The Perfect Stream
"When I am alone in the half light of the canyon all existence seems to fade to a being within my soul, and memories... and the hope that a fish will rise."
Norman McLean - "A River Runs Through It"
Every fly fisher has his or her own idea of the perfect stream. I have fished perfect streams all my life, some not as perfect as others, but if they held trout and were free flowing and had avoided the ruinous hand of man then that was close enough to perfect for me. Although, one caveat I have for a perfect stream is that it has to be of a size that is wadeable which means it must be small, and to be even more perfect, it must also hold large trout.
Everything is relative, so the question worth asking is, “what do I consider large trout?” In western Canada, if it’s over 20-inches, be it rainbow, cutty, brookie or brown, and it poses a challenge for me and my 4-weight – then it is a big fish. Granted I’ve targeted bull trout the size of ICBM’s on small streams but I break out my 6-weight G-Loomis for those occasions.
The next question that begs consideration, “what qualifies as a small stream?”
If it’s called a “creek” then usually it’s a small stream, but in some cases it may be too small or lacking what is fundamentally required to go fishing – fish. If it’s called a river, it may be too big to wade efficiently or effectively and in no way passes as a small stream. So that got me thinking - what makes a creek a creek and a river a river and either a small stream? For surely I have seen creeks that flow fiercely, at least as fierce as many rivers I’ve come across. Where I live, Beaver Creek is comparable in size to the Salmo River and both flow into the Columbia River basin with approximately the same conviction. So why is the former a creek and the latter a river?
My forestry friend, Gary, informed me that the BC Ministry of Forests has a “Fish-stream Identification Guidebook” that classifies streams based on an S1 to S6 factor. S1 are large fish-bearing streams greater than 20m wide and so on to S6 streams which are less than 3m that hold no fish. Streams around an S3 factor would be the typical small stream: they are fish-bearing and up to five meters wide which is a comfortable size for a small stream. But still it doesn’t explain when or why a creek becomes a creek and/or a river a river.
Undaunted, I visited cyberspace for the answer; I ‘Googled’ it, ‘Yahooed’ it and ‘Wikied’ it; I checked the online dictionary, encyclopedia and every other research tool I could think of but still no satisfactory explanation. The best response came from a website that proclaimed to answer any and all questions- its profound reply: “One man’s creek is another man’s river” – brilliant.
In the end I suppose it doesn’t matter what it’s called - a river, a creek, a brook, rivulet, or rill; if it’s the right size, I’ll call it a small stream. Whether it’s perfect or not depends on the trout.