Chapter 1b: Finding Peace

Chapter 1b: Finding Peace

Being a first-year guide, it’s easy to over-think trout. At this time of year there are only two things that matter: eating, and not being eaten. Casting shadows is bad especially in a river as small and as gin clear as the Dearborn. You may only get one chance at a hole to make the perfect cast and get the right drift and although low light in the shadows and under clouds can help, fish are constantly aware of anything that might look like a predator; and predators cast shadows.

            Just a few days ago, Rose had visited this same stretch of the Dearborn with clients. It’s not always a greatly accepted practice to bring clients to such pristine places such as the Dearborn, however, the outfitter she was working for had wanted her to take the father/son duo there to get off the big water of the Missouri and work on the son’s casting. There are some unwritten rules when you become a guide, one of them being to save these waters for yourself and your closest friends. In Rose’s position she learned quickly, when an outfitter “suggests” a certain stretch of water or river, it’s not her place to question. 

She spent all day working with James, the seventeen-year-old son, and although his casting was getting better and fishing was ok, the catching was a different story. They fished pool after pool after pool after pool. At some point, he stopped slapping the water with his line and fish started coming up to his hopper. With her voice in his ear they picked apart every hole. He first worked the inside edges and moved outward as to not throw line directly over any fish that might be waiting for the opportunity to ambush.

“Get ‘em,” Rose would say as another trout popped his fly and again, James would be a step too late.

Rose decided to give James a break from hearing her voice and let him have a go at it on his own. She walked upstream to where his dad had been fishing and talked with him for a while, leaving James alone. He thanked Rose for helping his son out and was grateful for the improvements he was making in his casting. Fly-fishing isn’t the easiest thing to pick up and can be quite frustrating. It’s a lot like golf in that if you let it, it starts to control you and any little imperfections can manifest into habits; habits that can lead to nasty slices on the golf course and line piling up into tangled messes on the stream.

As she walked back to see how James was doing, Rose realized how much self-control and restraint he had displayed when someone else was watching and how little control he had over his frustration when he was by himself. He was hooked up on a log just a couple feet from where he was standing and instead of walking over and releasing the fly from the obstruction, he started flailing the rod around, whipping it back and forth in an apparent attempt to break the rod thereby dismissing him from the seemingly impossible task of catching a fish. Just before the objective was met, James looked up and saw Rose coming downstream.

“What up?” She asked and with an indifferent sort of shoulder-shrug and continued with an, “it’s ok to be frustrated. It’s not easy and it’s definitely not something anyone picks up on their first try. I tell you what, I’ll take the rod and you take the net for a few minutes.”

James didn’t say much but Rose could tell he was in need of a break and also in need of something encouraging that would confirm that yes; these fish could actually be caught. So she took the rod from him and started fishing upstream.

Somewhere around Rose’s tenth cast; after she had moved up-stream a few yards from where James and her had switched roles, a nice little rainbow trout about 14 inches came up out of some skinny water to suck down their hopper.

James netted it and after letting it go to somehow disappear back into the crystal water, she gave the rod back to James and said, “They’re there. You just have to keep plugging away and be patient. It’ll come.”

It was around 5:30 in the evening and the group was facing a good hour hike back to the jeep. James still hadn’t caught his first fish. “This is it,” Rose proclaimed as they put the stalk on this last hole. “This is our last chance. But hey bud, you’ve been kicking some ass here James and I have a good feeling about this one.”

Taking a step back she let him begin working the hole just like they had meticulously worked the last twenty or so before. His first couple casts landed just outside the mark and resulted in not even a look from a fish. He then put a cast right on the seam and as his fly dumped down through the riffle and collected in the foam above the deep hole a monster rainbow rose up from the depths like an emerging submarine and with its white mouth wide open, gulped the hopper down. James never even saw it.

“Get ‘em!” Echoed Rose’s voice through the canyon, trying not to startle him but getting his attention non-the-less but it was too late.

Before James could bury the hook into the trout’s lip the imitation was spit out and once again, James’ fly line came up limp. It was hard to tell who was more disappointed Rose or James — not because of the failure but because she knew how hard James had worked and to come up empty seemed so unfair; especially since there were so many people Rose had taken out previously that didn’t know what it was like to work at it all day and put the time in that James had put in. They seemed to catch fish despite all the mistakes and in a weird way, she never thought they deserved the fish they caught. But James had worked hard. He had really given it his best effort and had learned a ton in the process. It just didn’t seem fair.

So now, just a few days later, this fish has already thrown down the gauntlet and Rose is going after him. Her trip here has taken on two definite purposes: 1) to help forget and to clear her head of the frustration and hurt of the emails from the ex, and 2) redemption for James’ sake.

As Rose finished rigging her rod, Chase continued to search for strategic spots to mark. The beauty of these freestone creeks in Montana, especially this time of year, is that big bugs often get blown into the water. Grasshoppers, beetles, flying ants, and a number of other terrestrials find their way from bank to water and eventually to the gut of a trout. Once they get the taste, they’ll eat just about anything big and ugly that’s presented well. She ties on a “Frankenhopper”, partially because she likes the pattern but more because it just sounds cool—Frankenhopper.

There’s a path that cuts through a barbed-wire gate that has surely claimed a few pairs of waders over the years. Because the water temps are still up in the low 60s, Rose leaves the waders back at the camper with her spring and fall gear.

The camper. It sounds kind of romantic, right? A gal comes to a crossroads in life and decides to give up everything to pursue her dreams. The ex bought a house. He wanted stability. She bought a camper and moved it up to the river.  Her clients all thought it was cool. Lyndsey didn’t.

 She follows the path along the bridge embankment, over another fence and down into the water. There’s still one more gate to get through that hangs over the water under the bridge made of swinging PVC tubing. The inch and half tubing is threaded onto a steal cable at one end that is suspended about eight feet above the water as they hang all the way down to approximately a foot under the surface of the river. Boats and fisherman can easily push the tubing aside, slipping through. Once through the gate, the tubes swing back into place.

Cattle aren’t so intelligent. It’s the same kind of principle that keeps an elephant at the circus from breaking free from the dental floss tethering her leg. Everyone in the place knows she could break free at any moment accept the elephant.

As she comes to the first hole Rose pulls her fly free from the hook keeper next to the cork on the butt section of her rod. She adjusts the drag on her reel and then pulls a few feet of fly line off the spool. Whipping the end of the rod, the slack shoots out the tip-top and she continues to strip line out while feeding more and more out the end of the rod. Casting away from the pool as to not spook the fish, she finally has enough line out to hit her target.

There’s a run that tumbles down into a deep pool. At the bottom of the pool, boulders and the root ball of a Pondarosa pine have collected over the years supplying perfect cover for fish while still allowing a vantage point for an ambush on crippled bugs. Shooting line at about a 45-degree angle into the run, Rose drops the fly onto the riffle and lets it dump down into the hole. Nothing. She picks the fly up again and moves into the run a little further and still nothing. She continues working the pool and the run until she’s satisfied, she has either spooked the fish that were in there or there weren’t any in the first place and it’s time to move on to the next hole. More than likely, there were fish there but somehow, either by stumbling over rocks or casting a shadow, they knew Rose was there and no matter what kind of fly or how good the presentation, those fish weren’t going to be coming up for a while.

Cattle run all through the bottom of the Dearborn drainage. The resent fires and dry weather have caused the ranchers to bring them down to the bottoms for grass and water. A few cows and a calf occupy the bank on the inside corner of the next run. Chase never did like cattle and although he only weighs 54 pounds, he feels he’s got a chance against a 1500-pound cow with a calf.

“Don’t do it Chase,” Rose says in a low voice as he lets out a somewhat controlled woof.

Too late—Chase makes good on his name as he takes off barking through the brush on hot pursuit of the not-so-aloof Black Angus cow. At some point the cow realizes the size differential between her and this annoying little lab and she turns to confront her attacker. To her, Chase is the equivalent of an annoying house-fly to you and me and just before she can step on him Rose yells, “Leave it!” and Chase turns back to her side—head down, huffing and puffing as to give the impression that the cow was lucky she called him back.

Working her way upstream Rose hears some low growling she’s never heard from cattle before. However, with all those cows in the drainage she can’t imagine it is anything else. Surveying the next run, she makes a few false casts contemplating where to set the fly down. A bellow from some cattle elicits a head-snapping response to see a huge angus bull standing directly behind her. She knows it’s a bull because she let her eyes drift down to a pink shaft protruding from a tuft of hair under his belly. He stares directly at her. She’s not sure what he sees in her but the feelings are definitely not mutual.

As a kid Rose remembered going to a funeral for her great uncle with her grandmother. The story was that he had jumped over a fence into a bull’s area of the pasture to get some water from the creek that ran through the property. Somehow, he pissed the bull off and it came charging. The bull caught him as he was climbing the fence to get out of the pasture and dragged him down to the ground. It then proceeded to trample and stomp him until eventually he was dead. Someone found him a few hours later.

Now standing there face-to-face with this guy a lot of things were going through Rose’s head—catching fish was definitely not a priority. She let the rod tip down and the tensions on her fly-line released as she blindly dropped the fly onto the water. She thought about running. She thought about sneaking out of there. She even thought about using her rod as a weapon. Instead, Rose froze for a few seconds.

She realized at this point the fishing gods must have a sense of humor. While still standing there face-to-face with the affectionate bull, Rose’s rod was just about ripped out of her hands by a 16-inch rainbow trout.

Obviously, one’s life would normally take precedence over a fish but this was a good fish for the Dearborn and the first fish of the day over 12 inches. Immediately, Rose turned her attention to putting tension on him. She looked back over her shoulder to see the bull is still holding. She had time and fought the fish in right up to the bank and with still one eye on the bull, shook the rainbow free.

As Rose scurried upstream, putting distance between her and the bull some perspective was gained as she remembered conversations with her cousin who is a veterinarian in Missoula. She was in the market for a bull Yak and when she found one, the guy selling it questioned her about getting such an animal. They can be pretty mean. In fact, the only bulls more temperamental are Holsteins—they’re of the milking breed and the ones typically associated with Midwest milking farms like her great uncle’s. Angus bulls are by in large quite docile. That is until a cowboy grabs hold of a rope that’s cutting off the circulation to their scrotum. The perception, however, when you’re staring down a 2,000-pound bull in the backcountry is that of the rodeo bulls—thrashing around, snot flying, cowboys getting gored, etc. Rose guessed anyone would be bucking like a son-of-a-bitch too if someone did that to them.

Standing at the next hole Rose couldn’t help but notice this constant gloom that’s been hanging over her. It’s made her numb. It’s kept her brow furrowed for weeks and it hasn’t reprieved one iota since the break-up. And now, when she did think her head was becoming clearer, the emails just got nastier and nastier.

Rose is a firm believer in Calvin Cooley’s theory of the “looking glass self,” which essentially is the way we see ourselves in the context of the world around us. You see, we are not who we think we are. We are not who others think we are. We are what we think others think we are. In short, by the way others interact with us; we develop some kind of perception of what others think of us and thus, who we are.

In Rose’s case, she just wanted to feel like she was a good person worthy of being loved by the person she loved. But what she was getting from Lyndsey was example after example of how she came up short and how she was some horrible person not deserving love. He recalled fights from years ago in a way that would confirm his decision to end it even though her recollection of those event were very different. He collected those memories as ammo against her; storing them up for the time he could launch his assault and now he was using that ammo to destroy her.

In a weird way, she just wanted to know that he was hurting too, which she guessed would mean it, meaning the relationship, wasn’t a total lie. She would have even taken him saying he hater her because at least that would show some emotion but now, Lyndsey couldn’t even say that. The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference. Had he said he hated Rose in these emails, she would have at least known he had feelings or that he was hurting too but Lyndsey didn’t say that. He said he was indifferent towards her and that stung.

This looking glass self-theory also recognizes the significance of the person one is getting feedback from. If some ransom dude walking down the street said he was indifferent towards her, it wouldn’t have mattered. But Rose had been dating Lyndsey for over two years. Two years and she wasn’t even good enough for hate—just indifference?

And now standing over another pool, all she can see is a distorted view of herself. It’s like looking into a cracked mirror and all she can think about is how she might fix the image. The absolute craziest thing about all of this is that there are many mirrors Rose could choose from to focus on—the guy that asked her out the other night? The guys she took out fishing yesterday? The few other guides that have been so excepting of her?  No, she has to focus on this mirror from this man and it’s driving her absolutely crazy.

Peace. That’s what she needs. Peace and Rose figures, she knows how to get it. She’ll take a break from fishing and she’ll pray. And what better place to pray then in the backcountry, in this beautiful canyon right?

Seeking out a boulder to sit on, Rose sets her rod down and takes off her backpack. She has the perfect seat picked in the most beautiful place and she’s about to talk to God. The water rushes by as the remaining sunlight glistens off the rippling water. She has gotten far enough away from the cattle so they are no longer a distraction. Chase is happily doing his own thing and there isn’t a sign of civilization for miles and miles. Even the jets seem to have bypassed the airspace overhead and as she takes a seat, Rose thinks to herself, “It’s just you and me God.”

Suddenly, she hears the buzzing of insect wings as a dozen or so hornets ascend on her. Yep, Rose has sat on a hornet’s nest and they are not happy.

“This isn’t it. This isn’t peace. Is this a joke?”

Jumping to her feet she grabs her rod and pack and escapes without a bite, or sting. Rose isn’t sure whether hornets bite at this point or sting and I couldn’t care less. Rose takes another seat on the bank of the river and within seconds she’s covered in ants. Ants!

“Forget it,” she says to herself. “You’ve made your point.”

Once again Rose collects her things and starts heading upstream to the hole with the monster rainbow that eluded James just the other day. She has managed a few more fish and in all, she’s having a decent day of fishing but she just can’t clear her head of the emails or the last conversation she and Lyndsey had. She can see the words and hear his voice again and again telling her how she wasn’t meeting his needs and how he could never be happy with her. Rose wasn’t good enough and that hurt.

Before she knew it, she could see the hole. The water is so clear; every boulder, every fold in the strata of rock formation, and every pebble are visible as if you were looking into an unopened bottle of Beefeater. What she wouldn’t do right now for a drink. It’s deceptively deep and with the water clarity the depth is hard to decipher. The left bank is comprised of a limestone cliff, smoothed over by time, wind and water; cold grey in color and standing strong like an old woodsman guarding the hole, protecting it from the elements and the few fishing souls who might venture up this far.

Above the hole is a run that shoots through a low point in the limestone bottom. It meanders over the rocks creating a riffle of hard water dumping over a ledge and into a bubbling pool as the water deflects off the bottom and churns over and over until it spills out of the tail end of the seam.

It’s at the upstream point of the hole in the turbulent water where the bigger fish will lay. They wait for nymphs and fry that have lost their hold in the rocks above the run to tumble down. The seam becomes a feeding trough as well as supplies much needed oxygen and as the shadows get longer, the fish start looking up for surface food.

On the right side of the hole there lies a somewhat steep gravel bank. The pebbles act like marbles when stepped on and any uncalculated move might send one sliding right into the river. It’s the only vantage point to cast from however, as standing in the hole is impossible because of the depth and to the left, stands the old woodsman.

It took Rose a good hour and a half to work her way up to this spot. The wind had lain down. The temperature was dropping. The cliffs were supplying the shadows she needed. Everything was perfect. Rose checks her leader for nicks or abrasions. If she hooks him, she wouldn’t want anything to ruin her chances of landing him. She takes a moment and a breath and acknowledges the old man watching over the river and assures him she means no harm.

Working her way up the right-side Rose feels her Chacos slipping in the pebbles. She moves up the bank a little higher to make sure to not disturb the water. The problem is the higher on the bank, the more visible she becomes so she crouches as she sneaks. The closer she gets, the slower she moves as the last couple yards seemed to take an eternity. She positions herself to have the best shot at putting a 45-degree cast into the riffle without casting a shadow over the fish.

Rose starts the meticulous process of picking apart this trout’s home by taking false casts behind the hole. She wants to get just enough line out to be able to set the fly down right at the end of the run so to not cover any more water than needed. A big mistake most beginners make is having too much line out, trying to cast too far. The problem is they throw line over the top of the water they want to be fishing and contaminate the hole with a shadow from the line. It’s also more difficult to manage one’s line the further they are out, which compromises the presentation and makes it difficult to come tight on a trout if they come up to eat. It’s a lesson Rose learned years ago while fishing the Madison River near Ennis, MT.

It was the Mother’s Day Caddis hatch and Rose was just getting into this newfound passion of fly-fishing. She had driven about 2 hours to get to Ennis on her way to Bear Trap Canyon. She stopped at the Ennis fly shop to get the local flavor. The bro-bra in the shop spent about 40 minutes explaining the hatch that was going on, what size of bugs to use, how to rig a caddis with a dropper, how to throw a reach cast, a pile cast, etc. etc... He was the typical trout-bum; mid-twenties, long-hair, long-beard and what seemed to be a complete disrespect and/or lack of command for the English language.

It was always an intimidating venture when going into a fly-shop for Rose during those first few years of exploration. Just walking into a shop, she knew there was a spotlight on her. She was either going to get the cold shoulder for being an obvious novice and a chick or even worse, she would get the dude that hovers over her and talks too much and trying to be too helpful. She hoped the former would be a result of her being a novice versus being a chick, but Rose knew better. She also knew the latter was a direct result of being a chick—a very attractive chick at that.

On this particular day, Rose ran into the hoverer. Although he did give her a ton of great information and he was generally being sweet, he also never shut up and it was incredibly difficult for Rose to get a word in otherwise.

She remembered thinking, “Dude, if you’d just relax for a second and listen to what I’m asking, I could eventually get to the water…” which is what she was there for in the first place.

But guys in the fly-fishing world always seemed to want to take advantage of these encounters. It was an open door they thought they could somehow slip a foot into by showing their extensive knowledge. They tried to impress Rose but all it did was frustrate her.

“Just treat me like a dude,” she often thought while drifting off into her flight mode struggling to find the words she could say to end this conversation without sounding like a bitch.

As Rose finally walked out the door he said, “Oh yah, and one more thing. If you don’t catch anything don’t worry about it. It took me 3 months to catch my first trout out here in Montana...”

“Wow, that was more than just a little discouraging,” she thought to herself.

Rose headed out to the river anyway with some new ammo in her fly-box and a little more knowledge even though she felt she had paid dearly for it—not necessarily in actual currency but in time and self-respect. She hiked into the canyon about 2 miles before throwing a line. She fished for at least 3 hours without getting a single take. Feeling a little defeated Rose headed to the bank and sat down. She remembered what the bro-bra in the fly-shop told her. Then she looked back to see a fisherman a hundred yards behind her fishing the exact same water hooking fish after fish.

“God damnit,” she grunted to herself.

Feeling defeated and a little beaten down Rose had two options at this point. She could collect her things and humbly head back down the trail to the Jeep or she could try learning something. Rose chose the student role and spent the next 30 minutes watching this guy catch fish.

What she noticed right off the bat was the amount of line he was throwing. Thirty feet was all it took and after letting the fly drift only about 15 feet through the seam or past the boulder he was fishing, he would immediately pick it up and put it right back in the zone. There was no time wasted. There were no unnecessary false casts. He didn’t have any more line out than he needed to get the job done, which allowed him to manage the slack in his line and make the necessary mends and set the hook before the fish could spit the fly out.

After watching her new mentor for a while, Rose regained some ambition and confidence and decided to have another go at it. She waded back into the current and emulated her teacher. In the next hour, she caught eight fish and missed a couple others. She was stoked to say the least and like sinking that last par putt on the 18^th hole, she left feeling victorious and knew she would be back on the water in the coming days.

So now on the Dearborn after taking a few false casts well behind her target, Rose shifted her body slightly making a single cast, setting the fly perfectly on the inside edge of the seam. The fly is a foam hopper imitation that is easy to see and virtually unsinkable. Even in the hard water it bounces down the riffle rolling into the pool only getting lost for a second before popping back up on the surface.

On her first cast the hopper floats through the zone without drag, passing directly over where the monster rainbow should be—nothing. Careful not to pop the fly off the water Rose picks it up and again takes a couple quick false casts downstream of the riffle and then once again, sets the fly down on the water; this time a few inches further into the seam and again—nothing. The third cast lands right on the outside edge of the seam and as it drifts into the pool on the bottom of the run the dark shadow of the rainbow reveals itself as it rises up and turns to chase the hopper downstream. Rose see the white mouth of the rainbow open as it chases the hopper gaining ground. With a burst of speed, the trout makes its final run at it and in an angry gulp, smacks at the hopper.

About the only thing she can liken to what happened next is a premature ejaculation. (She learned about those from her first “real” boyfriend her freshman year in college…poor guy.)  It took everything she had to wait as long as she did to set the hook but as soon as the mouth came up out of the water Rose snapped the rod-tip up and pulled the hopper right out of the trout’s mouth.

She spent nearly two hours getting to that position, making that cast coaxing that particular fish into taking her fly. It was almost painful how carefully she worked the pool. She had made the right choice of fly and when the perfect cast was made, and the drift was accomplished she pulled the fly right out of the fish’s mouth.

“Fucking pathetic.” She murmured to herself. “Fucking pathetic.” 

The feeling only lasted a couple seconds as Rose thought, “Maybe, just maybe I could get the trout to come up again.”

Starting over, she took her false casts and put the fly right back where the rainbow was lying at the bottom of the pool.. To her surprise, he showed himself again, but this time only came up to about six inches from the surface of the water, turned tail, and rolled back to the bottom out of sight. One more cast and Rose was confident she had blown her chance.

There is a paradox here however. As she finished kicking herself, Rose noticed something. For the past half an hour or so, all she was thinking about was the objective at hand. She was in one of the most beautiful places on the planet, participating in something she was truly passionate about and for the first time in a long time, she was at peace. Nothing else mattered and even though she hadn’t actually caught the trout, her stomach wasn’t turning, her brow was no longer furrowed and you know, she was actually happy. For a brief moment, Rose was happy.

Wanting to document this special place she turned to grab her camera and remembered she had left her pack about a hundred yards downstream. Deciding to retrieve the pack and the camera, she made the short hike back and returned to the and the old woodsman. She remembered a conversation I had with an ex-game warden who suggested fish have a memory of about seven seconds.

“Seven seconds?” Rose thought. “That would mean this particular fish should have forgotten her by now right?”

Not fully buying it, she decided to at least change flies before trying it again.

Going a totally different direction Rose pulled out her box of ammo. In there, she had an assortment of hoppers, beetles and other terrestrials. She also had the one go-to fly that everyone on every stream in the West should have—a parachute Adams.

A little larger than the Adams she would normally use on the Missouri but much smaller than the hoppers she had been throwing, Rose added some tippet to her leader and tied on the size 12 Adams. She coated the fly with Gink and then added some to the butt section of the leader. She dropped the fly and watched the excess coating leach into the water. Standing in the exact same spot as just a few minutes before, she began the ritual of taking false casts downstream from the run and worked this special hole.

The Adams is not nearly as buoyant as the foam hopper and as she set the fly on the inside edge of the seam it only drifted about two feet before tumbling down, submerging under the surface of the water; disappearing deep into the hole. Her initial thought was to jerk the fly up out of the water, take a couple false casts to dry it off, and then return it back to the run. She snapped the rod-tip up and as the line straightened and became tight her forearm stopped half-way through the motion.

You know you’ve hooked a monster when the weight of the fish stops your arm motion dead in its path and instead of you leading him, his headshakes and his rolls dictate your next move. He ran through the pool and headed downstream and all Rose could do was chase him. She knew he was in control seconds after accidentally setting the hook when he ran out all the access line getting to the reel before she even knew what had happened. He took a jump disrupting the calm water of the end of the pool landing with a “plat” on the surface, which only seemed to piss him off as he changed direction and charged back upstream.

Sometimes things don’t work out the way they’re supposed to. Sometimes we do everything right and we fail and then sometimes we fall into success, happiness and even peace. And sometime the Gods--fishing or otherwise--only wait for those moments when we are ready for peace, love, or catching fish.

In graduate school Rose studied a social change philosopher by the name of Hanna Arendt. She described peace as something that can no more be forced upon someone as sleep, or love. In her writings she often spoke on the fallacy of thinking we can go to war to coerce people into living in peace. All it does is forces people to act a certain way but doesn’t address the underlining tension of resentment or hate. People can act as though they are happy or content with a situation only so long until the real feelings surface.

This doesn’t mean we don’t have some control over our happiness. We can choose to focus on things that make us happy and we can choose to move on. But happiness or peace, will only fall in our laps when we are ready for it and the Gods seem to know when that time has come. Sometimes we get a glimpse of it. Sometimes it lasts for longer but we only get the amount we are ready for and if we choose to focus on the turmoil in our lives, we are choosing to hang onto turmoil and thereby, choosing to let go of peace. 

Rose gave thanks to the trout while releasing him back to his hole and as it disappeared, she was able to reflect on the profound lessons a day like this brings. Snipping off the fly Rose buried it in the rocks returning it to the earth, retiring it from its life as a fly and onto its new one, degrading back to the elements it was derived from. It was the death of a fly but not a death from failure. It was a death manifested from triumph and now a chance of rebirth—an opportunity to move onto another life or maybe just another chapter in this life.

Rose broke her rod down and placed the reel in her pack. With the sun now fully hidden behind the mountains she began her hike back to the Jeep.