Salvelinus namaycush. Tyrant of the lakes.

At the time, it was my nemesis. My fly fishing Ark of the Covenant. My angling El Dorado. As I stood on the banks of the Otherside River lining up the photo of the big fish, I felt a noticeable weight lift off my shoulders. The rain, for just a few minutes, stopped. A beam of sunshine poked through the low ceiling of clouds and I felt as though I'd just accomplished something nobody else on earth had ever done.

Truth be told, I probably did. But that's for later in this tale.

The cold front had passed, leaving rain-soaked wood and dropping temperatures in its wake. And I was concerned. Could I start a fire and warm my chilled backside and a chilled wife with the single match held between my forefinger and thumb? I thought back to the classic Jack London story “To Build a Fire” and wondered if I had what it took to survive the damp coolness of an Arkansas winter with minimal equipment and my wits, let alone the negative 75-degree frozen hell of the Far North where (spoiler alert) London’s character met his icy demise.