His habit, or compulsion, was to repeat himself often while alone and on the water. A full monologue to an audience of zero was crazy. A clever quip, repeated numerous times may very well pass as three-quarters sane.

“If you’re going to fall, better to do it in front of people so they can laugh at you and offer help.”

He had already taken stock of his fly rod. It was whole. His reel hadn’t been scratched and his fly was still snugly secured in the keeper. He had also already assured himself that his tumble hadn’t ruined the pool before him. The angles of his location and the suddenness of his movements wouldn’t have been perceived by any fish that were where they were supposed to be. Plus, the whole time he was falling down the rock and through the branches his eyes were on the water. No great fish fled the commotion.

The clever quip about falling, which he had said at least once earlier in the day, was spoken aloud while touching the spots on his side and arm that smarted the most. Perhaps they’ll bruise. And no one was around to see.

This is part 3 of a semi-fictional narrative. Start out with part 1 here.

With all the preliminaries out of the way he was back to fly fishing. The deep pool was in front of him. The pool worthy of that last cast was directly in front of him. The tail out led to a little plunge just behind him and to the right, to the right of the boulder that he had previously been on. Now, he was leaning against its left side. Immediately to his left was the fragile tangle of treetop from a deadfall. Anything smaller than his wrist broke with the gentlest pressure now. When the tree fell, the green branches must have been compressed into this tight space. Just out of his reach, through the branches, was the moist side of a vertical bank.

He was standing in about a foot of water. Pea gravel had collected between the boulder and the bank. The water brought it all here but it didn’t have anywhere to go. Three or four more feet in front of him it turned to slick granite and then beyond that was the black of the deep pool.

A few branches extended above his head and slightly over his right shoulder. He broke them off to create a casting lane. Every time he broke a branch, something in him felt guilty. Not so much like he was harming nature. More like making it too easy. Not enough guilt to stop him. Now he could make a wristy backcast. The tip of his rod could punch line over the boulder. There was nothing to get hung up on over the boulder.

The pool was big enough to warrant a plan. Small plunge pools are simple: cast just in front of the foam. Bigger pools have to get broken down like butchering. Chop at this seam. Slice down that rock face. Make sure nothing cuts into and damages that one choice piece of water. If everything else is sub-prime, the choice water in front of the foam will produce.

His first last cast was against a rock protruding from the vertical bank to his left. It was the easiest cast. His rod completely avoided the boulder and the branches and the line unrolled fully allowing the fly to drop precisely at the point where the rock touched the water. The small white streamer sank. He hoped it would sink straight down. He thought his line might pull it out towards the current. A quick mend and some psychic pressure kept it where he wanted it. All in all, a decent first last cast.

Fish that strike aggressively often hook themselves. In doing so, they do themselves the disservice of bypassing all of the things an angler can and will do to fail in hooking them.

This fish was not aggressive. It was slow. Its slowness achieved a similar result in that the angler couldn’t add up the scene in front of him. A big, dark, slow form swam towards his small white streamer. The fish didn’t change speed or make any exceptional motions. It just opened its mouth and ate the fly.

“Oh,” he said. He set the hook.

The brook trout shook back and forth vertically in the aqua-tinted water. Instead of heading back under its rock to the left it made for the depths of the pool to the right. This meant minding the branches overhead and to the left. He stepped forward into the water and away from the boulder. Now he could exert more force on the trout. He could move its head away from the banks and pull it from the depths.

After a few minutes, the brook trout splashed into his hand. No nets this high up in the mountain. Too many things to catch on. It was a big fish. The biggest of the day. Maybe not the biggest on this river that he’d caught. But the fish had shoulders.it had a mouth on it. It had honest to goodness teeth. This was a good fish. It swam away, back to its spot under the rock in the vertical bank. It was a worthy last fish.

He took five minutes to collect himself and then climbed up the vertical bank to find the trail up on the ridge. “Who would have thought? On my last cast.”

He said that at least three times on his  hour-long hike back to the car. His ribs felt fine.