I placed my coffee and honey bun on the counter as she plucked away at the keys on the cash register.
“Will that be all this morning?” she asked. I guessed her to be in her late sixties, a strong woman of the European stock ubiquitous in the rural Midwest. Her light gray hair hung in tight curls against her head as she looked at me through thin wireframe glasses.
“Yes ma’am, I think that’ll be it.” I dug in my pocket for some cash.
“That’ll be two eighty-eight.” She smiled as I sat the three bills on the counter. “What brings you out and about today?”
“Doing a little trout fishing. I’m from out of town and this is one of my favorite places to come fish.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh! My son caught a mess the other day and brought me a few to make for dinner.” She was smiling ear to ear. “Personally,” she looked at me sheepishly out of the corner of her eyes, like she was about to divulge a secret that she probably shouldn’t, “I like them better than walleye.”
I grinned. There’s something incredibly refreshing about being in a place whose locals view trout as food and not just amusement.
I was in the Driftless area, a region that spans the corners of southeast Minnesota, northeast Iowa, southwest Wisconsin, and northwest Illinois. Over the course of millions of years and four different periods of glaciation that flattened most of the upper Midwest, the driftless region was left untouched. It gets its name from the lack of drift (silt, sand, gravel, and boulders transported by the glaciers) found in the soil. Nowadays, this area is still defined by steep hills and ridges that create narrow valleys flowing with spring-fed creeks. These cold creeks produce abundant bug life and hold some of the prettiest wild trout I’ve ever caught. Brook trout are native to these waters, but brown trout are the most abundant these days. Walking along the creeks is like walking back in time. The well-maintained wooden barns and grain silos of the small family farms give the impression that not much has changed here in the last hundred years, and I’m doubtful that it has.
After leaving the gas station, I drove about five miles south on the highway, then made a left at road named for the creek that I would be fishing that morning. As the road lost elevation, it twisted back and forth, tracing the side of a ridge that was covered in oak, hickory and maple trees. On the valley floor, I pulled off to the side of the road and climbed into my waders. I’d wait to rig my rod up by the water where I could see if there was a hatch coming off. I dug in my bag and grabbed a small fly box that contained Parachute Adams in size 16 through 20, blue-winged Olive emergers, pheasant tail nymphs, a few different attractor nymphs, some squirmy wormies (I have no shame in admitting that I’m not a purist), and a handful of a local nymph pattern called the Pink Squirrel that I had picked up from the local fly shop the day before. As I was tightening up my boots, I looked across the fence to my right and watched an Amish man plowing last year’s cornfield with a string of eight draft horses. The soil he cut lay dark against the bleached stubble still on the ground. I waved. He waved back and smiled.
I crave authenticity. And please don’t think that I’m trying to preach about how virtuous I am. In the past I’ve killed plenty of whitetails over corn piles, shot pen-raised quail planted in blackberry bushes, caught stockers with rubbed-off pectoral fins. But the older I get, how I do something and where I do it grows of ever importance to me. I try to seek out genuineness in my pursuits and in the people that with whom I surround myself. For me, that makes all the difference.
The Driftless is a real place, and that’s why I love spending time there. I’ve caught bigger trout in tailwaters across the west. But the people I meet have been living there for decades and some of their families for more than a century. When I drive to the river, I don’t pass high-rise apartments and people walking designer dogs. When I get coffee, I pour it myself in a gas station, it costs seventy-nine cents, and I don’t get asked if I’d like oat milk in it. When I shake a man’s hand, it’s calloused with hard work. That means something to me. It is places like this where I want to spend my time, places of authenticity.
I walked through a herd of Holstein cows as I made my way down to the creek. They raised their heads and looked at me for a few seconds before losing interest and continuing to graze. A hundred yards out I could see barn swallows making their acrobatic flights over the gently flowing water. Below them, rings rose up on the surface of a dark green pool. I sat down in the wet grass and put together my rod, a short six-and-a-half-foot fiberglass three-weight I am convinced was made for these creeks. I figured that it was the blue-winged olives that I had caught fish on the day before, so I tied on a size 18 Adams. It’s always the Adams. I reached into the top of my waders, pulled out a nylon stringer, and tied it on my belt. A couple of trout sounded pretty good for lunch.
Rising steam was illuminated by the horizontal rays of sunlight just cresting the hills. I took a few moments to soak it all in. I thought that if I had been sitting right there seventy years earlier, it would have looked pretty much the same. Half a mile downstream I could see a small farmhouse with a large red barn. The windows were shining in the light as cattle grazed in the knee-high grass. I smiled, imagining Norman Rockwell could have found plenty of source material in a place like this. I think I could’ve sat there the entire day trying to determine the particulars of heaven and hell, coming no closer to an answer in my head other than that they must exist, and that place is damn near what heaven would look like.
About the Author
Clay Beene was born and raised in Northeast Oklahoma and currently resides there after spending a few years in the Pacific Northwest. January mallards, April longbeards, May largemouth, July cutthroat, September grouse, and November whitetail keep him in a constant state of anticipation as he lives his life based on the changing of seasons. He continues to study the art of storytelling because stories are the only things that last. You can find Clay on Instagram @OfCowboysAndCoyotes.
