The dead tree that had fallen over the river was messing up my ability to fish the pool and generally pissing me off. It was pretty skeletal and rickety-looking, though, so it occurred to me that I might be able to break off at least the top portion—enough to create a casting lane. This stream improvement project would render the pool a dead zone for the immediate future but it had the potential to pay big dividends that evening if the Brown Drake hatch I was hoping for materialized. That was my thinking at the time, anyway.

A couple of summers ago, hunched over my tying vise high in the Caribou National Forest, I diverted from my usual Stimulator recipe and kind of went rogue. There were two reasons for my deviation. First, I realized that I’d finally reached an advanced enough age to where my eyesight — even with corrective lenses — was impacting my ability to see dry flies intended for the cutthroats I’d spent a couple of days chasing. Second, I’d just refilled a giant insulated cup with my third vodka and Sprite Zero cocktail, and my brain was just altered enough to consider something different.