FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I’ve seen it’s tumbling source, white water over rocks as it sped down the valley side. I’ve watched it spread shallow over pebble beds, slowing its pace, warming to summer sunshine or, in winter, rage deep under, and sometimes over bridges, as it courses its way seaward.

Here, where it sweeps past the old wood in dappled shade, the fast flow broadens into a slower, tranquil drift and trout settle safely in the rocky cups, darting out for floating food. It is here, standing calf deep, I cast my line towards the seam.

My first casts fall short, but then the art comes back and the fly lands softly amidst the hatch, drifts but a moment and is taken. Setting the hook, I feel the weight of a good sized dinner and gently play the fish towards me, iridescent scales breaking the surface, as I lift it from the water. Gasping in the air, a healthy brown trout that’s more than a man’s supper.

I raise my head and briefly smell the wood smoke of a camper’s fire, see the wet wrapped fish baking in the embers, the soft flesh peeled from its bones and the succulence of that first taste. I look down again and see the splendour of its tinted scales, its ovoid form, its upward eye a fading button. Then, thinking who am I to decide its fate, I slide it, unhooked, gently back into the water: to live its life nature’s way.

You’ll find this story in Dandelion Days