Haven't been able to fish for the last month and change, so I find myself sitting around pondering imponderable things. Things like why are native specks so durn colorful and pretty? They live back in inaccessible places, mostly surrounded by creatures that have no artistic bent or aesthetic taste, as far as we know. It seems that they are much more colorful than they need to be to be functional. Even to the point of being detrimental to their survival, because they stand out in the water sometimes. They are a swimming contradiction. That vermiculation on their dark backs is great camouflage, but, that perfect camo is offset by the shocking scarlet and white-edged fins that glow through two feet of water. As far as I can tell, they've been here a lot longer than we have, so it isn't designed for our enjoyment. But I'll take it. It's part of what makes them so fascinating to me, I guess. They are surreal in appearance, like something dreamed of instead of something that actually swims in our streams. And of the millions of them swimming, no two have the exact same pattern. Each one is a unique creation with its own color scheme and assemblage of spots, swirls, and swatches of color.
It seems that they are distilled incarnations of the environment surrounding them. Dark, deep greens from the rhododendrons and hemlocks. Intense oranges and scarlet reds from the autumn leaves that peak about the time they begin to start to really color up and feel the urge to spawn. Golds from the beams of sunlight that dapple through the canopy to land on the water. Purples and indefinable colors from the sunrises and moonlight on the water. Blacks from the deep crevices and shadows and moonless nights. Fins edged with ivory white from the winter snows that blanket the ground. Cold blues from the glaciers that drove them south into these old mountains, and left them stranded here when they receded, and the icicles that still hang dagger-like in winter from the cliffs that brood over the streams where they live.
To semi-paraphrase Norman McLean, I am haunted by native southern Appalachian brook trout.
It seems that they are distilled incarnations of the environment surrounding them. Dark, deep greens from the rhododendrons and hemlocks. Intense oranges and scarlet reds from the autumn leaves that peak about the time they begin to start to really color up and feel the urge to spawn. Golds from the beams of sunlight that dapple through the canopy to land on the water. Purples and indefinable colors from the sunrises and moonlight on the water. Blacks from the deep crevices and shadows and moonless nights. Fins edged with ivory white from the winter snows that blanket the ground. Cold blues from the glaciers that drove them south into these old mountains, and left them stranded here when they receded, and the icicles that still hang dagger-like in winter from the cliffs that brood over the streams where they live.
To semi-paraphrase Norman McLean, I am haunted by native southern Appalachian brook trout.
