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The fading sun cast everything with a twinge of gold and
the bumping and burbling waters of the creek ran clear enough to bring New
Zealand to mind. But it was Alaska, land of glacial silt and tannic tint,
evidenced not so much in the clarity of the stream but by the two-foot-long
rainbow trout continually brought to hand and then released.
Casts were better—longer, sharper, with impeccably tight loops rolling
out and turning over giant deer hair creations. The mouse imitations floated
high, skittering across the surface, and before the end of every swing—every
swing—a shark-like wake, a boil, and the flush of the fly being dragged
under would command excited hands and arms to set the hook.
And then the real fun began. Wild Alaska rainbows leapt from the water,
tail-walked across the surface, and then did it all over again. Santa Claus
never brought such gifts.
However, as any child will tell you, dreams aren’t always that nice. But
they are for anglers, the trout-bewitched especially, who spend their
slumbers dreaming of waters and of fish they’ll wake up and one-day meet.
For them, nightmares are left for the daylight hours, when loose knots,
brittle leaders, bad casts, leaky waders, rain, wind, and big fish fought
and lost take turns dominating the action on the center stage. Yet, for
trout anglers, even these dreariest of daytime realities usually end in
satisfaction, as the magic of the rainbow trout, like that of few other
gamefish, lies in its ability to still give while taking everything else
away. Perhaps no other fish, save the rainbow’s sea-run cousin, can inspire
such hopes among the enchanted, dash them so pitilessly, and then leave
nothing but the warmth of contentment swimming in its vacated wake.
In Alaska, the fly rodders of today enjoy rainbow opportunities that have
long been lost to anglers just about everywhere else. Only the streams of
Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula can rival the 49th state for big, beefy, and
abundant ’bows. From the celebrated stomping grounds of 30-inch trophies—the
Kenai, Naknek, and Iliamna watersheds—to lesser known, and maybe less
prolific, ribbons of blue crisscrossing the state in areas both remote and
right-next-door, the streams that hold Alaska’s wild Oncorhynchus mykiss
irideus may escape the accumulated body heat of salmon-fishing fervor, but
whatever lack of numbers trout anglers bring to their waters is more than
made up for by a healthy outpouring of piscatory passions.
For these angling few, a day spent streamside only amplifies their zeal
to return. Here, satiation is the fountain Ponce de León could never find, a
holy wine chalice, Ahab’s whale.
For my own part, I greedily consumed the images of golden sunlight and
sixty-foot casts, of softly rippling tailouts and eager fish. I watched as
trout after trout rose to a skating mouse, and after a while, I even began
to think I was awake.
Then the alarm sounded 4 a.m.
A quick glance out the window revealed a world cloaked in about ten
shades of gray. Rain pelted the roof of the house. It didn’t take
Nostradamus to predict the only warmth the day had to give lay in the bed
I’d just left. And it was early, not so much the hour but the month, as the
rainbows in this part of Alaska would still be scattered if not altogether
scarce. Mice imitations would never work, nor in all likelihood would
anything else fished on the surface.
Still, fly boxes were gathered and stuffed into jacket pockets in a
hurried but practiced motion. Waders, a rod, reel, and thermos of steaming
coffee were tossed in the truck and a long drive commenced.
Pulling away from my home, wipers rattling, some coffee now spilled in my
lap, I cursed an overactive imagination, as that was undoubtedly the only
thing that could have sent me headlong into this tempest. I tried to
convince myself the fishing would be no good, that trout had better sense
than to be out in this and that a U-turn could have been my last chance to
claim any hold on sanity. But something somewhere deep inside kept my foot
firmly on the accelerator and my eyes squarely on the road. Something about
a dream.
There were trout out there, I knew, more certain with every mile that
passed. And maybe even that one—the thirty-inch missile, the silver lunker
who’d already avoided many a presentation but might have been finally ready
to eat—the one. It may have been a foolish thought, and I already sensed
that was how I’d see it after the light of day had faded, but for now,
driving towards the stream, I realized some things are just too important to
ever stop believing in.
—Troy Letherman
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