Sporting Classics
-Dancing with Trout-
 by Richard Behm
The hook is set and the dance begins, the trout running deep, the fisherman running too, downstream, rod held high, keeping the tension on.  The fish surfaces, a leap of desperate fury.  The fisherman tightens the line, then lets it run free as the fish again is calling the tune, leading the dance over and under the glittering blue waters.  At last, the fish seems tired, more tired than the fisherman’s back, and it is led toward the net.  But the dance is far from over.
            I’m still like a kid sometimes when I get to go fishing.  I check my gear over and over, keep taking my rod out of the case, putting it together, locking the reel on, and making imaginary casts to dimpling trout.  So it is the first morning at Five Rivers Lodge.  Since I wasn’t meeting my guide until seven-thirty, I’d requested coffee at six.  Yet at five I was wide awake, dreaming of catching trout.  I slipped into my jeans, pulled a sweatshirt on and went outside.  Dawn was just starting to touch the mountains, and a lavender mist hung in the valleys.  No one else was stirring yet.  I got my rod and put it together and made a few casts in the lodge parking area, excited, dreaming of trout. Next >