August

Our last fishing day, and we figured we’d better do it up right. Paul and I were intensely in favor of hiking up Slough Creek to the first meadow, at least, and seeing what it was all about. The only person who really needed convincing was Jake, but in the end, he relented.

We parked at the trailhead and loaded up with fly vests, beer, and snacks, and within forty-five minutes were over the hill and on the stream. Most of us took off downstream towards the boulders and pocket water, while Jake worked his way up through the meadow.

Fishing was about as easy as it was tough downstream. Fish were rising everywhere to spruce moths, and tossing fair imitations along wooded cutbanks and in pools produced fish more or less consistently. Once all of those were gone, I switched to foam ants and caught fish more frequently. Nothing huge, the biggest fish was a fourteen inch cuttbow- far more rainbow than cutt- a pink side, heavily spotted all over, white tipped fins. I was intent on keeping it, trying to do my part to limit the invasion of rainbows, but on its throat, when you folded back two little rolls of tissue, lay two faint orange slashes. I cursed the thing and let it go.

Paul and I did the best in terms of numbers, Jake the best in terms of sizes. Winders and I had a beer and spent a great deal of time sitting in the water, watching fish feed. Paul climbed up a rock wall to watch fish from forty feet in the air. In all, we relished in the scenery, and in our last day.