Refused...

While the red bodied wispy white winged fly got me into fish in early August, and the fishing on the Ranch is always great, lately, the catching was something else, a few here and there, none of any size. Perplexed, a bit frustrated, but I kept at it for a couple of days. But the reoccurring thought, what’s the deal? Locals whispered about the big cuts in the lower section. Was the water too warm, did the fish move up to the canyon, and was I just lame at this, thoughts that kept me up that night.

The iPhone twitched as the screen lit up. “u round fish ranch”. I shot back, “bring boat”.

Taylor guides for one of the big outfits. He’s a long lanky kid, dark hair, good features. I’ve known him for a good while, friend of his father. Good folks. His dad’s been buying land in the shadow of the Tetons for a decade or so, on the Idaho side. Spent time on the Colorado River at Lee’s ferry with Dad in the early – mid ‘90’s.

Over the years I’d call Taylor for a day or two float on the South Fork. I told Dad after one our first floats, “this kid has it bad”, like many of us, the attraction of rivers and the prospect of hooking up big fish can border on obsession. For some, the draw of the rod and reel in hand, the searching eye over the water to spy that nose piercing the film or fin rolling through the surface is irresistible.  The urge to flex a rod to power the line enabling the pattern to land above a rising fish has a way of reordering the pattern of ones life. Taylor had it bad, I know, I get it.

Looking up from under the overhang of shady branches beneath the big Cottonwood tree, I was sitting in a camp chair next to the green one-man tent taking a break from casting to rising fish on the slack water section of the river, bright shards of light from the sun reflecting off the massive grill of a jacked up Ford F 250 pick up towing a seemingly tiny trailer containing boat behind. A trail of dust curled behind as this beast of a rig came to a halt on the sandy dike road. A black lab stood with front legs rested high up on the top of the tail gate as Taylor shouted, “down, Addy”. He dropped the gate and she sprung into the air, taking off into the tall yellow grass with abandon. What joy, a dog in full flight, freed from any and all confines, tail wagging and full of life and happy to be alive.

In the same way, that image expressed what I was feeling, but had yet to neither realize nor fully understand. Several decades of grinding deals through the wheels of commerce, building portfolios and managing assets under the sometimes harsh vagaries of the market place, had taken its toll. While the work was the chosen path, and much fulfillment and reward was contained therein, it was time, compelled by the times or otherwise, to seek my “Angle of Repose”, to borrow from my old and dear friend.

Wading and exploring this tiny reach of the river in the day, sitting alone next to a burning fire in the evening, then retreating to simple cover, as I zipped the mesh opening of the green one-man tent, was my way of exhaling that long full breath held for so long. A metaphorical sigh of relief that it was time to reorder things, while not fully stepping away from the life she and I had built together over so many years. The skies, quite days and nights, the haunting sound of geese at daybreak, the sunrise over the Tetons each morning became part of the rhythm of daily life here.  

A few minutes later, Tanner pulled up in his black Tacoma, the silhouette of another lab bounced around in the bed. Lola was young and curious and full of adolescent mischief. Unlike Addy’s sprint to the horizon, Lola held close to Tanner sniffing everything in site, Tail wagging at a frenzied pace.

The F250 was too big to turn around. Taylor unhooked the scow from his rig and yelled to Tanner to pull around to hook the boat to the Tacoma and drive it up the road a bit. I walked to the launch site and waved them over. The trailer wheels dropped off the back a couple of feet as Taylor released the crank connected to the bow strap and the low slung scow glided into the quite water above the small check.

This was way cool. The first float on this river from a put-in on the Ranch. The inaugural launch. None of us had floated this reach of the river and therefore didn’t know exactly what to expect. Taylor took the oars, Tanner in back, and I joyfully stood at the prow, rod ready with great expectation and a sense of pride that we could launch from the Ranch. Somehow, that was, unexpectedly, important.

Tanner’s a stocky kid possessing a bit of an attitude without a hint of arrogance, but seemingly a young man comfortable with himself and happy with this young life thus far.  Where Taylor was naturally at ease with most situations, smooth and capable, Tanner’s strength came from a different place, mainly by doing things and becoming good at them. A good student, he wastes no time getting on with the adventure of the moment.

I pushed us off the bank as Taylor rowed back and swung the bow downstream toward the twenty foot gap in the check about two hundred feet down stream. Tanner cast a Chernobyl Ant with a Hare’s Ear dropper, hooked up a ten inch cut immediately. Released and, on it’s way, he cast again, The top fly dipped beneath the surface and he raised his rod tip to feel the tug of a twelve inch hybrid. Then, a longer cast to the distant bank scored a direct hit immediately on impact with  the surface, smashing the Chernobyl, as another cut came up to succumb to Tanner’s  prowess. And finally, about to reach the check and drive through the tongue of rushing water, he hooks a rainbow.  This kid was possessed and as things unfolded that afternoon, he continued to take no prisoners.

We get through the check and approached that  one place that has consumed my imagination since the first walk on the Ranch, the deep dark water covered by the willow overhang on the far bank, the approach of which from the near bank protected by the deep rushing water and the high shelf just past mid stream. I’d been defeated and turned away before, now was the time to come at it another way. Stripping out line by casting parallel to the river, the big hopper landed perfectly at the edge of the willow overhang. The anticipation was building as the gray parachute hopper floated perfectly inside the foam line. A third the distance of the run a streak of light came up from the bottom of the dark water. Moving like a flash, and in an instant this awesome fish came to within what seemed a centimeter of the floating morsel of terrestrial delight, then, as quickly, turned  and disappeared into the depths of the dark water beneath the willow overhang. 

Damn. Man, it had to be at least 18 or 19 inches. The first big fish to cross my path. What I had imagined, each and every morning as I looked up from the pages of Gutherie’s novel,  while consuming breakfast and peering into that spot, was confirmed. It held big fish.

The boat, full with three guys and two dogs, struck too large a pose in this narrow channel. So close, yet refused at that last moment. Drifting through and past the run, there was a sense of disappointment, yet a deeper measure of satisfaction that what I suspected to be was, in fact, the truth. Somehow, I need to get to that far bank on foot.

Catching the current at the tail end of the run, pushing the boat downstream toward a solitary overhanging bush I yelled to Tanner to cast just above it. I stepped on a nice cut just below the bush the day before wading across the lower section of the Ranch. Taylor rowed backward to slow the speed of the boat as Tanner worked out line. His final cast shot perfectly above the run as the big Chernobyl splashed on the water’s surface. The drift lasted about two seconds when from under the overhang a torpedo shaped image rushing at mach speed crushed the foam fly. Instantly an explosive flash from the pale underbelly of the cutty erupted as it felt the sharp point of Tanner’s wonder bug. This fish hit it hard like a bow or a brown, not the characteristic casual cutthroat approach to taking edible objects from the surface of the water, but a hard charge, with full intent, to devour the foam imitation.

After the cutty had been released and we were all settling down, I cast back out onto the water and turned to the back of the boat and said, “Tanner, you can thank me now or you can thank me later, did I call that”, he smiled and mumbled, “yes, you did”.