by
Tim F.
Member since:
January 14, 2007
January 18, 2007 05:38 PM EST
(Updated: January 18, 2007 05:41 PM EST)
The fishing started out slowly, and then it just got worse. We set up camp near the Henry’s Fork the first afternoon and stayed on the river until 10 p.m., tying on fly after fly in a futile effort to hook into something more substantial than the occasional pud Rainbow. Just before we waded back to shore, three large forms landed on the river just upstream and floated silently downstream in front of us. They were pelicans, their strange, sharp silhouettes backlit by the twilight of the northern summer night.
We floated the same stretch of river the next day with almost no success, and by the end of the third day, a day-long float on the Madison that was punctuated only by an occasional hookup with a listless whitefish, we started telling one another, “Hey, it’s not just a fishing trip, it’s an adventure!”
Still, it really wasn’t that much of an adventure. It was pretty much a standard unsuccessful fishing trip. There were ospreys and eagles and fields of wildflowers, and there was that one afternoon and evening on the Gallatin when the rain stopped and the wind died down and we were casting in a beautiful stretch of meadow water to rising fish and were actually catching our share, but for the most part, we kept hoping that tomorrow would be the day when it all came together.
It almost came together on Slough Creek, but I had talked up the stream so much to Ron that disappointment was inevitable. I caught a beautiful 17-inch cutthroat, and he caught a fish or two, but the water was high, and the fish were spread out all over the stream and not concentrated in the crystal clear pools that I remembered when I came up here 4 years ago in mid-August. Still, we were fishing in this incredible alpine valley, with the Absaroka Mountains in the distance and grizzlies in the hills above us, and yes, it was almost an adventure at that point. The hike wore us both out, though, and when we got up the next morning, the last day of fishing.
That last night, we splurged on a motel room in Jackson and crashed almost immediately to the sounds of newly minted vacation cowboys drinking in the parking lot. I slept deeply, and just before I woke up, I and had one of those dreams that are more than a dream. I dreamt I was kissing a beautiful woman. It was a light, lingering kiss -- almost beyond erotic, and better, in the best dreaming way, than anything in a waking state could hope to be. I started to massage her neck, and I felt her head shake “No.” I started to massage her shoulders, and she broke off, saying, “I never make love the first time.” And finally, the failed trip made sense, and I knew that I would be back up here, at the source, again.
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Comments: 3
Then....there are just those days........ ;-)
Thanks for the article.
But then, I try never to color the actuality of a thing with expectation.
I like the write, well done