TIPPITS: Troutopia In The Land Of absentee Wealth

Trying to determine the terrestrial du jour while tromping through Mr. and Mr. Thurston Howell’s backyard barbeque would, I figured, be too much a buzzkill. Besides, houses meant residents, which meant over-fishing.

For a full year, my first, I dutifully drove to the intro access spots and parked alongside behemoth special-edition SUV’s and waded around fellow fisher-folks. Though it wasn’t exactly combat fishing, rarely did I have more than a half an hour of solitude at any point.

The next summer, I found myself employed at one of the several local golf courses. (“Employed” is a rather loose term, as I was really the course “marshal” [somewhere between lifeguard and concierge] in trade for a free membership). One glorious early July day, trying to flesh some balls out of the stream banks, I noticed a darkened form torpedo into the undercut before reappearing several minutes later to take some late-hatching drakes.

Just beyond the bank, opposite the tee-box, was a large and new split-level house, replete with a well-appointed backyard. I watched a bit longer and noticed two things: another 20-inch native rainbow slide alongside the first; and the fact that no one was home.

Returning that evening I caught and released several fish, each larger and more brilliant than those I had seen earlier. By sunset, I had waded through a couple hundred million in backyards, and had a most epic session of surface-feeding rainbows——all 12 to 23 inches, sporting genes that predated the Shoshone Indians. And all this while portaging around decorative rock gardens and hot tub shelters—alone, save some expensive vacancies and lawn gnomes.

The obvious difference between potential prowler and sportsman that lie in the five-weight I carried, was both comical and effective. I envisioned traipsing into Arnold and Maria’s yard, waving to the gathered elite, and holding up my trusty Sage for the rushing security detail to view. “Just getting up to some of that freestone around the corner, folks.” I’d pull a Bud from my vest, offer it to George Lucas and say something snappy like, “You know, ‘Howard The Duck’ was my favorite work of yours,” before ambling off through the rhododendron bushes.

But, as it was, there was no one except the occasional housecleaner or caretaker — who exhibited no interest in my interloping. Soon I began to abandon my drives to the open spaces and concentrate on residential fisheries entirely, scouted for subdivisions as often as I searched for hatches.

I continued to fish in this manner for my remaining time in the Valley—nearly four years with only cursory trips to Silver Creek, the region’s major attraction. While Barons and Countesses were flying from the old country to fish “The Creek’s” fabled slick-water trico hatches, I was pulling my waders off my condo deck, slipping between houses a few hundred yards away.

Jeff Galbraith is the editor of Frequency, an excellent snowboarding magazine that he appreciates even more now that he’s finished serving federal time for trespassing.