While on a business trip to South Carolina a few years ago, I had a day off. I had heard that trout might be caught on the Chattooga River, on the Carolina border with Georgia. But it was close to summertime warm, and I had never trout fished in the Deep South. On a whim, I gave it a try. As for the Chattooga, yes, it is “that river,” the one made scary and infamous in the movie Deliverance.
The road I was directed to by the fly shop owner in Rabun County, Georgia, was not much more than a two-track. After several miles, it opened up and widened. Then a rusty steel bridge appeared up ahead. The river below in the lush green valley was a hundred feet across. There were lots of exposed boulders, because the water was shallow, except in the center channel.
On the bridge were a half dozen people, men and boys. They were sitting, legs dangling over the edge of the bridge, some fishing with cane poles, others with spinning rods. They were dropping their bait straight down to the river, fifty feet below. I gathered my gear and locked the car. As I approached the bridge, I saw hooks baited with night crawlers and cans of corn for chumming. The eldest of the fishermen, a large man of seventy or more, had a five-gallon white plastic bucket next to him. In it were a half dozen plump and colorful rainbow trout, each more than a foot long. One-pounders.
Neither fishing off the bridge nor entering the river below had any appeal to me. The locals’ method of fishing was not an option. Besides, for me, two is generally a crowd when I fish. Given a choice, I would not even invite my own thoughts to the river.
I greeted the fishermen and asked the elder if he knew of a pathway along the river.
“Hell,” he replied, in a manner that convinced me the word had a half dozen e’s and at least that many l ’s, “Why you-all wanna do that? The fish is here!”
And then he continued, seemingly amazed at my alien ways, “Besides, the hatchery truck just left. After I catch two more fish, you can have my spot.”
I thanked him. I pretended not to hear him mumble, “Damn, dumb Yankee!“ After all, he gave good information and had offered me his “honey hole.” Soon, I was pushing my way upstream through typical riparian brush, which opened up often enough to provide wading and casting access to several sections of this midsized stream. The river was a third the width it had been at the bridge. Thus, the water was deeper, fast flowing, and cool enough to sustain a resident trout population. Rabun County gets 70 inches of rain a year, and with heavily forested mountains as tall as 4,000 feet, the watershed is not prone to drought and to the thermal pollution that kills trout. But I learned these particulars only later.
As I worked my way upstream, trout gradually began rising for f lies — tan caddisflies, size 16, were in the air and on the water. I caught and released several rainbows. They were r ising in the pools, more so than in the rapids, as I had seen in hundreds of other streams over the past 45 years. Each fish caught was but half the size of the hatchery beauties I had seen on the bridge, but far more likely to continue growing.
No matter their small size, they were spunky and pretty.
I was lost in the peace of wading and then stopping to cast to rising trout in pristine water encircled by forested mountains. These moments, when the mind is free of all thoughts except “Be grateful and pay attention, you have two seconds to raise the tip of the rod should a fish rise to sip your imitation,” are for me the essence of a perfect day on a trout stream.
I am unsure how long I was lost in these moments, when, without a sound or other warning, a football fell from the air and landed with a plop in the water right in front of me. Until then, I was alone on a stretch of a wild and scenic river, cloistered by alder-like brush along the banks. I picked up the football and walked upstream. Befuddled, but not angry, perhaps because I saw no person to be angry with, I continued in shallow water around a bend. Soon, an anxious man of about forty appeared in a clearing along the riverbank. A ten-year old boy was beside him.
“Omigod, we did not know you were there. We put down the fish. We are so sorry.”
My assurances that there was plenty of water to fish upstream was met with, “No, please. Southern hospitality requires more. We will be cooking dinner soon, come to our campsite, be our honored guest.” The generosity of the apology far exceeded the magnitude of the error. But saying no to an offer full of grace in a world where grace seems to be what is most absent was out of the question.
The two couples and their well-behaved children were pleasant, lively, and intelligent hosts. One couple lived in DC, where the husband served as the press aide to a well-known United States Senator from the South. But it was not a day for political discussion. It was a day for me to accept the warm embrace of strangers and relish the harmony of two happy families.
We ate a four-course dinner without hurry. They were tent camping, but not roughing it. The dinner was both elegant and delicious.
The day was still warm when the sun disappeared behind the mountains. A light rain began as I finished dessert and my second glass of wine.
As I handed my glass to a host, a frightening reality intruded, and I suffered a stomach-punch pang of this-couldgo-badly angst. There was now zero ambient light, and I had no flashlight. I had left the riverbed when I accompanied the father and son to their remote campsite. I had no idea where I was in relation to the road where the car was parked.
One of the dads assured me. “You’re an experienced hiker. I will get your feet on the path. It is hard-packed, Georgia black earth. The path is worn deep. If you trust your feet and they don’t stray off the path into the brush or the swamp, you’ll be to your car in thirty minutes.”
I am trusting of others. It is myself I doubt.
I chose not to ask and then be burdened by knowing precisely what was in the swamp. Still, my feet would be motivated to pay attention, because they seemed to be at the greatest risk.
I walked at a moderate pace without worry — an accomplishment, since I could not see my hand stretched out in front of me. And I smiled when I soon came off the footpath and stepped onto the roadway very near the old highway bridge. I would fall asleep a satisfied man. I had visited a lovely river on a whim, caught a few colorful trout that would live to grow, and most importantly, I had accepted a gift of food and friendship, the glow of which would linger.
Several years later, sitting on the porch of our Upper Michigan cabin with my wife, two fly fishers walked up from the stream. I knew one of them, a local guide. They were offered a seat and a drink.
The stranger was James Dickey’s nephew. Mr. Dickey wrote the book, Deliverance, upon which the movie was based.
The nephew was warm and intelligent, but not a writer. He spoke of his famous troubled, now-deceased uncle. I described my day on the Chattooga. He liked that I recalled the day, all of it, fondly. Taking chances in life, taking chances on strangers, had allowed me to open and then quietly close a circle of serendipity.
