I saw the fish rising along the left bank just below the big house rebuilt after the fire. It rose steadily—an unusual thing for the McKenzie where freestone, opportunistic trout dominate. The fish was made even more unusual given the time of year: mid-September without a cloud in the sky. Anchored above the run, I couldn’t tell what was on the menu. My best guess settled on either blue-winged olives because that’s always a good guess when you can’t see anything coming off or maybe mahogany duns because they had come into season in the last week. Either way, the fish’s feeding pattern was consistent enough o give me pause and the form of the rises big enough to give me hopes for a larger rainbow. Big trout slurp, little trout slash. These were definite slurps.

Up until seeing the fish, my day had been spent working nymphs or streamers. Blue bird days are brutal for the dry fly fisherman. Sparse hatches, bright skies and bright water mean fish hold deep, aren’t looking up, and no matter how well you drift things. You have to give them a reason to rise which usually means big flies fished on a noisy drift off an ugly cast where the fly slaps the water like a clumsy hopper and needs to skitter and pop like a bass bug. All elegance goes fades under the sun. In the end, you end up only fishing the most likely of places—shade pockets and fast, broken water—but even there, you know it’s more an exercise in futility than anything else. Soon enough the sub surface action and the need remember what a fish looks like wins out. We’ve all been there, at last call, lonely and needing a friend. Hang on long enough to anything and you’ll start fishing the bottom.

I watched the fish for a few more minutes while working my streamer. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Bright days can do that sometimes: fool you with false rise that is really a wave, make a Charybdis out of a guppy. This time my eyes were right. No guppy, no wave pattern. This was a by-God proper fish which meant it deserved a proper go.

Casting to a fish that’s feeding when you don’t know what it’s feeding on presents you with some problems. First and foremost comes fly selection. If you happen to get lucky and know what’s coming off or have already had enough fish to hand on a specific fly and hatch marriage then selection takes care of itself. If fortune does not favor you and you have to try and figure things out, start with observational patience. In my case, swallows and cedar wax wings swooped and flicked in the air above me. Feeding birds means emergers aren’t the only game in town. Squinting against the sun, I saw ubiquitous BWOs rising. That was for the swallows. Looking closer at the river’s current, I saw mahogany spinners. Two for two. With two options to choose from, and not knowing which was the better, I took the third road and tied on a #12 parachute Adams.

Everything about an Adams says bug. The gray color, the profile, how it sits in the water, even the way it flutters down rather than slaps to the surface from a bad cast. No self-proclaimed let alone self-respecting angler leaves home without the Adams. More to the point, if you ever find yourself fishing with someone who doesn’t have an Adams or doesn’t trust its virtues, leave. Runaway. Forget everything that person ever told you or taught you. Smudge yourself with sage. Go see a shaman, a root worker, a priest, a rabbi, a monk because that person was not real. They were a skin walker sent to spread lies amongst good fishing folk. That, or they’re just an idiot. Either way you must do something drastic to counteract that level of stupidity.

My belief in the Adams comes from long experience. I have caught more trout on that pattern than any other in my fly library. On the one hand, that’s not really saying all that much about my fly selection. Truth be told, I am like most other fishermen of the presentation school of thought. I tie way too many patterns in way too large a size range while usually sticking to the same dozen or so I’ve come to trust. I tie for the joy of tying and fish for the love of mystery, simplicity. I know I could fish and guide with one box of flies, no more than that. Hell, I basically do that as things go anyhow, only changing flies to give the sports a ray of hope on slow days or to make a minor correction as needed for water conditions. Saying the Adams has caught more fish than any other fly is like saying a pot of coffee wakes me up better than anything else. I haven’t really tried much of anything else in the morning because I know coffee works. And on the days when it doesn’t work right away, I know if I drink enough of it, it’ll get me where I need to be one way or the other. I suppose that stance could lead to people saying I am against innovation. That just shows you what people don’t know. We can invent a whole lot of crap but until the new thing does better than the old thing there is no progress worth having. It’s just noise. Think about it over your next cup of joe.

To get set on the fish I had to move my boat from where it was anchored to fish the streamer. When I pulled up and started my ferry anchors and currents and drift boats acting as they will meant I ended up a bit down stream from where I originally wanted. I didn’t want to row back up against the current for fear of spooking fish so I accepted conditions and the harder cast for what they were: a challenge worth facing. The first few casts I sent were deliberately short. I wanted to see how my fly and fly line behaved in the faster current with the upstream cast. Right away I saw the problem. Distance wasn’t the issue. The problem was the drift itself. When I would eventually have to make the cast I would not be able to strip my line back fast enough to keep pace with the river before my fly line wanted to drown the fly. My two options were rowing upstream to reposition or figure out how to make that longer cast without my fly drowning on the drift back which meant I had to change the height at which I started to manage my line.

These brainteasers keep me coming back. It’s a hard thing to explain, the satisfaction of resolving all the demands of a single problem with no end goal other than to catch then release a trout. The uninitiated yearn for a point, a purpose, an end goal to problem solving. The point of no point goes against too many markers in our culture that abhors not just leisure but presence as well. Situations like this make me think of sand mandalas. They call to mind those Tibetan monks who create and then ritualistically destroy material meditations by releasing them back to flowing water after all their labors. Don’t get me wrong. I am no monk and I am certainly no buddhist. But, having been through and made enough ritual in my life I have developed a deep sense of reverence for its power and I also think fly fishermen, particularly trout fishermen, would do well to keep ritual a little more in the forefront of their minds. They might just unlearn a thing or two. Call it Nirvana, or whatever.

To give myself the best shot at this fish, I greased the holy hell out of my leader, hoping the goop would help keep the fly afloat. Next, I let out a bit more anchor line. My plan was to stand on the line deck of my drift boat to maximize height. By lengthening the line, I hoped to accommodate the shift in forward weight that could pull the anchor off the bottom and send me drifting down stream while standing on the bow. Not the safest thing to have happen. The way I figured, even if the anchor did pop loose, the longer line would give me enough time to scramble back to the rowing seat before catastrophe.

More people have done more stupid things for fish and love than either species rightly deserve.

At this point, I would like to write that, once situated, I delivered the ideal cast on the first go. I would like to write that the trout rose to the occasion like a good idea—suddenly and clear. I would like to say the hookset was perfect, that I led the fish down stream with all required grace, agility, and dignity expected of a guide and trout angler. I would like to describe netting the fish without a hitch, tell you how I marveled at its sleek, fat sides and intricate colors before releasing it back to the river with a prayer and smile. But I am writing a fishing story. Genre conventions require I must show some regard for the truth.

Truth is, I stood on the bow of my boat and tried to make that upstream cast fall into the feeding lane more than two dozen times. Truth is, I beat the water to a froth with six fly changes thrown in for good measure. Truth is that somewhere in my crazed state I downed that fish. I sent it back to whatever secret shelter good trout seek when poor fishermen ruin their serenity. Truth is, that fish left me standing defeated atop my own boat, fully in control of my faculties, and thoroughly bested.

This was not the first time a feeding trout as left me unraveled. Experience in the field has taught me the best course of action is to rest the bugger. Leave off. If the hatch keeps coming off, and you can remain still and patient enough, chances are high the fish will return.

My first instinct was to do just that. The swallows were still working. I could see both BWOs and the damn duns rising. There were even a few caddis showing up.

So, I did wait. Somewhere in the waiting, though, something I can’t quite place shifted and hasn’t gone back since. I don’t know what to call it, what category to assign it, what philosophical branch to hang it on. Whatever the thing, it has meaning and that means something because that’s what we’re all looking for anyhow.

Near as I can tell, my whole fishing life up to that point came together in a new distillate. I felt something human or maybe more than human or maybe even less than human or perhaps other than human—a kind of absurd kinship. I remember the lapping of the river against the hull, the hushed rush of rapids just down stream, the mayflies and caddis taking mystery to wing in the sunlight. I felt present not merely pursuant. Maybe I realized a moment despite the human habit of passing through. I don’t know.

The fish started to rise again. The river looked like time. Trust me when I say the instinct to cast came back. Only this time it came softly, without urgency or purpose. I knew I’d put work into this fish. Real effort to a degree that our American obsession with acquisition nearly won out. I am talking now about our need to justify pursuit or indulgence or leisure with competition, profit, or result. I am talking about our lacking ability to allow a thing to be as it is. I am talking about that instinct of want and authority and justification that would commodify our most pointless points. Fishing, especially fly fishing in its current rising industrial state is a ripe place for such slips.

I went against the pattern. Rather than cast again, scheme again, I accepted that that fish bested me—whatever besting means in a kinship where my side of the family anthropomorphizes and the other side breathes in water.

I pulled anchor and floated away. The river carried me to the next run which I probably fished and if I didn’t fish that one, I most certainly fished the next. Half knowing myself which is twice as much as I could say years ago, I probably fished the rest of the day with a little more vengeance and a little more serenity which might mean growth but probably just makes me like every other fisherman out there. Honestly, I don’t remember. The memory of that first part always comes in too sharp for much of the rest.

Now, I am not so foolish as to say that missed fella changed my life—even if he did. But, I am just foolish enough to say he sure as hell provided an unexpected and much needed perspective. What I do with that remains to be seen. Maybe nothing. Maybe nothing at all which seems just fine to me.