Dear Sycamore Brook,

I hope you’ve been well. Yes, I’m not using your real name. I want to respect your privacy, and I think it’s better this way.

It’s hard for me to say this, but I’m going to stop seeing you. Please don’t be upset. We had a great five years, and I thank you for that. But things have changed.

We met during different times. I found you in the middle of the pandemic when I was looking for something close to home. I have to say, when I first saw your online profile, it knocked me out. Your electrofishing data from New Jersey’s list of unstocked trout streams impressed me. You had a healthy population of wild browns with a few over 14 inches. Then I Googled you and found satellite maps showing good access through an undeveloped woodland. And all of this fishiness was just 35 minutes from my house. So yes, you were all that.

And for those first few years, you were amazing to me. Remember those mixed caddis and Hendrickson hatches in April where I would find gulpers along almost every bubble line and undercut bank? After a rainstorm, when you ran a little stained, I could twitch a streamer past any logjam and almost guarantee a hard strike. How about those super-selective midge-sippers on warm days in February – I’d work a single fish for an hour before it would take. Great times, all of them.

You were always nice to my friends, too, which I really appreciated. Dee fell in love when I introduced you. I’ll never forget that 16-inch, dark male brown with a genuine kype that she pulled from underneath that nasty logjam. And when you met Owen, who was just learning to fly fish, you kindly gave up eight fish on wooly buggers he tied himself. That was so nice of you. Though I had you mostly to myself, I’d occasionally see a boot track from another angler. But I wasn’t jealous; I thought it was cool that you had a few other admirers.

But then over the last few years, I began to see a bad influence on you. I know it’s not your fault, but climate change is not doing you any favors. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve become moody and kind of unstable. Some of those flash floods over the last few summers filled in some of your better pools. You know that deep undercut next to the gnarled sycamore where I could always move a nice brown? It silted in and nothing holds there anymore. Some rocky riffles are now clogged with sand. During last fall’s three-month drought, I avoided seeing you altogether. I’m sure you looked awful, pitifully low, and I’m guessing many of your trout were stressed by warm water or picked off by herons and other predators.

Another thing: what’s with those hangers-on I’m seeing more and more every year? Japanese knotweed is coming up everywhere, crowding out the native grasses that used to keep your banks from eroding. Multiflora rose now blankets almost all of your bottomlands. Last year, I tried bushwacking through some and shredded a brand-new pair of waders. Not cool. And don’t get me started on emerald ash borer. Those magnificent ashes that used to shade you are all dead and toppling everywhere. That huge one – it must be four feet in diameter – fell directly over my favorite pool making casting impossible.

The last time I fished you a few weeks ago, you were a mess. You ran stained, but somehow still low. There was a brownish algae caked along much of the bottom. I stood on that high bank over that deep dogleg – you know the one where you could always spot a few nice browns? It was empty. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any trout there in at least a year or two. In a couple of hours of casting, I moved just one fish in a dozen pools and saw zero bugs. The last straw may have been the new posted sign I saw in my favorite parking spot. Sure, I can still access the stream from a few other turnoffs, but it’s not the same.

I hate to say this, but it’s not me, it’s you.

I wish I knew how to help you, but I honestly don’t. Not sure how I can prevent invasive species, flash floods, and droughts from inflicting harm on a marginal blueline that few people fish. So, at this point, I think the best thing I can do is leave you alone and let the few wild browns remaining live their lives without me bothering them. They can be surprisingly resilient, so I remain hopeful.

So, I am moving on. I do hope you heal, and that one day you find someone else who admired you as much as I did.

Take care,
Stephen