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After my work was done on Friday afternoon (I mowed the lawn), I was hot and tired. So I geared up the truck and drove up to the lake. It was lovely there, cool and breezy. I found the lake full to the brim, so I could get to the water sooner.
I climbed aboard the float tube, loosened the backrest straps a bit, leaned back, and began very slowly trolling a little green nymph. The swallows were arcing and pirouetting across the sky and millions of frogs were trilling. The scent of woodsmoke wafted across the water.
The line trembled under my finger and a fish was on. It was strong and fast, and refused to give up its freedom without a struggle.
I had come to catch a fish, but now that I had accomplished that I was free to simply fish. I trolled for awhile, then I watched an indicator out of the corner of my eye while watching the light of the setting sun flash in and out of the clouds and slip in and out of the hollows of the mountainside.
I dug deep into my fly boxes and tried flies that I hadn't used in ages, or that I forgot I had, or that had never been in the water.
When a few fish began rising I floated some flies over them and waited to see where they would come up next.
An old man and his dog drifted in and out of my vision, seeming a part of the lake. His oars plashed quietly now and then, the only sound he or the dog made.
They glided in to their campsite, and a little later a fire flickered up and winked out of the trees. I turned toward shore and home.
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