Gary Lewis is the host of Adventure Journal and author of John Nosler – Going Ballistic, Black Bear Hunting, Hunting Oregon and other titles.

They took out the stoplight on I-90 in 1991 and the townsfolk in Wallace, Idaho, their feelings hurt by the freeway bypass, proclaimed a manhole cover the Center of the Universe.

I remember the stoplight. We stopped for lunch in Wallace in the 1970s. I remember looking at the stream that ran alongside the road. It ran white with poison.

Last week I packed my Filson duffle and headed to the Center of the Universe for a conference of the Northwest Outdoor Writers Association.

Chub Eastman, who lives in Bend, Oregon, remembered Wallace back in the 1950s.

“When I was a kid, growing up in Coeur d’Alene, the South Fork had outhouses hanging over the water. The runoff from the mines was so toxic that when ducks and geese landed in that end of the lake, if they stayed for more than two or three days, they never left.”

Outdoor writer Scott Richmond recalled the South Fork as that proverbial creek up which you didn’t want to be without a paddle.

We had two 14-year-old boys with our group, Austin Sixta and Caleb Rizio; cousins, one from Kansas and one from California. When they looked at the water, they saw an opportunity to catch a fish, something that would have been impossible here three decades ago.

With the teenagers in tow, I assembled a couple of fly rods. Neither boy had fly-cast before and although there were fish that might be caught on a worm and a hook, it was more important to impart a new discipline.

Austin took to the 6-weight Fikkes Fly Hiker, while Caleb started with the 5-weight Albright.

Fourteen-year-old boys are not about finesse, but soon they could cast far enough to catch a fish if the fish were willing. Trout splashed for mayflies and midges, just out of range.

We progressed from the simple pick-up and lay-down to overhand casting to roll casting and then dusk was upon us.

Two days later we drove up through Woodland Park, Gem, Frisco, Black Bear and Yellow Dog to a ghost town called Burke at the end of the road.

Back when the silver mines roared, real estate was so scarce they built the four-story Tiger Hotel over the top of Canyon Creek and two sets of railroad track.

We paused at the Frisco mine where, on a Sunday night in July of 1892, a shooting battle erupted between striking mine workers and mine guards. During the fight, union men circled around behind the guards, dropped a box of black powder down a shaft and blew up one of the mine buildings. The violence continued at the nearby Gem mine.

A lot of the old buildings are still in place and silver still comes out of the ground. Greater treasures, the cutthroat trout have returned to their old haunts.

Today that old traffic signal lies in a coffin in the Wallace Mining Museum and the red lights have been extinguished, but, for fly-fishermen of all ages, it is still a great place to stop.

Louis Cahill is an advertising photographer with over thirty years experience, and about as many holding a fly rod,  Louis has spent his life looking through the lens.  He’s not interested in what everyone else sees.  Find more of Louis’ incredible photography and writing at Gink and Gasoline.

Study the stream bed, brown and green. Through ripples and reflections, we find rocks and wood, maybe a shining piece of metal someone has left behind. Even the flash of a flake of mica in the sand, no bigger than a fishes scale. How is it that we miss the trout.

Gliding above the mud and stone he is emerald and gold, vermilion and azure, violet and blaze. He is metallic, kinetic, aesthetic. Perfect in his camouflage, he is at once breathtaking and invisible.

Look closer, he is abstract. He is pointillism, he is impressionism, he is surrealism. He is cubist, fauvist, and expressionist; he is Monet, Van Gogh and Miro. He is Blake’s world in a grain of sand. Infinity in the palm of your hand.

He is beauty, and like all beauty, he vanishes into the mundane. It is a failing of the human eye, or maybe of the heart. He is truth, and like all truth he is hidden from us. To find him we must make a choice. When we choose our fly wisely, and present it well he will do what truth does. Rise to the surface.

Louis Cahill is an advertising photographer with over thirty years experience, and about as many holding a fly rod,  Louis has spent his life looking through the lens.  He’s not interested in what everyone else sees.  Find more of Louis’ incredible photography and writing at Gink and Gasoline.

“I thought you might like these,” my brother Tom holds out an old yellowed envelope. “I found them going through some of Pete’s things.”

William Starling Cahill, who preferred to be called Pete, was my Grandfather and the man who taught me to fly fish. He’s been gone for many years now but from time to time little gems that he left behind will turn up. My brother now lives in Pete’s old house which puts him in a good position to uncover relics.

I open the envelope and into my hand spill two feathers, dark down one edge and bright yellow along the other. “Ooooohh,” I exclaim and catch Tom’s eye, “Unobtainium.”

Yellowhammer is what we call them here in the south. The Yellow Shafted Flicker, a delicate little woodpecker who’s hammering used to echo off the hills of the Southern Appalachians. He’s almost completely silent now, shotgunned to the brink of extinction.  Just having those two little feathers now could land me in jail. The Yellowhammer is heavily protected, now that it’s pretty much too late.

Yellowhammer is what we call the fly too. The one that’s tied from those feathers. It’s a wild, buggy looking thing. You wouldn’t expect a trout to eat it, but they do, like there’s no tomorrow. It’s a pattern as old as the little abandoned country church I pass on the gravel mountain road that leads to the stream I don’t tell anyone about. It’s as old as the graves there in the church yard and just as forgotten, but I still fish it.

It’s the perfect fly to catch Southern Appalachian Brook Trout. The Brookie, or Speck as they used to call them, is our only native trout. Forced south from New England by the ice age long before there was an England, new or old. When the ice retreated, like lots of folks who visit the south, the brookies stayed. They evolved, adapted to their new home and, like the Scotts and Irishmen who came to these mountains, they ended up just a little different from their northern cousins.

They are as scarce as the yellowhammer now, but with none of the protection. The old folks tell stories about catching them sixteen inches long in the same streams where today an eight inch fish is something to brag about. Come to think of it, the old man who told me that story is gone now too.

Go to one of those fancy sushi places in town and have a look around the saltwater aquarium. You won’t find a fish that compares to them. Persimmon orange and hemlock green, the gold of autumn grain, blood red spots with halos as blue as October skies.  Black mouths and on every fin a crisp white edge from Gods own pallet knife. They are gem stones lost in the stream. They are swimming jewelry.

If you want to see them you have to go like a penitent, on hands and knees through briars and rhododendron. You have to clean spider webs from your ears and dirt from under your nails. You have to climb and hike and crawl to them. You have to climb the waterfalls that the rainbows and browns can’t pass. You have to hike farther than the bait fisherman will go, with their bread bags ready to stuff full of trout. You have to crawl through the thicket at the end of the trail. That’s where they live. That’s the only place left for them.

If you’re willing to make that trip, get that far from town, that far back up in the woods, that far from your TV, and your PC, and your SUV, that far into Appalachia, you might find them. While your there you might see a yellowhammer. You might see me too, and you might see Pete. At least, that’s where I find him.

While fly fishing on one of the West’s most famous steelhead streams, outdoor enthusiast Judith O’Keefe is reminded what makes this particular pastime so special.

Photos courtesy of Kelly James.

This past October, a group of eight anglers met at a cozy lodge in the Blue Mountains of Southeast Washington, just outside the tiny town of Anatone.  Besides wheat production, Anatone – named after a native Nez Perce woman – is not really on anybody’s radar screen, with one exception, those interested in fishing for steelhead. This town sits perched on the banks of one of the most famous steelhead streams in the Northwest, the Grande Ronde River.

This annual gathering meant that the usual cast of characters would come together with high hopes for a few excitement filled days of fly fishing for steelhead.   Those of you familiar with the sport know that one or two fish landed a day is considered good fishing.  Often, an angler can swing flies for days and never touch a fish.  There are many reasons that account for such fishless days.  It could be a lack of fish in the river, river conditions or simply operator error.  And then there’s the luck factor.  In my view, all fly fishing success is part skill and part luck.   With steelhead, you clearly want Lady Luck on your side.

I’ve put in my share of time on the water, and I know how it goes.  Identify the run – wade, cast, wade, cast, wade, cast, and if the fish are there and the fish gods are smiling, you might be in for one of the greatest experiences life has to offer, via a fly rod.  So with great expectations, the eight of us, divided into four drift boats, set out early each morning.  Our guides were exceptional, our equipment was top of line and our favorite flies were all neatly arranged in our boxes.   A couple of the anglers even had some exceptionally smooth single-malt in their flasks and suggested they would be willing to share when we all met together mid-afternoon.  Success guaranteed, right?   Now remember, we’re talking steelhead.  In three days, there was just one fish landed, and the credit goes to the most tenacious of the group, Harry.  It was a beautiful hen and boy was Harry proud, happy, and satisfied; as he had every right to be.   Harry had worked hard for that fish . . . wade, cast, wade, cast, wade, cast.

Now you’d think I would have driven away from that river feeling disappointed, even unlucky. On the contrary, this trip will go down as a favorite, and not because I caught or didn’t catch a fish.  On that beautiful fall day, as I drove along the back roads towards home I understood why this trip was so special.   Some anglers fish because they enjoy the solitude; me, I like the camaraderie and shared passion found in a group of friends “on a mission.”  Second, the scenery was extraordinary.  And last but not least, I knew once again, the joy and peace found in the simple act of immersing oneself in a river and casting a fly rod.

Perhaps if I’d caught a fish or two, my trip would have been over shadowed by the victory.   Bragging rights demand that the story must be relived – again, and again; the cast, the hook-up, the jump, that long downstream run and how in the end, I so skillfully landed that beauty.  Oh, and the “hero shot” to be emailed out to all those interested and some who are not.  Amazingly, I avoided all of that hullabaloo and as a result, gained a greater appreciation for nature and friendship.  And the burning question is: If given the chance, would I trade places with Harry?  I’ll let you ponder that one for yourself.