If
there is ever a time when there's not something to do that's needs
doing, I don't know when that is. However, sometimes on these winter
days – mornings in particular, when I'm sipping coffee and watching
light snow fall while redpolls and grosbeaks try to clean the
sunflower seeds from the feeder – I get to sort of daydreaming and
recollecting some of the times I've had; the game I've taken, dogs
I've followed, fish I've hooked, things I've seen. Whether we mean to
or not I think we all head for the woods and water more for the
memories than anything else, though we may not admit it. Recalling
those memories is good for the soul and gets our minds off the other
stuff, which in my case is the firewood I should be cutting and the
bookshelves I said I'd build.
Lately
I've been thinking about a rainbow trout. A certain rainbow trout
that I came across over a year ago. Chris, Scott, and I were working
our way down a little wilderness river that required us to wade and
pull our raft part of the time and relax and drift with the current
the rest of the time. Even in the shallowest riffles there was always
a narrow deeper run next to the cut bank that held rainbows, dolly
varden, grayling, and spawned out red sockeye salmon. I believe it
was the second day of the trip and we weren't making a lot of
progress because there were just too many good places to stop and
fish. I suppose fishing from the raft was possible, but it just
wasn't for us so we'd beach it on a gravel bar and proceed in our
waders. We'd often get pretty spread out and sooner or later one of
us would go back up and get the raft.
Scott
and Chris had wandered downstream out of sight so I hiked back up
and brought the raft down. I found the two of them casting into a
nice stretch of water so I floated by them and landed the boat just
above a narrows. With rod in hand I walked the shoreline through the
narrows and came upon the prettiest little plunge pool I've ever
seen. The pool may have been thirty feet long or it could have been
less. I don't believe it was any longer. No telling how deep it was
but the first five or six feet were crystal clear before turning a
opaque aqua blue with it's depth. The river fell into this pool,
settled, and rose up again to form a rapids at the tail end. Tangled
willows lined the banks. I could have sat and peered into the water
on another day, but we were all caught up in a deep-in-our-bellies
kind of latent frenzy to catch more fish.
Fishing a very ordinary egg-sucking leech pattern and enjoying extraordinary results, a short cast was dropped into the current feeding the pool. I
watched the black bodied fly with pink yarn head slowly sink as it
drifted through the pool. I don't know if I've ever seen a fly so
clearly in the water and it was interesting to see if nothing else.
It reached the end of the pool and I lifted and cast again. Again the
fly drifted slowly, it's rabbit strip tail pulsing with the easy current.
Then it happened.
Out
of the aqua depth rose the trout. An outrageous trout that made my
breath stop. Never had I seen a trout so large, so colorful, and I
was to find out, so wild. The fish rose under the fly to within
inches. Apparently unimpressed and relaxed, it lazily turned away and
eased down out of sight. I stood there slack-jawed wondering if I'd seen what I'd just seen.
I
may have been shaking or not, I don't know the angling equivalent of
buck fever, but I was half laughing when I called upstream to
announce what I'd come across. Can't say my companions heard my
words but Scott could tell something was up and he grabbed the net
and started my way.
My
mind was racing, wondering if I should add weight, change flies, or
try a different approach. The trout wasn't spooked, though, and I was too
excited to do anything other than cast again. I can't remember if
Scott was close enough to see the fish appear again but this time it
opened it's mouth took the fly in no hurry, like, I suppose, it had
taken hundreds of meals drifting through the pool. It's a miracle I
didn't jerk the fly from it's mouth. As a matter of fact, I
think everything went right and I lifted the rod to see the fly grab the corner of the rainbow's mouth before feeling the tug. “Got
'im.”
Scott
was next to me now and the fish bore deep before racing up to the surface
to jump and head downstream. We watched it all and because of a
hefty leader I was able to bring the fish back to the pool where we
saw it dart back and forth before peeling line and aiming downstream
again. I pulled as much as I thought I could. The trout pulled back.
Scott readied the net.
A
couple of attempts with the net proved futile – too soon, the
outsized trout was just beginning it's fight. Back and forth with
the fish of a lifetime! Oh, I wanted to land this trout, get my hands
under it's sagging weight and peer at the brilliance a truly wild
rainbow wears; to measure it, with Scott's help, and verify this fish
was indeed 30 inches or better. Keep calm, keep pressure
but not too much, tire this monster of a trout and bring it to hand.
Would the leader hold? The knots slip? The rod snap?
The
fish was downstream in the current but coming back and would soon be
ours. Scott had the net low and ready but at the last moment the
powerful rainbow shook it's head and suddenly turned to accelerate
away, with no return. The popping sound of monofilament a harbinger
to a moment of silence. Scott held the empty net and I looked at the
limp line dangling from the end of my rod. What went wrong and what
could have went right? It didn't matter. I hooked and played the fish
until it escaped. It wasn't the outcome hoped for but was the
outcome handed to me that day. And another memory was made.
I
don't know if I'll ever get back to that pool – it's not an easy
place to get to and takes some time and effort to pull off – but
sometimes I dream about returning and camping on the bar just above
that very hole where I'd stay and try for that big trout until satisfied bringing it to hand or convinced I never would.
Well,
there were a lot of rainbows caught on that trip, but none that
compared with the one lost, though as the days passed we floated into bigger water
downstream and came into absolutely huge dollies and soon after
found the reel-screaming silver salmon. There were bears and caribou
and wolves to watch and I hardly gave another thought to the one that
got away. If I try I can recall other big fish in other places that I might have
landed but didn't, and there will probably be more in the future. But
that one rainbow trout stands out as a great fish in a great place,
and that's the one I'm thinking about now.
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