Photo By Phil Monahan
It’s a pretty little freestone stream that has suffered the same kinds of neglect as the area through which it flows, so it’s not odd to find an old car battery or lawn furniture half-buried in the gravel riverbed. But despite this evidence of man’s folly, the stream is home to beautiful trout—some wild, some stockers that have migrated from elsewhere in the system. I’d been introduced to the particular hidden stretch of water along Benmont by a couple of colleagues, who referred to the spot as “The Sh*thole.” But soon after, they moved on; one left the state, while the other became obsessed with warmwater fly fishing. For several years thereafter, this was my personal trout stream, which I fished several times a week, never encountering another angler.
