When my dad was in high school, he and his four best friends bought a trout stream. I know, it sounds like something out of Trout Fishing in America, but they really did. Can you imagine, getting out of school and heading out to your own trout stream, to fish with your best friends? Somehow, that very idea of that makes me feel like I got my priorities completely wrong at a very early age.

A few years ago, I got a job at a local exercise equipment company. Always on a quest to work off the occasional pint, I figured that I should avail myself of the on-site gym, starting on Day One. I was doing cardio and reading Northwest Fly Fishing Magazine when an older gentleman came up, introduced himself as Paul, and asked my name. After exchanging pleasantries, he allowed as my name sounded familiar and then nodding to the magazine asked if I wrote for it. I begrudgingly admitted that I had written an article, one on fishing in downtown Seattle.

Every day, fishing is an adventure. Today, Mauro and I went to the Slough, hoping to key in on what we call the “Decker hatch,” chasing the 500,000 smolt released by the Issaquah hatchery, through Lake Sammamish and into the Slough where they get concentrated. Our theory is that, naturally, the big rainbows and cutthroat in the lake will key in on these tasty morsels. Last week Jason (Decker, who figured this whole thing out and thus the eponymous naming) and I tested this theory by fishing the lake by the mouth of the creek, watched over by a family of eagles nesting nearby.