Originally published in The FlyFish Journal, Volume Nine, Issue Four
The trout is small, no more than eight or nine inches by my estimation. I’m lying on my stomach, chin in my hands. She’s doing laps, patrolling her territory. She cruises between rocks, skirting a small patch of shoreline, her open mouth breaking the surface to take in a midge here and there. She drifts back out into the lake and I lose sight of her, only to watch her return a few minutes later. She is slow and uninhibited, repeating this dance over and over.
I watch her swim for a good 30 minutes. My husband is starting the fire a few yards away at camp. Clouds have gathered, as they tend to do in the afternoon, and the mountains are a muted mix of grays and dark greens. The alpine landscape is grand, hyperbolic, something from a travel photograph, but I can’t stop watching this fish.
For a fleeting moment I think about the fly rod I had decided to leave at home — too much distraction and I owe it to my husband to be more present. Now I’m doubly glad I didn’t bring it. Golden flanks, red-splashed underbelly and gill plates, vibrant, undisturbed, this Colorado cutty is right where she belongs, and I want to remember her just like this. Too perfect to catch.
-EH, January 2018