Trout Lake Report: You Catch Some Of Them

You go back to the north end by yourself for the evening. The cool weather persists but you are warm with anticipation. You take your time as you move down the shoreline.

The first fish you find turns out to be a beautiful Brown. It should have been Jeremiah's, but you'll take it.

There aren't a lot of fish working--just enough.

You go all the way up to the north end of the shoreline and start back again.

Each cast feels like it could be the one, and many of them are.

You connect with the heaviest rainbow of the season so far. Not so long--18 inches--but just heavy. The rod is bent so far over you have to strip an extra few feet of line in to get him up to the net.

Brown Drakes are still coming off steadily, but not in the numbers you have seen in days past. Maybe the cooler weather has slowed down the hatch. Duns dot the open water, and fish come up and pick them off.

You isolate one and see that it's stuck in its shuck.

You pick it up on your finger and the sodden shuck drops back into the water. After photos you flick it off your finger, expecting it to land on the water again. But it takes flight and disappears overhead. Assuming it survives the birds and the bats, and mates successfully, how many of next year's hatch have you saved tonight?

You keep heading back toward the truck, but you make little headway. More fish reveal themselves along the way, and you try for every one you see. You catch some of them.