| The air is thick with a solemn stillness. It's nearly oppressive, stunted-breathing and a halted-heartbeat kind of stuff, as if I might be crushed beneath the atmospherics of anticipation. I find no solace in my fly box, where there are only more questions. As an angler, I'm not much for reasoning. People, some of whom know a hell of a lot more about bugs than they should, write entire books based on just this moment. I'd rather go with an old favorite, pick a pretty one, guess, and then use those extra moments to look around. I have no motive for lying. In every direction the land rolls away like a carpet, endless and flat, dotted intermittently by small bursts of a color other than green - bog rosemary, purple monkshood, reindeer moss; perhaps even a brown bear ambling along. It feels like the edge of the world, not least because my range of vision is limited only by the natural curvature of the earth.
At the heart of it all, naturally, runs a river. And there are trout here.
While the space and the silence can lash at one's senses, I'm grounded by the water. This is a comfort. This I understand. I know there are glaciers straddling the valleys of the Alaska Range far to the east and I know those glaciers feed a number of small creeks that fan through the foothills and eventually pour into a pair of headwater lakes. My river has twin sources, issuing from each lake, and after the tributaries intersect, the stream braids into maybe a dozen channels as it crosses the tundra plain. I also know that ahead the river will empty into Bristol Bay, and that in the bay and beyond swim countless numbers of Pacific salmon making their way home to the lakes of this system and the spawning beds above. Millions of sockeye pass this spot every year.
I know the trout are waiting for them but not yet dependent, and so reason prevails. I think Bugger, leech, Double Bunny: A big fly for big fish. I return my eyes to the river and notice the seam, the darkening of the water as it flows over the shelf, the long slot. I know this is where the big fish live.
It becomes even harder to breathe.
Still, the commonalities of flowing water tell me I'm not that special. Trout live in a lot of places and they're always beautiful. I've caught great fish beneath Montana's big sky and lunkers in Argentina, and I've heard plenty about the allure of Kamchatka, where apparently anyone who can hit water without falling out of the boat is guaranteed a speckle-sided football or two. But nowhere outside Bristol Bay conjures in me such hope for outlandish success. Brooks, Moraine, Kukaklek; the Naknek, Alagnak, and Kvichak; both Talariks, the Nushagak, the Koktuli, the labyrinth of water within the Wood-Tikchiks and more: Just hearing the names of these rivers can bring alarming irregularities to my pulse. It's more than the guttural nature of the area's linguistics, all the 'eks and 'iks and 'aks, and it goes beyond the size of the salmon runs; it's more than the large freshwater lakes that act as nurseries for the juvenile salmon and as feeding troughs for the trout. It's a feeling - ten pounds, twelve, fifteen-plus.
Russia is fine, I think, but its superlatives do not match ours.
By now, my leader has been checked for knocks and knicks and re-checked for the quality of my knots; my cast isn't a complete disaster and my fly is wet. I strip once to bring the swing under control and I settle in to wait out the drift. There is a tension in my chest, a tightness I can't escape when truly large rainbows are at issue. I think of nothing in particular but am no less aware.
The take comes mid-swing, as sharp as acute appendicitis. Line spins off the spool and I nearly need to bite the knuckles of my free hand to keep from palming the rim. Somewhere towards the opposite bank, nearing the next bend, the trout vaults clear of the water. The leader snaps. The air around me beats like a stethoscope.
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