Runoff. Somehow the word is far too mild, not gutteral enough, to express my loathing.Can we just agree to call it turd soup? The riparian version of a south of the border bout of Montezuma’s Revenge?

Runoff. Somehow the word is far too mild,  not gutteral  enough,  to express  my

loathing. Can we just agree to call it turd soup? The riparian

version of a south of the border bout of Montezuma’s Revenge?  

You could, theoretically, hike into the high country and be

satisfied with small but fiesty natives in fairly clear

headwaters, but a hike is all it would be –the tribs are closed

right now. That leaves lakes. Which are all well and good, but a day

likely spent laconically floating around, drinking more beer than catching, compared to

actively hiking up banks of moving water, working riffles, plying seams, calculating

drop-offs…well, no need to break it down any further than that. I think back to past

winters of minimal snow, and the vacant, twitchy look in the eyes of my ski bum

comrades. Runoff is my No Snow.

I decide to swing by the co-op, sometimes they have a decent lunch special. Of course,

the price I pay is being surrounded by lots of groovy people, and I’m in a decidely

un-groovy humor right now. Get up to the soup bar,  and find today’s offering  is

“Veggie Leek Stew.” I gaze down into a suspicious cauldron of thick, dark-green

goulash, punctuated by all sorts of vegetable matter. The similarity to what the South

Fork looks like at the moment is uncanny, and painful parallels between recent

attempts at fishing and trying to find any meat in this concoction are more than I can

stomach. I peel out of line, hold my breath through the hemp cloud and head

downtown in search of a hamburger.