I got lots more stuff in the basket and the cans." The wicker basket held more plastic gobs, melting with age, a rusted knife and pliers, spools of old leader material, a stained Mepps spinner or two. "Have you got any rods or reels?" It was my last, fleeing hope. "Oh sure, but I'm not sure I want to sell them yet. I might still get out once and awhile. I can't take the walking like I used to, when we'd go up and down the mountains like goats. But these damn knees, you know, you can't trust them. You might go north and they decide to go south. But I can still drive to a place or two. You ever fish the Deschutes?" He led me into his work shed. Hanging on a nail on the wall were three nondescript spinning rods and behind them a fly rod, black, nameless, fiberglass or even steel, I couldn't tell, and an automatic reel with the paint worn off. "I'm not sure I want to part with any of this though. This one spinning rod I might sell. The rest I got to keep for the few times I can still get out. Works fine, still. This was all valuable stuff in its time." "You like the automatic reel?" "Hell yes, works great! Saves on all that winding. You know the Deschutes, by Sherar's Falls? One day another guy and me really got into them. I got a picture somewhere back here." He looked back into the depths of his garage, then gave up without moving. "Laid all them trout out on board, seventy five. That board was seventeen inches wide and most of them trout was hanging over, head and tail. Caught all mine on flies too, just like those out there. Jeez it used to be good, back then. Stand on them rocks and throw out in them big deep slicks and 'blam', 'nother one on." "But we used to catch fish like that all over. Crooked River too, back when I could get down into the canyon. Best place of all though, Deep Creek, you know that? You know where Criterion Summit is, between Madras and Maupin, high spot before you start down to the Deschutes. Deep Creek road is a mile and a half east of the summit. You gotta drive back about ten miles, then hike way down into the canyon. Best place of all, fish so thick you couldn't see the bottom. Big ones, seventeen, eighteen inches every one. Long hike out though, couldn't catch too many or you'd never make it." I was alternating between studied politeness, trying to extricate myself with good feelings intact, and the fascination of hearing about a fishing river that was at least twenty miles of desert away from any generally known water and that did NOT, I was certain, appear on any map. He was adamant about the location of Deep Creek. I had some special sources I would have to call when I got home. I explained that I wasn't really a collector of flies, but he surely had a good mess of them. That there
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