Trout Lake Report: So Long, Lake

I head up the road for the last time this year.

The south end will be the setting for this final day of the season. Stellar's jays are making a racket all around the lake. Two rise up, land in the golden willows in front of me, flit away. Their midnight-blue iridescence is stunning.

I will work up along the eastern shoreline, cross over, and work back down the western side.

Around the first bend, and right against the waterline, a brown comes to the Halloween Muddler.

A little farther along another brown comes to the fly.

They are inside the weeds, patrolling the little patches of open water along the waterline.

I pass the beaver house and see that they are thinking about the change of seasons and the coming winter, as I am. Much on our minds is the question of what will sustain us during the cold months ahead.

I will find sustenance in stored memories of the multi-layered beauty of a season of days like this one.

I cast and the resting fly gets a nose bump. I raise up and miss the fish. Must be a rainbow. I go ahead and cast back to the spot and wait. I have time. I'm a little surprised when the fish comes back and takes the fly. Well done, Rainbow. It will be the last rainbow of the season.

Down the shoreline I go, finding release in the familiar rhythms of casting. It's good to see that I have not yet reached the dead end of perfection.

I cross over to the other side.

A brown comes out of the rocks.

I pass the Tiger's Lair, but raise nothing there this time. Maybe it will be the first place I try next Spring.

I come around to the far south end.

It still seems impossible that a good-sized fish would be up along the waterline here where the depth five feet out can be measured in inches. But there he is.

Inside the back channel, now too low to navigate in a float tube, I see a fish working. I crabwalk in along the weedy bottom to get close enough for a reasonable cast. The fish comes right to the fly and I raise too soon and miss.

I cast the fly in again. Wait a beat. The fish takes again. I time it right. Another brown.

I make a full circle and come to the take out, but I'm not ready to call it a day--or a season. I go on around the bend again.

There's one more fish for me there. The last fish of the season. A sleek little brown, shining like the dreams of days to come.

Now it's time. I kick back and step out of the water, drag the tube onto the shore. The ripples of my presence are soon gone. Time for rest.

So long, lake.

Fly Tying: Final Offerings 6

The Halloween Muddler. The last fly of the season for the last day of the season.

Trout Lake Report: Thank You

The last day of the season has arrived. Time for the ritual farewell trip to the lake. You unloaded all your fishing gear from the truck for your recent trip to the airport, so you load up again--but just the essentials, not everything that had accumulated in there over the summer. You won't be needing all that stuff for awhile.

As you strap in the float tube a line of muley does passes by. It seems like a good omen that the wild has come to you.

The last day of the season is always Halloween, and you like to tie up a Halloween fly or two for the occasion.

The weather has been cool and wet for a solid two weeks. Today, it's only drizzling at home, but up in the high country the rain is still coming down as the clouds writhe along the ridges. The colors of Fall light up the gloom.

You come to Trout Lake and stop along the road for a few moments. You think about the full six months of wonderful fishing now coming to an end. Suddenly it hits you with force: it will be another full six months before you'll be back.

You decide to make the most of the time you have left. You target the channel and head on down the road.

You turn off the road into the campground on the north lake. Like the south campground, it's deserted. You turn away from the campground and pull around into one of your favorite access spots at mid-channel. The rain has stopped as you get out of the truck and breathe in the clean air redolent of Fall.

You look for milkweed seeds for one of your traditional end-of-season shots, but all you can find are empty pods: an eloquent expression of the state of things.

You rig up and haul the tube down the path to the water's edge. For the last time this year you kick out into the lake. Everything is cloaked in autumnal beauty. 

You tie on the Halloween Muddler while kicking across to John's Cove.

You move slowly south down the shoreline savoring everything about the act of fishing. You remember days now gone, and the familiar shoreline reveals landmark after landmark, each prompting memories of fish caught or lost.

You finally see a tiny ripple hard against the shore, the stealth rise of a cruising fish. You drop the muddler into the zone and let it drift with the breeze. There's a bump, but you come up on nothing. You cast the fly back, a little closer, and wait. There's a confident take this time. You lift--and there's that superb explosion of yellow that, whatever the time of year, says "Brown."

You release it into the chilly water, and the last Brown of the year fades out of sight.

You continue down the shoreline to the south end.

Then you turn back toward the channel, now trolling a black and orange Wooly Bugger. A Rainbow flutters at the end of the long line and is hooked.

You wonder if it will be the last.

You hear a familiar sound: the nasal chirring of otters. A pair of them veers over to take a long, intensely curious look at you, as though they have never seen a human being before. You are glad to think that beginning now they may go for months without being disturbed by humans.

Another small Rainbow takes the fly as the light of evening brightens the clouds.

Then another.

You troll through the channel. At the far end you clip the Woolly Bugger and tie on your new Halloween Stimulator. You start back toward the take out working the shoreline, but it is very quickly too dark to see the fly. Is this the end?

You stop casting and let the fly drift along behind as you make a swing across the channel toward the take out. You're in a reverie when you feel the flutter and the take, like a dream within a dream, and you hold in your hands the last Rainbow--the last fish--of the year.

At the truck you go through the rituals of bringing closure to a trip to the lake--and now to a season. The waxing moon sheds its light through the clouds for a few moments, and is then swallowed up again. The darkness settles down around you. It's over.

You could feel sad, or depressed, and there is some of each emotion in you now. But you aren't so much surprised as deeply gratified to discover that your overarching emotion is happiness. It has been a wonderful season full of rich experience, and it has all come as pure, boundless gift.

Thank you.