The third tangle of brush to grab and remove the old camo stocking cap from my head was the final sign I needed to abandon all hope in the depths of the shadowy valley, concede my exploratory foray along the unwadeable and barely walkable shores of the small creek, and give up the idea that the brook trout within its waters were reachable with the waving antenna of a fly rod trailing behind me. Even with it broken down into two pieces, the neon green line of managed to snag just about every branch and barb I passed on the semblance of a deer trail snaking through the underbrush along the overgrown stream.

The week before, and even the hours leading up to the trout opener, painted a much brighter picture in my mind, as I imagined tiny green-and-red trout hugging the shorelines of the trickle that were reachable with a dabble of fly or a slight roll cast. My arrival at the small stream tucked into the rolling hills and farmlands of eastern lake country in Minnesota quickly hedged my expectations. A small pool below the steep ditch incline at the start of the state aquatic management area was about all that was fishable, as my eyes tried to pick out a place downstream that lived up to my expectations of a wadeable water loaded with brookies to kickstart a fishing season with a sampling of success.

Instead, every bush and tree that could possibly have fallen across, grown over, or toppled into the little creek had done so, and as I wandered along the banks I wondered just how I’d access the water, even in its lightest areas of cover. I began to think such things weren’t in the cards. There wasn’t a 10-foot stretch of the flow that didn’t have some form of timber blocking a portion of it. Nevertheless, I pushed on, listening to the distant gobble of the turkeys I had seen in the field on the approach and catching an earful of a ruffed grouse breaking cover 50 yards ahead of me, the brush and trees so thick I couldn’t even see the blur of its wings.

To say the trek was unsuccessful would be an understatement, at least in the moment I lifted my watch up to check the time. What seemed like an hour of pushing through the streambed cover was really just 20 minutes, and I double checked to make sure as I watched the blood pour from a small scrape along my wristband, realizing it was just one of a few crisscrossing my hands from the thorny fauna protecting the flow. The idealized creek I imagined in my head as a combination of all those favorite places I had visited, fished with ease, and found success simply would not come to be in the half mile from the road. From the images of online map I recalled, it likely wouldn’t get any better, at least on the public access portion of the water. Dejected, I made my way back and up to the road, with nothing to show but scratches and scrapes and a fly I lost, not to a snag in the water, but rather on a bush on the trek back to the truck.

Once safely in the vehicle and licking my literal and figurative wounds, I consoled myself with all the good that came from the hour spent battling for a spot on the small stream. I had filled nearly two fly boxes with favorite patterns and new ones I had longed to try tying but never had the motivation for. I had broken free of a spring pattern of fishing for those species I caught on the regular to try a new place and pursue a rather rare one in our region. And at the very least, I had a nice drive in a new area loaded with strutting turkeys, bounding deer, soaring eagles, and the lone ruffie that had thundered off in the limited woods he called home. While it was far from the ideal stream I had pictured, it was the reason for a blur of preparation and, while I may not know it now, an experience that will possibly prepare me in terms of flies tied, endurance earned, and lessons learned for future exploratory efforts … in our outdoors.