Timing

I felt an urgency as I gathered my tackle and headed for the river yesterday, though I didn’t really expect the fishing I hoped to find to begin until afternoon. Hurry when you must I guess.

I was looking for another shot at a big brown that had overpowered angler and rod and cut me off two days earlier, and though experience tells there was no good reason to expect a rematch, I still felt that urgency.

I reached the riverbank with my rod already rigged, the 100-Year Dun Isonychia clipped into the nickel silver ring of the hook keeper. I started my slow walk into the wind, finding the river cleared from the previous day’s runoff. It was just about Noon when I reached the run, and began to slowly scan the current for signs of life.

I could see a few flies in the drift, and occasionally one on the wing, but there was no sign of a rise.

Before I waded into casting position, I flicked a few casts into the gradually deepening flow. Better to hook a trout then step on one, should there be something sheltering near one of those rocks on the bottom; waiting.

I had readied myself, wishing to relieve that urgency, so at last I made the cast I had been waiting two days for. The fly alighted, cocked perfectly, setting low on it’s hackles as it bounced down current. I felt the tension in my back and shoulders begin to ease and then the river erupted in a heavy spray of white water. He came for that fly as if he too had been waiting two days for it’s return. Some things are simply meant to be.

We had a time there in the deep, frothy currents of the run, my vintage Thomas & Thomas Paradigm fully arched with the strain, connected to all of his power and life force, the ratcheting screams of the old CFO rising above the sound of wind and rushing water! It was as I had imagined it would be.

At last I led him to the edge of the river and the waiting net. His flanks were wide, colored a deep, time polished bronze, and his belly glowed with that dark, old gold. He was beautiful and worthy of all my admiration as I twisted the fly free from it’s hold in his lip.

My net shot net awry, the camera screen flashing battery depleted when I pressed the on button. I have only the picture in my mind, thus I have shared another in homage to this warrior.

He shot back to the safety of the run as soon as I slipped him free of the mesh, big and vibrant and still sure of himself despite our second meeting having gone my way.

I began casting with vigor after those moments passed, covering all of the fast water of the run and the tail of the riffle above, conscious of a gathering cloudiness in the water. By half past one, the river was brown instead of clear, and I could not see my boot when standing knee deep in the flow. There were no rises visible anywhere.

The sky was clear and blue to all quarters, and there was no chance some downpour on the mountainsides had rushed dirty runoff down some upstream tributary. No, this had to be some devilment of man.

I walked out then, concerned and angered that some miscreant would foul our beautiful river this way, my spirit as clouded as the water just a short time after it’s uplifting in the run.