Trout Lake Report: First Trip of September

September has opened up cool and wet. At the lake you gladly wear a jacket. August seems a long way away.

You're back at the channel, and your mission is to test the effectiveness of hopper flies.

You work through the channel and out into the north lake, casting the fly around weed beds and out in open water, without raising anything. Then you cast in to the shoreline and a fine Rainbow is waiting for you.

The rain arrives as you continue to explore.

You've decided to work the Drake Banks with your hopper flies. It has been some time since you were there. So you tie on the bead head Woolly Bugger and troll all the way down to the far western end.

You start back along the shoreline.

As you strip the hopper out from the bank and past a small weed bed there's a very hopperish take.

That's very encouraging. You continue on up the shoreline as the clouds thicken and a breeze kicks up.

There are fish tucked in along the shoreline. You get some follows and a miss. Finally you hook another one.

You have plenty of shoreline left to fish, but you realize you're running out of light, and that the breeze is quickly swelling into a gale. Is there a storm coming? You decide you'd better get back to the truck asap. You tow the hopper behind you and catch one more fish that makes the drag sing.

You give thanks for the fish and for a memorable first trip of September. More to the point, you give thanks for the present lack of lightning and torrential rain, and especially for the fact that the wind is with you and not against you.

Then you settle down to riding the waves in.

Isaiah Breaks One...

...in an intra-squad scrimmage. (Jeremiah missed this practice. He was on the way to a Mariners game in Seattle with friends.)

One more day and the scoreboard will be lit and the stands will be full. And both boys will take the field.

Really looking forward to it.

"September, 1918" by Amy Lowell

"Autumn Landscape With Fox," 1918, by Bruno Liljefors

This afternoon was the color of water falling through sunlight;

The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves;

The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves,

And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.

Under a tree in the park,

Two little boys, lying flat on their faces,

Were carefully gathering red berries

To put in a pasteboard box.

Some day there will be no war,

Then I shall take out this afternoon

And turn it in my fingers,

And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate,

And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.

Today I can only gather it

And put it into my lunch box,

For I have time for nothing

But the endeavor to balance myself

Upon a broken world.

"September, 1918" by Amy Lowell, from The complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell. © 1955, Houghton Mifflin Company. © renewed 1983, Houghton Mifflin Company, Brinton P. Roberts, and G. D'Andelot, Esquire.

"In the Community Garden" by Mark Doty

"Sunflower Field" by Hyatt Moore

It's almost over now,
late summer's accomplishment,
and I can stand face to face

with this music,
eye to seed-paved eye
with the sunflowers' architecture:

such muscular leaves,
the thick stems' surge.
Though some are still

shiningly confident,
others can barely
hold their heads up;

their great leaves wrap the stalks
like lowered shields. This one
shrugs its shoulders;

this one's in a rush
to be nothing but form.
Even at their zenith,

you could see beneath the gold
the end they'd come to.
So what's the use of elegy?

If their work
is this skyrocket passage
through the world,

is it mine to lament them?
Do you think they'd want
to bloom forever?

It's the trajectory they desire—
believe me, they do
desire, you could say they are

one intent, finally,
to be this leaping
green, this bronze haze

bending down. How could they stand
apart from themselves
and regret their passing,

when they are a field
of lifting and bowing faces,
faces ringed in flames?

"In the Community Garden" by Mark Doty, from Fire to Fire. © Harper Collins, 2008. 

Trout Lake Report: The Final Trip of August

You go back to the channel. It's another windy day, and you trace the long shoreline into the south end throwing a muddler. You can't find any fish.

Halfway down you tie on a bead head Woolly Bugger and begin to troll your way across the lake.

Halfway across you get a strong take and net a fat Rainbow.

You switch to the muddler again and start down the other shoreline. You get an explosive hit but no hookup.

The wind dies away and a few fish are rising. You can see Callibaetis in the air. You tie on a Callibaetis dry and cast to rises. After awhile you get a take.

That's pretty much it. There are risers, but there's a long time between rises. You stick with the mayfly dry, and just at dusk you catch one more fish. It's not the worst day you've ever had, but you hope that the arrival of September will stir things up.

Trout Lake Report: An August Ritual Comes To An End

You've come to love the trips to the inlet. It has become an August ritual.

The water level continues way down, and the wind on this day is way up.

You share the north end with a pair of Ospreys, and a pair of Eagles that periodically try to run them off. As you're crossing the lake this bird passes over you, plunges into the lake right at the inlet, and rises with a good-sized trout in its talons. You wonder if it's a good sign.

But when you get there the fishing--your way of fishing--is slow.

The wind moderates and rises bloom here and there. Small trout. You catch more than enough on a Callibaetis dry.

The Ospreys seem to be outfishing you. Their fish seem to be bigger, too.

You find a bigger trout working in two feet of water. He isn't coming up very often, but when he does you can see his dorsal and tail flash in the evening light. He's not big, but he might go a foot. You go for him.

He resists your efforts for a long time. You keep catching little guys instead of him. Finally, you strip in the Callibaetis dry as seductively as you can, and he breaks. It's a lovely take, and a pretty little fish that feels like a trophy.

Very little happens after that--except for the activities of the Ospreys and the Eagles, and another raid by the Otter family.

You wonder if the days of the inlet are over, if the water is finally so low that the risk for bigger fish is finally too great.

You kick back to the truck thinking it's time to explore other areas of the lake. It's been a good run at the inlet. You'll miss it.