotherhood of 20” in some of those deeper pools. It is rugged, it is beautiful.

I realized at the start I hadn't put on my wading sandles, the Keen style strap up ones, but had kept on my flip flops. Mistake. One broke and when they were wet I was sliding and falling all over. So I took them both and shoved them into my vest.
Barefoot is best on a beach but I felt some man-cred-pride swell up inside me, Hiking over squirrel devoured pine cone scales and over jagged rocks. Lucky I wasn't at the GREAT LAKE, walking in broken glass and treble hooks still dripping Playdon't.
I was alone in a tiny canyon that could hide a man for a long time, sustinance abounds and so do hiding places. Ishi came to mind, walking through the briars and bushes on Battle Creek or pacing the upper reaches of Deer Creek, pulling out huge salmon and steelhead with his bare hands. He was hidden and yet so close to everything that was Modern and meaning to do him harm because he was different and didn’t fit into their mold. I know that his situation and mine aren't nearly the same, but when you spend your entire life avoiding society's idea of normal you kinda feel like there's a target on your back.
I kept fishing and walking back upstream towards the dam. I couldn’t remember a time when I felt so secure about a sense of belonging. As I turned the corner and saw the dam, a strange feeling came over me, one I’ve had many times before. I saw myself as an outsider looking in, in the shadow of the dam in the late afternoon, watching the loaded over the top RV’s towing boats across it, and seeing the smooth concrete and rusted metal structure at the bottom controlling the creeks flow. The dam is earthen, with large rocks and boulders, dirt that’s been packed and placed precisely to create a lake and cover a valley.
“I don’t belong up there.” was all I could think to myself. But without this dam, there wouldn’t be a tailwater. There wouldn’t be a creek to my own because it would most likely dry out in the drought years, and more people would pay attention to it because the GREAT LAKE wouldn’t be there. This dam is what created my sanctuary. This dam didn’t only block off the water, but it blocked off all the people who aren’t like me. The ones who can do without solitude and adventure, exploration and discovery of the world, the self. The force fed masses, who go to the GREAT LAKE on it’s reputation alone, who have worn down the paths of Safety and Tradition into ruts exposing my greatest fears which force me to walk on the sides.
Contrasts. Edges. Fringes.
The best of both worlds.