Dust on the rods, silence in the creeks

The fly rods hang on the garage wall, a layer of dust on their protective cases growing incrementally thicker day by day.

A delicate, wispy, willow switch of a 2-weight.

The sublime, feather-light, 4-weight that can adeptly toss everything from barely visible midges to giant hopper patterns.

A grandfatherly workhorse of a 5-weight that has traveled with me, mile by Appalachian mile, since I started this journey 15 years ago; oft-photographed lying in repose on stream banks beside temporarily conquered, outsized foes.

The brutish 9-foot, 8-weight, a cherished gift from a boon childhood companion, still awaiting its maiden voyage if a wide enough river with big enough fish presents itself.

Beside them, stuffed with flies and gear, hangs a brand-new Orvis swing-pack. Emblazoned with boldly colored depictions of leaping trout, it is itself a trophy of sorts.

My sweet wife, she of a thinly veiled Machiavellian competitiveness, surprised me by capturing it in the silent auction at last fall’s Casting for Hope fundraiser, triumphantly presenting her catch to me as we exited the event.

Underneath the pack, a pair of neoprene Simms wading socks, purchased in the fall of ‘23, but still in the package.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Technically, there’s nothing prohibiting me from choosing an appropriate weapon some Saturday morning, slinging my new pack over my shoulder, tossing the wading socks and boots into the truck and heading for the comforting shadows of a sheltered, high-country brook.

There, far above the din and debilitating stress of everyday life, I’d slip and skulk through tangles of rhododendrons, focusing on nothing save my elusive quarry, emerging from the undergrowth hours later, physically exhausted but spiritually reinvigorated.

Nope. Nothing stopping me at all.

Nothing except for one simple, inescapable fact: I just don’t have the heart.

Not since Helene.

Rotten, lousy, hell-spawned Helene.

Merciless in her intent and ruthlessly effective in her execution, that monstrous interloper — in contemptuous disregard for the fact hurricanes don’t belong in the Blue Ridge — did a millennium’s worth of damage in a single day and night of utter destruction last September.

With cataclysmic randomness, she hit some places and some people harder than others.

As luck would have it, Helene had my favorite trout streams in her wicked crosshairs.

Every. Single. One.

Curtis. Mill. South Toe. Armstrong. Newberry. Camp Rock. Little Buck. All of them laid waste.

At various times over the last few months, I’ve driven to all the creeks accessible via roads not still barricaded by DOT signs warning of danger.

Each time, I’ve scanned the eviscerated streams, their banks once crowded right down to the waterline with verdant growth, now barren like rubble-strewn moonscapes.

Each time, the same thought flashes in my stunned mind: This cannot be.

After the denial, the rationalization, my brain contorted in furious mental gymnastics.

Maybe the water will eventually run itself clear and the vegetation will take hold again, anchoring the banks in place and shading the delicate ecosystem that has survived a million summer days out of reach of the withering sun.

Maybe it isn’t as bad as it looks.

Maybe it could still hold some fish.

Maybe I’ll give it a shot.

But I’ve only done that once: took a weekday off in early March and worked a half mile or so of my beloved Curtis Creek.

Feeling like an alien visitor instead of a native son in this place that has long nourished my soul like no other, I waded slowly and somberly upstream, casting only through force of habit, randomly and wholly without intent.

Riffles once lined with multicolored pebbles that crunched satisfyingly under your boots were now smothered by slimy, thigh-deep silt that traps your legs and pulls you down like quicksand in a B-grade movie from the 1960s.

Swirling plunge pools, once deeper than a tall man, their depths obscured in the blackness big fish seek, had been reduced to scattered pockets that barely covered my shins.

Pausing to lift 10 or 12 rounded creek rocks and peer underneath, I sighted just one scrawny, wriggling nymph where dozens should have squirmed.

Midway on my journey through the wasteland, I was surprised to see an old buddy, Jim Abe, relaxing beside the stream.

Jim, who made a fine living shoeing horses before he retired, drives up from Charlotte a few times a year to fish Curtis. Our paths have crossed many times on these hallowed banks over the years.

He looked like he had lost his best friend. I’m sure he thought the same of me.

We talked for a few moments, a hollow sadness in our voices.

Just before we parted, Jim looked up at me, his eyes suddenly vibrant.

“We had a good run, didn’t we?” he asked.

“We sure did,” I replied.

But it’s over.

I’m not sure I’ll ever find the heart to try and bring it back.