A fine mist permeates the air as I wade out into a broad pool. No rain was forecast, but I am glad to have worn my old SST jacket to keep that mist at it’s distance. The pool is quiet, so I stop just a few steps into it’s edge and wait.
My eyes are straining, but I cannot find evidence of insect life. The time, the season, this chilly misty weather, all insist this is the time.
First, it appears simply a crease in the film, out there along the far bank, but long experience leads me to begin a slow, measured approach. Getting closer, that crease has repeated once or twice, and now it seems somewhat further from the bank. Still, it could be a rogue current thread, twisting between the jumbled rocks of the riverbed, emerging fitfully, for a river is in itself alive.
The river has risen slowly, and my approach must stop short of my ideal casting range, but I set my feet and wait to see if my suspicions prove true. At last, that spirit of a crease in the flm does indeed wander out from the riverbank, punctuated with the tiniest wink of light and a ring the size of a half dollar.
Larger rivers often demand our maximum casting efforts, but this game screams for delicacy. Those two ends do not necessarily meet. The delicacy is paramount here, and yes, this infrequent delicate little excuse for a rise tries to tell me that it emanates from a fingerling, but I know better.
For a moment of time, the movements cease, and I extricate myself out of deeper water and reposition. I find a perch closer to the bank, but further upstream, the cast requiring a bit more distance, but allowing a longer more downstream drift. Once in what seems a long while, that quiver of movement precedes another half dollar ring.
Failing from my second point of attack, I extricate myself again from the depth that threatens the dry pockets of my vest and reposition again. When that ring appears again, I force my tense muscles to relax and flick the rod more gently, feed the slack line perfectly through my line hand and watch the tiny fly drop on the goal, a barely visible thread of current, and watch it ride…
The ring finally envelopes my fly, and, though it seems my slight pause is correct, I raise the rod smoothly and feel nothing.
The game degrades from that apex, my offering various different flies, and the fish simply demurs to rise to any of them. Still though, he sips something invisible every now and then, just to assure me that he has won.
Before I go, I see a lone rise amid faster water, and I make the long walk of shame. Stalking to deal with the quick, jumbled currents, I make the one cast that lands perfectly and the trout meets the fly amid the spray!
Another dance, this one lasting but a moment. This trout is big and he knows exactly where he is. The lovely little classic reel affixed to my Friendship Rod screams violently, as he dives into the rocks and hangs my fly in the bottom, debris. Retrieved, it bears a wisp of water weed, a consolation prize?
Yes, I am still smiling.
