Olive — fish-whisperer at Sylamore Creek.
All Photographs by Bruce VanWyngarden
We were atop a hill, stopped on a one-lane gravel road in the middle of a dense oak and hickory forest. Our dust caught up to us and hung in the late afternoon light. I read the directions on my phone again: “In a quarter mile on the right you will see a green bus. Turn into the drive as if you are going to the bus, and stay left to go beside the privacy fence and down the relatively steep hill. The Hidden A-frame is at the bottom of that hill.”
A school bus has been converted into a residence for visitors to rent.
“Welp, there’s the bus,” I said. “I guess we take this ‘relatively steep’ goat-path. Looks pretty secluded.” A hundred yards later, a fresh-looking A-frame cabin appeared in a small clearing.
“Huzzah! We made it!” I said.
I went to the door, entered the pass-code I’d been emailed, and in we went. The place was modern, well-appointed, and had an open layout with a glass wall facing the forest. A doe and fawn stood on the small patch of grass, looking in at us for a moment before deciding to hightail it into the woods.
The “hidden” A-Frame.
“This place is great!” I said. “I’m going to get our stuff out of the car.”
I schlepped the cooler, the food bag, and my fishing gear into the house. Something was missing. Lord.
“You’re not going to believe this,” I said. “I forgot to bring my suitcase! I packed the food and drink and my fishing bag but didn’t go back in the house and get my suitcase. Jaysus! I’m such an idiot.”
My companion just looked at me, eyes wide. That’s the good thing about Olive. She’s not judge-y. We’d just spent three long hours together in the car driving from Memphis to this isolated cabin five miles north of Mountain View, Arkansas, and I’d heard nary a complaint. Who’s a good girl? Olive is! Here’s a Beggin’ Strip.
Sylamore Memories
This part of Arkansas was familiar to me. In the mid-1990s, I paid $21,000 for a one-room shack just down (literally) the road a mile or so from the A-frame. It had a nice deck overlooking Sylamore Creek, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a closet. It was a place for me to get away and think — and not think — as my life went through some difficult changes.
The A-frame had a surprisingly spacious interior.
The main attraction was the Sylamore, a clear, gravel-bottom stream where I loved to wade and fish for smallmouth bass — feisty and eager to take a fly. I drove there at least once a month for years, until I sold it in 2003, as life moved on and the three-hour drive became less appealing. The selling price was $23,000, as I recall, so I made bank.
Two decades later and I’d never been back. Then I learned that Memphis Magazine wanted a story on Arkansas fishing. Well, hello.
I discovered that my old cabin is now a vacation rental called The Studio. As I looked at the pictures on the rental site, I hardly recognized the place. It wasn’t any bigger but it looked … presentable, with a certain woodsy chic.
Olive rests on the deck after a hard day of ... well, being a dog.
My original plan for this story was to rent my old place, wax on about the spiffy changes it had undergone, and do a little fishing. But it was booked solid for weeks and my time window was limited, so I rented the A-frame.
The road connecting the two places is called Double Bridge Loop, no doubt because it traverses two low-water bridges and, well, forms a loop down from Highway 87 to the stream and back up again. I decided to take a drive around the loop before making dinner, just to check things out.
When I was here 20 years ago, there were maybe six houses on the entire loop, all of them modest in size and ambition, and almost all of them occupied year-round by locals. As I descended the rocky road to the stream, I passed at least 10 domiciles, ranging from the aforementioned rentable bus to more expansive new abodes with overhanging decks and out-buildings. The A-frame was advertised as “new,” and appears to fit that bill.
The bridges — low concrete pours with round, corrugated culverts to channel the water — were as I remembered them. And I also remembered that when the water is high, you’d better be on the east side of the stream, or you could be stranded for a couple days. They’re not called “low-water bridges” for nothing.
But the Sylamore wasn’t high, it was down, and as outdoor writers like to say, “gin-clear.” Lots of circular spawning beds were visible in the gravel, each guarded by a fierce male sunfish of one kind or another. The bigger fish, if there were any, would be down deep in the pools near the opposite high bank.
Unusual concrete bridges cross the Sylamore.
I stopped at the second bridge, parked on the gravel bar, and waded in up to my knees. Olive joined me, her knees more plentiful but shorter. The coolness was a welcome respite from the heat of the day, still lingering, even as the sun slid lower in the west toward Peach Mountain. It was quiet except for some bird songs and a simmering tree-frog chorus. It felt good to be here again.
We drove back up the hill to the A-frame. I tossed a ribeye and some small potatoes on the outdoor grill and poured a glass (or two) of Malbec. Life was good and we were tired. Friday night bedtime came early.
Downtown Mountain View.
Kitsch and Caboodle
Mountain View is not a one-stoplight town. There are probably two or three. But even though it’s small (pop. 12,933), it has more charm and more activities available than you’d expect.
I decided to venture in on Saturday morning, since I’d left my suitcase at home (duh) and needed a few things. Like most self-respecting Arkansas towns, Mountain View has a massive Walmart, with a pharmacy, grocery store, automotive department, and a retail outlet that sells clothes, sporting goods, garden supplies, patio furniture, hardware, and any other staple you’d ever need. This is not, I should add, the charming part of town, but you do what you have to do. There is a stoplight dedicated to Walmart traffic, for what it’s worth.
I got some toiletries, sunscreen, a pair of shorts, and a plaid, long-sleeve cotton shirt to wear on the stream. Done and done. In and out in 10 minutes with self-checkout. I left Olive in the car with all the windows down and a bowl of water and she seemed in fine spirits when I got back.
Benches give visitors a chance to rest and admire downtown Mountain View.
I decided we needed to play tourist for a while, so we headed to the town square, which has a bit of everything — if by ‘everything’ you mean flea markets, nostalgia/antique shops, wood-working shops, metal-working shops, music stores, coffee shops, funky restaurants, a dulcimer shop, and a pretty impressive courthouse in the middle of it all. On this morning, it was crowded with tourists and gawkers — and even a couple of other dogs. I had to park on a nearby back street.
The square features vintage yellow buildings with a certain charm, some stone and some brick, none more than two stories high. There’s lots of seating along the sidewalks — wooden benches, hand-crafted chairs, and the obligatory giant, over-sized rocking chair. (There are two of those, actually. No waiting.) And I can now recommend the panini and the smoothies at Sasquatch Cave.
The Sasquatch Cave is a good place for food and drink.
On weekend evenings, the square is home to musicians, who gather in random groups and play mostly traditional bluegrass-y music — fiddles, guitars, and banjos being the dominant instruments. It’s fun to walk from group to group with an ice cream cone or a cool soda. I should add, I suppose, that Stone County is dry, so don’t plan on hitting a local bar or getting a beer with your cheeseburger.
There are plenty of other things to do in Mountain View. You can fish the famous White River for trout. (Local guides and fishing-centric lodging are plentiful.) There are hiking and biking trails galore. Nearby Blanchard Springs and Blanchard Springs Caverns are gorgeous and offer a classic Ozark experience. And speaking of … The Ozark Folk Center is “dedicated to the preservation and perpetuation of traditional Ozark Mountain crafts and music.” It’s a good place to get out of the heat (or the rain) and learn something about the history and culture of the area. Well worth a visit.
But enough tourism. I’d come to fish the Sylamore, and it was time to get back to the A-frame, put on my new shirt, and go wet a line.
The Fish Pointer
It was hot, but mercifully, a few clouds had gathered by mid-afternoon. I decided to fish the stretch between the two bridges, a big C-shaped section with a gravel bar along one side and bluffs with deeper pools on the opposite bank. I tied on a small, barbless, lime-colored wooly-bugger, figuring it was as good a fly to start with as any.
I cast it to the far bank, where the dark water held promise of larger fish. In between the deep pools and me were the aforementioned circular nesting beds, guarded by sunfish in spawning colors. I wasn’t having much luck luring a bigger fish from the depths, but I was soon catching and releasing a small fish on almost every cast. This got Olive very interested in the process, so I started putting the fish back in the water right at her feet. She’d jump and bark and chase them into the water. She’s sort of an idiot, to be honest, but one can’t fault her enthusiasm.
Then she began moving upstream ahead of me, stopping to bark when she spotted a fish on a bed, as if to say, “Here’s one! Catch this one!” She was like a pointing bird dog, only fishier. This is not how tweedy gentlemen fly-fish in the stories in Field & Stream, but so it goes. And so it went.
The Sylamore was as beautiful and soul-cleansing as I remembered it. An osprey soared overhead. A great blue heron picked its way through the shallows behind us, having somehow decided that the fish-chasing dog was an ally, or at least not a threat. I didn’t catch any smallmouth. They’d maybe moved downstream to deeper water to escape the summer heat, I thought. But no matter. I caught the fish that were there — and a few memories — and set them free. The afternoon drifted into evening and it was time for us to head back up the hill.
A Circle of Sky
I put some foil-wrapped salmon and asparagus on the grill, set it to low, and sat back to enjoy a glass of wine on the deck, Olive at my feet. The clouds were gone and the sun was soon to follow, fading in the west. The only sounds were a few birds and the slight chirr of cicadas tuning up for the evening’s festivities. For reasons I won’t get into, this time alone had been a long time coming and my heart was full.
I looked at the circle of sky above me, spangled with a few early emergers. Stars? Planets? It didn’t matter. Dinner was ready, and it was smoky good, as only food eaten outdoors after a day on a stream can be. I rewarded Olive for her faithful service with a chunk of salmon. It seemed only fitting.
It was dark now, the kind of darkness you can only find in the woods, 150 miles away from the nearest city. The cicadas were deafening, a thousand tiny chainsaws ripping the night. The sky was an inky well, deep and true, filled with an infinite throw of stars. An infinite throw of stars.
When You Go:
Fireside Retreats offers 18 lodging options in the Mountain View area, including the Hidden A-Frame and The Studio mentioned in this story.
