I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on what would become my favorite trout fishing spot for years.
Season after season of fishing the same little culverts and other popular spots in the area for an occasional stringer of five small brook trout left me excited to find a place where I could hook into some real whoppers.
I was more than excited when my high school baseball coach and mentor reluctantly disclosed one of his personal favorite trout spots on a stretch of a local stream that I had overlooked.
I could tell it pained him to do so, and justifiably so.
Secret fishing honey holes are sacred. But after a bit of hemming and hawing, as if providing me with missile launch codes, he gave me specific directions and swore me to secrecy.
I was a bit skeptical, but the promise of a creel full of foot-long or bigger brook trout seemed too good to be true, and I figured that type of fishing only existed in far-away places.
But it was certainly worth a try, so a few days later, I gathered up my gear and headed out.
I parked a fair bit away, looked around to make sure I hadn’t been seen, then quickly slinked into the woods.
After a short walk through the oaks, I reached the top of a steep, mossy bank lined with giant hemlocks. Thirty or so yards below me, the stream cut its way through the valley in a series of falls, riffles, pools and eddies.
A steady rushing sound of the current crashing against rocks filled the air. Sunlight filtered through the canopy, cleanly slicing from the water’s surface to the gravelly bottom. The setting looked like a magazine photograph.
Just as I thought it couldn’t get any more beautiful, two football-sized brook trout slowly made their way across the current, then ducked under a sunken tree.
I skidded down the steep bank as fast as I could, convinced I had reached trout fishing heaven, and was about to be waist deep in giant fish.
I spent the next few hours tossing threaded night crawlers to nearly every inch of a several-hundred-yard stretch of water without so much as a nibble. I was disappointed, but not about to give up.
It was still a bit early in the season. The water was cold, the current was fast and leaves on the trees weren’t even close to being as big as a mouse’s ear. It wouldn’t be long before things warmed up a bit, and after several more trips, I found myself holding some of the prettiest trout I had even seen.
I fished that stretch of the stream each spring over the years, and I even found a few more hidden gem spots farther upstream.
After a while, I had nailed down when the fish would be biting based on time, temperature and water level. I figured out nearly every little place a trout would hide, and how to fish it.
Mostly, I stuck with a night crawler threaded onto a No. 6 baitholder hook tossed into the current, then allowed it to free float its way into pools, along edges or anywhere else leading to a trout’s open mouth.
Occasionally I added a small silver Super Duper or Panther Martin spinner. If I felt especially posh, I might even lay out a Muddler Minnow or Hornberg with my fly rod.
Trout between 12 and 15 inches were common, but I caught a few up to 18 inches or so. One afternoon, I lost one at my feet that was well more than 20 inches long.
I rarely kept more than one or two fish at a time, and as instructed, I kept quiet about it.
But things changed when a local land trust purchased the property. I’ve only fished there a handful of times in the last few years because the steep muddy banks where I would occasionally see one or two other boot tracks are scarred by wide, manicured hiking paths.
A gravel parking area with signs and maps guide hundreds of people to those old fishing holes.
Anglers quickly caught on, and now many of the banks are completely worn, with discarded plastic worm containers strewn here and there.
I did my best to keep the spot quiet and hidden in order to conserve the treasure it was. I felt fortunate to be trusted with it, at least as far as the unspoken angler code is concerned.
Ironically the land trust that manages the property around the stream pledges: “To lead in conserving land, water and wildlife habitat.”
Are parking lots, trails, signs and trash what true conservation looks like these days?
It seems that sometimes, things really are just better kept secret.
