The fisher awoke before dawn. He put his boots on.

He chose the rod from a gallery of graphite and cork, and he walked into the forest.

Down a narrow hall canopied by hemlock boughs and sycamores, he moved through thick, hazy darkness — miles toward the island, with no sound but the crunch, crunch and rustle. Footfalls on sandy dirt, on roots and rotting leaves. Past the log. Past the riffles. Past red halos around orange spots as big as nickels, randomly speckled and enhanced by the minor refraction of cool water sliding and dripping across the broad sides of wild magnificence, the size of which as rare as any to be called legendary.

Blue was the first color to appear. Then greens showed themselves, and the trees came into focus, as the early sun lent the sky its own red and orange from below the horizon.

This was the end. The end of elaborate plans, of feathers and furs piled inches deep in the recesses of an ancient wooden desk. The end of minutes and hours, of weeks and years pondering blue meandering lines bordered by mint green contours indicating the depth of divide between mountaintops. The end of wonder, concerning the gradient and ferocity of charging water that passes through a bouldered valley. The end of fishermen’s stories.

He slid into the tailout, just beyond the bottom tip of the island. Quickly up to his waist, the fisherman skillfully braced against a current of murky water more than twice the common flow for a midsummer morning . . . and then he cast.

His line sliced through thin air and thicker water — loops and arcs were followed by a heavyweight creation so carefully crafted that the pulsing plumes and flowing feathers, moving in natural harmony with the water’s currents, could create life itself.

And how could it not be alive? This fly of so many particular hours spent refining, dreaming and modifying, that it carried a piece of its creator’s soul. These moments of inspiration, imagination, belief and then conclusion. The decisive and confident hope that this one will swim with perfect, enticing realism . . . and just maybe . . . come to life.

With the hope of a fisherman, he teased the living fly near the bottom, then pulled it parallel with the fallen and submerged tree. Surely this was the preeminent home of the watery beast in the stories that had brought him here.

On his third cast, the fly swung and fluttered at the end of the drift and gracefully glided to the surface, as if exhausted from its trip downstream — spent prey struggling to maintain equilibrium.

And then came the freight train . . .

It hit hard. A confident, decisive, straight-line, hungry charge forward and upward, deftly capturing all the life, moments and hopes conceived in a fly. . . . then horseshoe-curving back toward the unseen depths of its address.

The fisherman saw the ambushing train charge and capture its prey. With faithful restraint, he paused — waiting to feel the line tighten. (There is so much life in half a second.) As the spotted brown engine rounded the horseshoe, the fisherman set the hook.

Sharply crafted metal found its hold in a bony jaw. The rod flexed. It throbbed and bent against the power and surge of the freight train.

And then . . . the line . . . broke.

Silence filled the valley when echoes of his exasperation finished the chorus.

The fisherman’s hands were wet and shaking as he doubled over. He surrendered to the surface fog and knelt from the heavy punch to his gut.

Time passed.

Then finally, the fisherman stood and moved on.

— — —

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Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com