Another of his sporting companions over the years was Ed Dodd, who originated the syndicated comic strip "Mark Trail." More than once, Dodd confided that his fictional woodsman was loosely based on his friend Charlie Elliott.

As we sat in Elliott's study, the veteran outdoorsman spun yarns about trekking through the Georgia mountains during the 1930s and '40s, trout fishing and turkey hunting with Arthur Woody, the "barefoot ranger" who virtually single-handedly patrolled what would become the Chattahoochee National Forest. And true to his nickname, Woody made those rounds without benefit of footwear.

Elliott's narrative eventually turned to his other love: the pursuit of bobwhite quail. For that passion, he was blessed with an exceptional mentor in Robert Woodruff, better known as "The Boss" to the staff of the Coca-Cola empire, and owner of 29,000-acre Ichauway Plantation near Albany. For three decades, Elliott hobnobbed with celebrities and royalty while following on horseback the pointers and setters ranging through the plantation's wiregrass and longleaf pines. During his days in the field, several generations of the region's fledgling hunters and fishermen came of age.

Those experiences also provided the fodder for the more than 20 books that Elliott eventually authored. To listen to his firsthand accounts shoved ajar the door to that faded world for an afternoon. Eventually, I felt compelled to ask him if he had more writing planned.

"The last thing I'll ever do on this Earth," he assured me, "is drag myself across this office floor, reach up to the typewriter and hit the wrong key."

During the hours we whiled away in his formal office, our conversation wandered onto the subject of fishing the Georgia mountains. We shared anecdotes of favorite pools and memorable casts, especially on the Conasauga and Jacks rivers in northwest Georgia's Cohutta Mountains. Our stories were separated by half a century, but in both versions the waters were clear, the trout painted with sparkling colors, and the same breezes ruffled the surrounding leaves.

Now sitting on a moss-covered rock, beside the babbling water and shaded by the forest canopy, I have the sense that I'm still in Charlie Elliott's office. Only it's now the more expansive, informal portion where he learned the stories, before he sat down to type them.

It was in early May, not long after the opening of the first trout season of the new millennium, when I heard that "Mr. Charlie," as he had come to be known, had moved on to another plane, leaving his beloved earthly mountains, waters and pine flatlands to the rest of us to shepherd.

We outdoorsmen seem compelled to share tales of our adventures. Yet recounting them to indulgent acquaintances is very often just throwing words against a stone wall, only to watch them shatter and tumble earthward. Simply put, the listener needs a frame of reference to truly understand and appreciate such a story. The quality of the friends to whom a fish tale is presented diminishes or elevates its value. Charlie Elliott would have lent an approving ear to my revelries of the morning's fishing action, listening with a smile and twinkle in his eye.

The high mountains and broad rivers of the West have been described as the cathedrals of trout fishing in America. That would seem to make this shaded valley of Bear Den Creek in which I rest more a personal chapel. If the scale is diminished, the glory is the same. Too bad Mr. Charlie is not on hand to share my rock pulpit and hear my testimony.

Then again, perhaps I'm wrong about his absence. The sound I assume is the rattle of wind-blown leaves may actually be the muffled mirth of an approving chuckle shared between Charlie Elliott and Mark Trail as they peek through the rhododendron at the angler splayed out on a rock beside the stream, musing on the many ingredients that create the magic of their mountains in the springtime.