Trout Lake Report: We'll Always Have Paris

It's hot. A doe comes out in the heat of the day and browses in the shade of the trees at the edge of the yard, then ghosts through the sun back into the trees by the river.

It's a good evening for fishing. Out of curiosity you drive past Trout Lake to Brookie Lake. As you suspected, the weeds have taken over. The brookies will need to wait until later.

Back at Trout Lake you launch at the far north end. This is the way you like it: hot and still.

You begin with a Damselator.

As you work up the shoreline clouds begin to pile up in the west.

You turn the corner and drift along the reeds. A spot of magenta comes out of the sun and plunges into the lake, rises up again like a spark, and spins back onto the water.

It's a Western Sheep Moth, named from its tendency to be observed in pastures with sheep. It's common from the Rocky Mountains on west, and is day flying.

This one is a bit tattered--and wet--but after a few moments on your finger it lifts off and flutters high in the air and disappears over the shoreline trees.

You head on. It looks like the storm will pass by to the north.

You're getting some action with the damsel imitation. They're little but scrappy. One fish wraps around a clump of reeds too deep to reach. As you try to extricate it by pulling on the line the tippet snaps off. You have another Damselator and tie it on.

It's another evening to keep looking up and around at the ever-changing light show.

You work over the inlet. More scrappy little fish.

On down you lose a better fish, then snag the fly trying to go back for it. You kick in to retrieve it and peer across the driftwood fence at the burbling waters of the hidden haven of ducks and beaver.

You round a little point and begin working a half moon bay. It has been known to hold good fish.

You cast the Damselator in to the willows, let it sit, then strip it back ten feet or so. You raise the rod to lift the fly off the water for another cast just as a fish grabs it. Perfect timing.

It's a good fish, and it's a Brown. You get it into the net. You see that you just barely hooked it. The fish rolls in the net and the fly comes out. You try to situate the fish for a quick photo and it launches itself right out of the net and into the water. Bye bye, Brown.

Well, we'll always have Paris.

You switch to a newly tied muddler, olive version.

You kick back to the reeds for another pass over the shoreline you just covered.

You get a nice bump as you drift the fly behind you, but the fish won't commit.

Back at the inlet you manage to net a bigger Rainbow, and get photos of it.

The storm is far away now.

You try for that Brown again, but he's gone or not playing anymore. You kick around and enter the haven of ducks and beaver because it's also a good place to take a pee break.

There's the beaver house. It's as tall as you are. No wonder there are so many beaver around here.

You kick back out and head across the lake to the other side.

You drift the muddler behind you but there are no takers. The clouds drift away with the sun.

You work the shoreline. As always, you sort through the memories that each section of shoreline evokes. Long ago, when the boys were little, the three of you fished from the bank here.

This stretch is slow again this evening. It should pick up later in the summer. Right now, though, the only thing moving is a skunk.

Then, at dusk, trying to keep the bats from picking up the fly, you hook into another nice Brown. You know it's a Brown because you get it in close. But before you can reach for the net it comes off the hook.

A few moments later you catch a consolation prize. You would have preferred the Brown.

It's deep twilight now, and Jupiter is shining high in the southern sky. It's warm and still. You get to the takeout but kick on past it. You want it all to last just a little longer.

"In the Shed" by Mary Logue

"A Dead Stag, With Sketched Figures of a Ghillie and Hounds" by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Circa 1830

While we are gone,

our neighbor finds

a long-dead buck in our shed,

steeped in snow and wood.

A broken leg took him down

and he found refuge.

The deer that had wandered the hills,

had run in front of a car.

This is the story we make up to

understand how he got there.

It’s sad, the part about dying.

It scares us, we want to turn

our faces away, drag the deer

back to the forest.

But there is something else

we should look at-

a small gladness that he found

shelter close to our house,

that he came out of the wind and snow

to curl up near the wood pile.

All deer die.

This one is a testament.

"In the Shed" by Mary Logue, from Meticulous Attachment. © Mid-List Press, 2005.

The Total Lunar Eclipse of the Full Super Harvest Hunter's Blood Moon

I drove up onto the flats to get a view of the Harvest Moon well before it would crest the ridge at our house.

It was peaceful. Cattle grazed and the yips of coyotes echoed in the still spaces.

Two respectable bucks came out of the aspens--four-by's. "Four-by" is short for "four-by-four" or, as they would say in the east, an eight-point. They reminded me that the other name for this full moon is the Hunter's Moon.

The recent fires that scarred this area seemed like a distant dream.

The sun went down...

...and the moon came up. It was already eclipsed as it cleared the tree line. As it rose ever higher into the darkening sky it took on substance and became a vibrant blood moon.

Later, as the earth's shadow slid away, the light of the Super Moon burst into full brilliance.

It was a lovely show.

Cutthroat Lake Report: Another Magical Time in Another Magical Place

I was up near Cutthroat Lake the other day, so I stopped by, took the rod out of the truck, and fished from the bank for awhile. The lake was calm, and I saw a cruising fish, but it was already too far past me for a cast. Then, a few minutes later, it came back. I had just cast out a light colored streamer, so I stripped it in quick and got it in front of the fish--and it came over and took it. I was feeling pretty proud of myself when it turned on the jets and ran right off the hook.

Time to get back to Cutthroat Lake and give it a real try.

On the way up, this doe and her fawn crossed the road in front of me, then stopped. I stopped too and looked over where they had come out of the trees and saw this fawn's twin still waiting to cross. I got out of its way and headed on to the lake.

It was another hot August day. I started with the muddler I still had on and worked over to the east shore. There I looped on a sinking tip, tied a red Matuka streamer on the tippet, and started to troll along the drop off.

The line slowly tightened on my finger and put the brakes on the float tube. Really, I thought for a second that I had snagged something. Sometimes that's a metaphor, and sometimes it's a fact. I set the hook hard and finally felt life at the end of the line. This big hen, heavy with eggs, did a lot of head shaking, and took one long deep run, but mostly it was like reeling in a bag of cement. But she sure was pretty.

As she swam away she reminded me, with her big belly, of a marine iguana.

As I was getting reorganized I managed to get the matuka hooked to my wading boot where I couldn't reach it, so I broke it off and tied on a woolly bugger. I proceeded to troll around the lake, and tried two or three different flies.

It was a lovely time out on the water.

I didn't find any more fish, but I found solitude, beauty, and peace.

I got back to the truck as the evening was deepening into dusk. I wasn't ready to go yet. I was hoping for an evening rise. I've been there on other August evenings when the wind dies, the lake becomes like a mirror, and one or two, then three and more big fish begin sipping bugs off the top. Now I saw some caddis fluttering around, and callibaetis began to dance over the water.

I took off the sink tip and tied on a little caddis dry. I drifted around and waited to see what would happen. The callibaetis were thick. Dragonflies, and, later, many, many bats, sliced and diced their way through them. And the sky put on a show.

But the wind didn't die. And the fish didn't come up. But when I finally kicked over to the takeout I wasn't disappointed in the least. And when the big old moon rose up over the mountain it just confirmed what I already knew: it had been another magical time in another magical place.