Then, from behind a submerged log, an explosion. He had a solid twelve-inch trout on. It was more than a hookup. The line connected them like long-lost lovers. Sure enough, the fish danced on the line like a Rockette. Vince was smiling with a pure joy that no amount of fantasizing could duplicate. He worked the fish quickly across the pool and Paul netted it for him. Vince reached in and deftly removed the fly.
“I thought you might keep it.”
“Throw them up on the beach to suffocate, or bash them with rocks like him? I have lost my taste for it.”
With that he continued downstream, picking up a fish every third cast, but not even netting them before he let them go. Only when they were about a hundred feet apart did Paul start to cast. He put his sinking line at forty-five degrees and let it swing. Vince had already reached the end of the pool and rolled up when Paul got his first strike. Per Vince’s earlier musings, he never saw the fish until just before he captured it in the net. It was seventeen inches, the biggest fish yet. Paul threw it on the bank and let it flop around, while he returned to fishing. Vince clenched his fists and said nothing.
Paul finished the run, then went back and made a nest of grass for the bottom of his pack. He put the expired fish in the nest. He walked down to his brother. “It’s pretty much log jams for a while.” He shrugged. “There may be some big fish, but they are hard to get to. We’ll cut into the woods here and across an old meadow and the fishing gets easy below.”
Vince just glared at him so Paul continued to lead on, through a stand of cottonwood. They continued in stony silence until Paul stopped suddenly and Vince ran into him. Paul stepped aside. “Sorry, this has completely changed since last winter. Last time I was here, this was a meadow.”
The river had cut a new channel straight through it down to a layer of glacial debris. What had been an oxbow meadow surrounded by forest was now a rocky wasteland with old growth tree trunks littering the landscape, making it look like a boneyard for giants. Even lying down, most of the old growth logs were taller than the brothers. It would take them hours to walk over and around the logs.
Vince stepped up and looked. They were on top of a four-foot bank. There was a narrow beach on the right where the water had dropped from its high, beyond that the river roared by in a series of rapids. Vince shrugged. “Well, I had no expectations, so I’m not disappointed.”
Paul grunted in acknowledgement and led them down to the beach, where he took off his pack and dug through to take out two sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. Vince bit into his and smiled. “PB and J.” He sat on a stool-sized rock and Paul did the same.
