So in the morning we launched from a vacant campground just before dawn. We were high enough up the valley to be out of the scrub oak and into coniferous woods so deep green as to look black. There was fog on the water and a premonition of morning amber in the sky reminiscent of a Bob White painting, but no sign of steelhead. We swung limpid, fishy-looking pools and obscure tubs and rips that Jack pointed out. We tried different depths and different flies. A few other boats passed, and the fishermen in them shrugged in reply to the obvious question. We shrugged back. It’s the international language of fishing.
That evening we ended up at a long, complicated run that was bumpy with submerged boulders, slicks, and braided currents. Two Spey casters from the lodge had already fished through it and were now far downstream, working their way into the tailout while their guide relaxed in the boat, allowing himself a beer because this was the last run of the day with the takeout right around the next bend. Vince and I spread out and started working down. I misread the current and my first swing was too fast, with the fly chasing the line almost straight across the river, so on the next cast I stripped off more line, threw more steeply downstream, and added a little mend. That felt better: a slow, deep, steady pull.
We were at that point in a blank trip where you can begin to lose the thread—and in a way that’s hard to explain, losing the thread can make a temporary slump permanent—but I remember feeling really good about this. For one thing, I liked this big, confusing run that probably didn’t hide dozens of steelhead but could have, and after getting an angle on it I felt that on this pass, or maybe the next, I’d begin to understand how it was put together. For another, it was the time of day when things happen, with the sun off the river and the air turning chilly. Back home on my desk was a detailed list of things that would all cost too much money but that had to be done anyway, and I was happy to be on a distant river ignoring my life.
A fish hit hard on the inside of the main current and was into the backing before I fully grasped the idea that I’d hooked a steelhead. By then it was halfway down the run where I could see Vince reeling in and backing out of the river to avoid fouling my line. Jack waded in a little way downstream and stood holding a long-handled net; the guide in the boat swiveled in his seat to watch the show, and I settled into the precarious sense of well-being that you don’t have to describe to another steelheader and can’t describe to anyone else.
John Gierach lives in Northern Colorado. His 17th book, All Fishermen Are Liars, is just out this month from Simon & Schuster.
