The creek looked like something pulled out of a wilderness designer’s catalogue. It snaked through a sweeping meadow valley, each turn revealing deep undercut banks and plenty of hiding spots for trout. Rocks peppered about half the runs, giving me a mix of pools, riffles, and pocket water, in which I knew were cutthroat eager to smack a dry fly.

When I was a young boy, seemingly immune to my mother’s constant focus on all things neat and proper, I spent my summers mucking around in the swamp behind our house. As swamps go, ours was neither large nor particularly dangerous, boasting not one single crocodile, alligator, poisonous snake or patch of quicksand. To be absolutely candid it was a small swamp, and its most perilous (if you could call them that) denizens were snapping turtles and water snakes, either of which might decide to give you a nip if you happened to stick a finger or toe in the wrong place.