Jim the conductor sat down in the empty seat next to me. In a firm low conductor voice, he warned me:

“Keep Montauk a secret.”

And since he was the conductor, I listened.

“Promote the trout fishing at Bennett Springs if you want,” he said, “and at Maramec Springs and at Roaring River. But keep Montauk a secret.”

Fishermen are that way. Secretive. Possessive. Sometimes downright paranoid. I think it has something to do with spending so much time alone with beer and worms. Since I was on his train, I lied and told him I’d keep his secret. At least until now. Truth is, there are thousands of secret water spots in the heartland. But Montauk isn’t one of them. The conductor knows that. Every fly fisherman within a thousand miles knows about Montauk.

I grew up nearby, near enough to frequent that not-so-secret little Ozarks spring near the headwaters of the Current River. And roots being roots, I’m proud of Montauk. I recall my first trip to that remote little trout park.

It was about as far back as my memory goes, back when I was practicing my phonics on Burma-Shave signs.

My family unit rolled out of Rolla in a ’58 Biscayne, leaving Route 66 in our rearview mirror, headed for the springs. Our car bobbed and weaved on a roller-coaster road that unfurled through the thick woods, deep in free-range country where you had to keep an eye out for deer, but also had to dodge pigs and cows and horses.

When our family arrived at Montauk, not one of us wet a line. We ran around the old mill, and fed the tiny fish in the hatchery and stood in the cold rushing water for as long as we could stand it, and marveled at the natural beauty of spring water busting out from under a mountain.

And I slept all the way home.

–from Coastal Missouri