Day Two - Afternoon
The sun has passed directly overhead, making its descent west. Where the trees overhang the banks the river flows in dark shadows. Green leaves, near black, drop on the breeze and drift down stream.
We are miles from this morning, walking easily downstream past holes and riffles. Where the water looks good, we scramble down steep banks and fish. D’s pulled rainbow, one striped in orange, and a brookie from this stream. He’s pulled them in a ratio of three-to-one over me. The fish are small and beautiful in a small and beautiful stream.
At two o’clock, a suggestion of pizza and cold-beer is made. It’s the best idea I’ve heard in hours. We head back to the car, three miles away, but can’t ignore a few holes we missed.
D sights green water below. I make my way down a deep, rocky pool. D sits twenty feet above me with a cigar. I tie a copper john to drop a few feet off a blue-winged olive as I watch fish dart below me.
After I nearly remove D’s ear on my back cast, I correct, and cast again. The olive is checked by two hungry trout as it drifts in an oval loop through the pool. I cast, drift, and the fly is checked again. Three drifts turn to five, to seven, to nine, and I start to reel in. D tells me to cast again, just a bit closer to the far bank this time. The olive disappears halfway through the pool and the tip of my rod bows to the stream. I set the hook and in an instant an eight-inch rainbow leaps horizontally from the water. The trout fights like no fish I’ve hooked, and I struggle to net him.
I’ve foul-hooked the trout now flopping in my net with a hook set in the side of his vermillion stripe. I don’t know what to do…how is this even possible? A hook to the ribs? Surely you could catch a thousand fish without hooking one in the guts? Have I even caught a thousand fish? Surely not! The trout swims through a hole in my net, tying hopeless knots. D is laughing, he sees I have no idea what to do, refuses help. My heart about jumps out of my chest. I land the fish again and grab his belly, turn him upside down - he calms. The hook is barely set and I can’t believe it has held this long. I grab my forceps and the slide the hook gently from his skin. I hook my thumb and forefinger around his tail and cup his belly to get him back in the water. The current flows over his gills until I feel the twitch of his tail - I let go - and watch the trout dart back to his hole.
A thought races through my mind as I consider my duty to The Fish; taken by my imitation meal, wounded by my hand, for the sake of my satisfaction. Do my fish relationships differ much from that which I have with my children? The kids didn’t ask me to deliver them from the murk of the universe; they take my food gratefully and when they are hurt, I mend their wounds. A child will flop, scream and wail at the slightest bruise, but eventually calm and trust you will release them back to the safety of their unseen kid-world. When they are gone, I hope we both have grown from the experience.
This thought passes quickly as I recall the afternoon’s first great idea. Sometimes fishing is just that, and not every riffle deserves the contemplation of philosophy. But I’m on to something here, and my thoughts will return to that foul-hooked fish…after a slice of pepperoni and a few cans of beer.
