Most nights I’d time leaving home so I could gear up right as the frogs began to sing in earnest. That wasn’t the event I was  targeting, but the amphibian chorus corresponded with the evening hatch. Trout could be taken all evening long. But the action intensified once the sulphurs started hitting the water. Seeing that little spring creek come alive was always amazing. Reclusive brown trout of all sizes would come out from underneath the banks and thick weedbeds to feed on fluttering mayflies.

Those bugs had the Letort Spring Run under some kind of spell. One year I was drawn in as well.

Early in the week I fished the headwaters. In places the channels were deeper than they were wide. Bonny Brook was always my favorite, and it yielded an unusual number of fish on the surface during this hatch. The sulphurs were present, but the slow and silty water isn’t ideal for mayflies. After a few days I focused on the quarry stretch. The vast system of riffles was perfect habitat for both bug and trout. It certainly still looks like a spring creek, but it lacks the character of the rest of the upper Letort. One night I caught three trout without moving my feet – the only time this has happened to me on the stream. The only downside of that section was the noise of the active rock quarry that was a short cast from the water.

After four or five days I decided to concentrate on the meadows just upstream of I-81. Vince’s Meadow, perhaps the most famous extant spot on the Letort, had always proved difficult for me. Earlier in the week I had talked to an angling mentor about my reticence to leave fish to find fish there. He lived on the stream. He knew the stream.

“They’re there. You just have to be a little more patient. And wait a little bit later”

I maybe waited five more minutes that I had the previous evenings. That was all the self control I could muster. I did approach the steam with a bit more caution. No casts until I saw a fish rise, I thought. The currents in that stretch of the Letort are frustrating for at least two or three reasons at any given time. The glass-like water makes for discerning fish. This night’s experience was a kind of negative reinforcement, because I immediately saw a rise. In quick succession I cast, it took, and I landed a feisty foot-long brown trout. A few more brown trout fell to my sulphur imitations in the waning moments of daylight. I was pleased.

It felt all the more special because of where I was. Rising trout are always good. But I was standing in the spot where Rising Trout was written. This Wonderful World of Trout was where I was catching trout. I was looking In the Ring of the Rise, and consciously or not I was adhering to A Modern Dry Fly Code. Marinaro and Fox were men I had never met. But I had read them. I had quizzed their contemporaries. I was very aware of them. I’m spiritual, but not in the ghosts and being watched by those who came before us sense. It is just fly fishing. Still, there was the presence of history.

All of that kind of goes out the window when you’re lining up your next cast. This fish was bigger. There wasn’t a splash when it fed. It was a distinct slurp. Big fish aren’t going to splash after a spent mayfly. They’ve got mouths big enough to eat it and everything else in a wide radius of it.

No number of netted ten- to fourteen-inch trout would calm me down enough to approach such a fish in a cool and collected manner. But my cast was on point. The fly drifted right over where the last slurp happened. The water swelled as its head rose right before it broke the surface. And that was probably the moment when I set the hook. Much too quickly. Even in under the darkening skies I saw him turn and flash. Gone.

I sat on the wet bank feeling sorry for myself. It is that sad kind of sorry that you feel after catching  fish but you wanted that fish. It is a special kind of self pity. I was pulling the fly in when I heard a voice call out from across the creek.

“That was a good one.”

“Yeah… I just got excited. Pulled it right out of his mouth.”

“It happens. But the last one you got alright.”

He wasn’t just watching. He had been watching. It was dark enough that I could only halfway see him because of his voice and the fact that he’d stepped off the trail towards me. It was my friend and mentor, out for an evening walk. Ghosts and spirits of anglers past weren’t necessary. He was watching me fish. His commentary was real. It was rooted in relationship and dialogue. It transcended books in a lot of ways. Books can’t point at something. Books can’t take your rod from your hand and illustrate a cast or a drift.

We chatted for a few more minutes. By this point is was dark enough that I couldn’t see him or the water between us. I could still hear splashes up and downstream as I headed back to my car. The rising brown trout, appearing and disappearing like spirits in the weeds and mist.