To get to
Pleasant Valley Creek, you drive out of Markleeville, the tiny seat of Alpine
County south of Lake Tahoe, on the county road leading to Grover Hot Springs
State Park. About halfway to the park, there’s a road that leads off to the
left, through a small subdivision, then over a hill and down into Pleasant
Valley itself.
I first
made the trip in 1983 and have been back more times than I can count. It’s a
special place, and there isn’t really any one day of fishing that stands out —
rather, quite a few of them. Most anglers have a creek of the heart, if you
will, and this is mine.
When you
come down into the valley, the dirt road runs alongside the creek. There are
some primitive campgrounds alongside it: No tents, no toilets, just fire pits
and a place to park a camper or pitch a tent if you are so inclined. The road
then passes a ranch house, comes into a large meadow, and dead-ends a half mile
or so later at a trailhead leading into the backcountry.
Starting the Day off Right
For years,
whenever I was in the area, I’d make a point of getting up before dawn so I
could begin the day by watching the sun rise over the mountains to the east of
that great meadow. I was generally camping at the state park, and would get up,
make a pot of coffee in a thermos carafe, and take it with me to the meadow.
I’d pull our VW camper into a grassy area, pour a cup of coffee, have a sweet
roll and put on my waders. Most of the time, I had the place to myself.
There are
several large pools in the meadow, and it’s not uncommon to see quite a few
fish gathering in them. When that’s the case, a halfway competent angler can
have a good streak of fishing simply by drifting nymphs (Hare’s Ear, PT,
stonefly imitations) through the pools.
From the
meadow, the creek begins to tumble down a gorge, looping behind the ranch
house, then coming back to parallel the road again. I’m getting a bit old to
clamber through steep gorges like that now, but in my 30s and 40s, I did it
without a second thought. Unless I was fishing next to where someone was
camped, I rarely saw another person.
Two’s a Crowd
Because of
its more remote location, and because it was restricted to fly fishing only
with a two-fish limit, Pleasant Valley seldom attracted crowds. For someone
like me, who fishes to be alone, that’s a real selling point. Over the years
I’ve had a lot of good days on that stream — good not only because of the fish
caught but because of the total quality of the experience.
In addition
to being a favorite fishing spot, Pleasant Valley Creek also helped launch my
literary career. On one of the rare days there were other people there, I was
fishing the bottom of the meadow when one of the campers came over to tell me
they were going to be doing a bit of target practice. When they started to
blast away, the peace you look for when fishing was gone, and, so, soon, was I.
Readers of
my first mystery novel The McHenryInheritance will no doubt recognize a similarity between the scene
described above and Quill Gordon’s being chased off the fictional West Buchanan
River in Chapter 2. It was a clear case of art imitating life, albeit with
considerable embellishment.
