A Legendary Fall Day

The Yampa flowed just below us, cloaked in gold and rust colored leaves, rubbing up next to the rocky bank where our picnic table was perched on the edge, affording us an unfettered view of brook and bauble. A fog of steam spewed up from my coffee cup as I shivered in the pre-sun dawn. I thought to myself, just before the sun came up, I wonder what kind of day it will be. Below me, on the river, an old man appeared, from nowhere, portly, sturdy, athletic and so light on his feet I didn’t hear him approach over the smooth but rowdy water.

A lefty, he held the rod with alacrity and clearly, I could tell he was a god. The night before I had watched mere mortals and amateurs froth the water with whips and my scorns, but here, before me, was a trout fishing artist in residence and we had a view, or maybe a vision, of him as he moved along the rocks with deft steps and subtle unhurried moves. White hair sprouted out from beneath his hat, clean chin and clear blue eyes, even from my vantage point I could see his singular focus. He surveyed the stretch before us and then picked a deep pocket of water about 40 feet across from himself, but immediately below me so I could see the fly, the man, the line, the developing drama.

He had a full compliment of gear, and not a lick of it was camo. His ensemble was a pallet of faded pastels, the vest was worn but not worn-out, like his face. From his belt, a wooden-framed net hung behind him, he had calf high rubber boots on, a patina of experience and calm lived on his face as the new-day sun bounced rays of light off the water giving him a glow and a sparkle, and then, he began.

The first cast was preparatory and preemptive to a graceful draw of line from his right hand. In a rhapsody of movement rod and fly glided languorously through the air and formed a gossamer figure eight above the surface like a lasso of living line. He made another, and then another cast before he let it light, about 10 feet below where I was sitting. He still hadn’t noticed me, hidden beneath the cottonwood, and I didn’t acknowledge our vista in any way so as to not break the spell that had been cast upon the morning and the picnic table and the coffee and the symphony of water falling over rocks and trees, and the man-fish-god before us.

The fly landed in fast water and floated across the ripples into a hole of slow, dark green deepness that looked rich with potential. The bank curved beneath me and I watched him pull the line and the fly effortlessly out of the spot he had just landed in and again, flew the line in an arcuate dance back toward the slower water. The fly landed softly just above the darkest part of the hole and then he did something I’d never seen, or done, before – he flicked the tip of his rod and sent a sinusoidal wave down the line all the way to the fly where it leapt straight up, as if animated by electricity, into the air and re-landed on top of an almost black back eddy for just a second. I didn’t see the fish hit, but the line went taught and the rod bent over nearly in half as the old man connected with something big. He took a short step to his left and began to pull line in with his hand. The tension on the line was steady but not overdone. He and the fish were equal to each other in force as he let the life at the end of his line dance and swim. Back and forth across the current, but never out of the deepest part of the river the fish and the old man seemed suspended in trance. I don’t know how long it was (but my coffee went cold) before the fish was close enough for the old man to gracefully reach behind himself and pull the net out and place it in the water. I still hadn’t seen it and then, about 4 feet from the edge of the water the first fin broke above the surface – I couldn’t believe it. Another minute near the shore line as the old man waded into the water and slid the frame of the net beneath the fish. He reached into the river and for only a few seconds pulled the fish out of the water to remove the fly – it must have been at least 30 inches long and even from across the stream and well above him, I could see the red-green markings of a huge rainbow as it flashed in the sun. He dropped the net back into the water, a flick of fin, and the fish was gone. I turned to say something to Tam, as the spell was broken, and in the time it took to find her standing a few feet away, when I looked back to share the scene, he was gone. We had just witnessed perfection, and art, and in that instant realized, it was even better, unspoken. I reached for her hand and just smiled. “Coffee?”

and a legend begins.