Evening Fishing at Knowles Brook

The sky’s hazy colors ranged from the west’s pale pink to the east’s opaque gray-blue.

He walked along the river bank toward the mouth of the brook.  The bank was lumpy with sandpiles and, in places, overgrown with alders.  He stumbled over smooth rocks, through brambles, tall grass, and mud.  His feet sank in the mud.  He didn't care.  His feet had been wet all day.  That's the way it is on canoe trips.

He waded across the shallow brook to fish its downriver side.  The water was cooler than the river’s.  It felt good.  He wiggled his toes to loosen the mud in his shoes and looked down to watch the mud drift away downstream.

The river’s level was low, revealing a flat expanse of dry round stones that formed a small peninsula jutting into the river below the brook.  He dropped his creel and knapsack and sat down and opened a small aluminum fly box.  He took a fat cigaret – a hand-rolled Three Castles - out of the box and lit it with his Zippo.  He blew smoke rings at the black flies.

The fly box contained a couple dozen streamers, mostly bucktails, in bright yellows, whites, and reds.  He studied them, choosing one with yellow hair and a dark green body.  He liked the Edson light tiger.  It was elegant and easy to tie.  He laid the smoldering cigaret on a rock and tied the fly to his leader.  He was ready.  He sat and watched the brook curve around his peninsula as it merged with the warmer river water.  There would be trout among the rocks there.  He watched for movement, maybe he’d see a quick flash or a rise to catch a bug.  He was in no hurry.

Upriver he could see the smoke of the campfire.  His friends would be putting dishes away, boiling a pot of coffee, maybe playing cribbage.  They were quiet and he felt an impulse of gratitude toward them.  He thought, some people yell and yahoo all the time they're in the woods, as if they hated silence, or felt uncomfortable with just the murmur of the river flowing past.

His eyes followed the sweep of the broad river from camp to his brook.  Nearby the water gurgled and splashed.  He stood and walked to the water's edge, studying it for trout.  Maybe there would be some big ones in the deeper water.

He threw the cigaret butt into the current and watched it float away.   With cigaret butts he had often found trout.  Once he had seen a big brook trout rise and take a cigar butt.

He let out his line and started to cast.  Easy, he thought.  He'd had a couple of drinks.  He felt good, and alert.  He was in no hurry.  After he had covered the water with the Edson bucktail, he would switch to a dry fly.

A white-throated sparrow called from across the river.  He loved to hear its call.  It was the only bird song he could identify.  It sang "Oh Canada Canada Canada."

The yellow streamer dropped across the current and was carried along until the line dragged straight downstream.  Nothing.

He cast methodically, out a little further each time, walking downstream a few steps before casting again.  The Edson wasn't working.

It was twilight.  He thought, if I'm going to use a dry fly, I'd better do it while I can see.  He tied on a Quill Gordon, a dark fly for visibility against the evening sky brightly reflected in the water, and he began to work his way upstream, back to his creel and pack.

On his second cast the fly splashed and disappeared and he had hooked a trout.  He felt its pulsing tug against his line.  It felt like a middling-sized trout.  He played the trout gently.  He would release it unless it were big enough to serve to the four of them for breakfast, and therefore be big enough to show off.  He led the trout into the shallow water, wet his hand, and grasped the trout around the middle.  It was a little shorter than foot-length, a hen, silver-colored.  He released the fish by grasping the bend of the hook and backing the barb out.  The hook slipped out easily.

The trout rested in the shallow water, just under the surface.  Its gills moved in and out.  Motionless, he watched it warily swim amid the rocks toward deep water.  Soon it was out of sight.

He stood up and looked around.  Across the river two whitetail deer, small does, grazed in the tall grass on the bank.  He watched for a while.  They seemed unconcerned with his presence, their heads down and tails switching at flies.  He knew he was finished with fishing tonight.  It was dark now and his dry fly was soaked.  The evening star winked amid the spruce in the western horizon.  He picked up his creel and knapsack and headed back to camp.  His hands smelled like trout.  The deer watched him and slowly returned, grazing, into the woods.

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