Originally published in The FlyFish Journal, Volume Ten, Issue Two
I left the campground at dawn, 5 a.m. Fog hovered over the fields, filtering the nascent light into hazy grays and purples. The air through my car window felt fresh and wet, and the valleys were quiet. As Highway 56 wound its way through the coulees of Vernon County, WI, deer jumped into the road with abandon and I had to slow down to 30 mph in anticipation of the next doe or fawn. My heart was sore, as it always is when I have to leave this place. I hesitated to use the word “Eden,” but it was the only one that came to mind at that early hour, when the hills appeared soft and the day was still cool and silent except for an awakening bird or two.
I drove east through a landscape etched with moving water and thought about how much this place had changed me over the years, how a girl who loved mountains and fast western rivers had come to fall in love with farm country and the trout of these small spring creeks, hidden in cornfields and cow pastures. Up close these unassuming streams became a world unto themselves. Stepping down off the banks in my wading boots, the tall grasses and dense vegetation would close in around me, leaving only the sky and the pools and those wild, hungry fish. I caught my first brook trout here, fat and ornery with a back as dark green as a Christmas tree, perhaps to this day the most beautiful fish I have ever seen.
I thought about how every fish I catch here takes a piece of me with them when they turn and flash back into the depths. I thought of all the beautiful places where pieces of me now lay and of a week spent with the muskrats and mayflies, the moss-covered bedrock, the full moon, the wild mint and the parsnip. I thought about turning the car around. I thought about quitting my job. It became difficult to focus on the road. I thought about how the more I come and go, the harder it is to leave these little pieces of myself behind.
-EH, August 2018