The morning was picture perfect as the first light found its way through the alder and old oaks that line the river's bank. This particular pool is the kind of place that you go to in your mind when you want to leave the troubles of the day. The sound of the water running over ancient rocks, waterfowl overhead and just enough crisp air to remind you that you are alive.
Trout were beginning to rise in the pools near by, there wasn't enough action to call it a frenzy but it was enough to make the switch to drys. Up until that point they had enjoyed sipping small nymphs fished with the dead drift. The first cast found nothing, the second the same and third less then perfect. It was the fourth cast mend that yielded the surface to break with the back of fish. A most excellent display of aquatic form with the same smooth confidence and grace as a dolphin. Except this was a trout gliding up and over the surface of the water into the air and then returning to the water from which it came.
He must have been the granddad of the whole pool. Long and lean a trophy fish and a dream catch. Had the mend not been made so soon the hook could have easily been set and the old granddad landed. Sure, the stories would have been told differently going into detail on how the battle was won. But that old granddad swam away and the only thing we are left with is the memory of that magnificent fish on that cool morning and a place to go to in our minds when we need refuge from the troubles of the day.
