Trout Lake Report: A Dead Man's Flies

After the Brown Day you go back to the lake happy to take it on its own terms. You fish with the cool calmness that you find there.

You work the shoreline with the damsel for a long way. Then a fish comes to the fly. You knew that fish was there somewhere. It feels like karma.

A few fish are rising as the evening lengthens.

You take out a small fly box. It came to you along with the bamboo rod you bought in an auction. They came to the auction by way of a thrift shop. You think that rods and fly boxes are not donated to thrift shops unless the owner is no longer with us.

You don't know who owned this box, but you know he chose his flies with care. You assume they are fly shop flies. Or perhaps he was a much more skillful fly tier than you are.

You have not used these flies yet, but on this peaceful evening you pluck a fat Humpy from the box. You find a fish patrolling a section of shoreline. You place the fly with care, several times, before finding the right place at the right time. The fish takes it.

Some kind of circle is completed as a dead man's fly takes a fish once again. You wonder if he somehow knows.

Later, down the hill at the well house to turn off the pasture sprinklers, you wonder what will happen to your flies after you're dead and gone. You wonder if you will know if someone else catches a trout with one of your flies. You think probably not. But it's nice to know that someone who never knew you might think of you then.