My mysterious benefactor appears to be the apron work on the bridge upstream. The source of thousands of fish my little creek is suddenly burdened with – as well as why it’s still flowing in October when it should’ve dried up in July.

It’s a sudden embarrassment of riches, hundreds of fish in every pool, visible largemouth bass – when they’ve always been a rarity, and oodles of hyper-aggressive Orange finned Bull Trout outracing both Bluegill and Smallmouth to the fly.

Sophistication is a hint of sparkle with a marabou tail – a recipe befitting a hundred fish day, assuming you don’t mind most being six inches or smaller.

Given the creek was barren in the Spring, and with only four fish counted in as many miles and I’m thinking the hell with trout fishing, where a couple of degrees temperature or a few milliliters of toxin denudes most of a watershed.

If we ever stopped to add the millions spent in care and feeding, all the  restorative spawning gravel planted, alder and willows to shore sagging banks, and substrate that can’t abide the press of an angler’s feet. Parking lots and paved roads, flush toilets, guides and drift boats, fancy flies and gossamer tippets – and all for a fish that’s mostly shat from a pipe after being fed Twinkies …

Hard to believe I ever doubted this creek’s survival, given its history of tomato tailings and fertilizer. Seeing this plethora of gamefish in a single season makes a fellow eager to spend his precious conservation dollars on a fishery showcasing hardy warm water species, that welcomes invasives, can tolerate a couple degrees of temperature increase, and can live off a diet of benthic scum and crushed water bottles.

Us fly fishermen have backed a freshwater loser these last couple of centuries, and the knowing is suddenly tough for me to swallow …

Pikeminnow Unlimited wouldn’t need yearly dues nor memberships, unless we opted for starched uniforms and well dressed lobbyists serving aged Cubans and Homarus Americanus to uncaring politicians.

… nor would I care much for what your soles were made of – as most of the locals know, it’s what’s on them that matters most.