A fishing story

It’s October, and if I’m being honest it’s earlier than I really want to be awake on a Saturday. But I’ve made plans, so I shrug of my blankets and forgo the warmth of my sheets in favor of the Folgers percolating in my kitchen. The coffee leaves little bathtub-rings as the level crawls down the side of my mug, and as the liquid gets lower the intensity of the light outside increases. Then – finally – it’s sunrise. I roust from my seat and load my gear into the car, caffeine and the late-fall sunlight making my motions sure and quick.
I stop in West Laramie on my way out to the Snowies, picking up a resident day license and a couple of parachute adams to replace the threadbare royal wolf I’ve been using all season. The drive is quiet. There’s no traffic, no other people in sight, just me and the road and the mountains looming closer until suddenly I’m in them. The fall colors scream at me as I climb into the clouds: red and yellow and gold in varieties beyond counting. There’s frost on the grass like icing and when it catches the sun I’m forced to squint through my windshield.
I spot a promising little creek to my right and pull my car off the road. Moments later I have my rod assembled and my fluffy new adams prepped for his debut performance. The creek is small, not moving a ton of water. But it’s lively and clear and the mountain slope has it running fast. It’s littered with boulders and the banks are undercut: I can sense brook trout lurking in the swirls and eddies.
As I watch my fly bob his jaunty way down the current, school seems a million miles away. There’s no time to think about tests or homework. Not a thought to spare for the stresses or banalities of daily life. My whole attention follows the white speck as it dips behind the boulder and coasts serenely across the deep, calm pool. “Now” I think. I’m right.
The trout strikes like trout do, slipping up from the shadows and flashing like mercury at the surface. He’s no trophy – probably south of six inches – but little brook trout from streams like this are my favorite fish to catch. He zips around the pool, a miniature torpedo. A fighter. I reel him in quickly and remove the hook, taking a moment to appreciate his intricate coloring: the bullseyes on his sides; his red belly; the variegated camouflage on his dorsal fin. Then I release him back into the stream.
I lose track of time and fish, and only really come back to myself when I notice the weather moving in. The clouds are dark and the temperature is dropping – time to go home. I return to my car and race the weather back to Laramie, stopping at Coal Creek to buy a coffee to warm my hands.
I’m back in the world of people now, but it’s not so bad. The indistinct happy chatting of coffee-seekers like myself provides the background noise as I enjoy the warmth of my beverage. Outside, the weather catches up. It’s snow – the first of the year – and it’s coming down hard. I relish the feeling of being toasty inside while the world turns white around me, and power my cell phone back on. It’s 2:30. I wonder what I’ll do with the rest of my day…