Mountain Mist Upon the River

He woke without a start, with no noise or alarm, but almost instinctually. He sat up slowly, and peered through the darkness to gain his bearings. The musty aromatic scent was his first indication of his whereabouts and it was the warm familiar smell of their lake cottage that they had built the summer before. It was a combination of the lingering smell of a hardwood fire that burned in the small camp stove the night before mixed with the smell of fresh cut timber intertwined with a hint of pine that grew all about. It was a small cottage with a sleeping loft nestled in a valley between two ridgelines of the Great Smokey Mountains, off the beaten path, quiet, and secluded. He gently slid to the side of the bed, careful not to wake his sleeping wife, and felt around with his toes to find his slippers. He crept over to the side of the bed where she slept and kissed her gently on the forehead. He smiled and whispered, "I love you very much". He turned and quietly crept down the stairs and found the fishing gear that he had carefully laid out the night before. This ritual was almost second nature to him now, except that this time, after dressing, he placed a hand on the shoulder of his teenage nephew who woke with a start.

"Are you ready to get up and catch some fish?" he asked as the boy rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

In a controlled yet excited voice, the boy said, "Give me a couple of minutes to get dressed."

With that, the man turned to the wood burning camp stove, opened the small pot metal door and poked at the burning embers. He reached to the kindling box and grasped a handful of split pine tinder and placed it upon the embers. He then placed three pieces of hardwood on that, shifted them around and with the slightest smile of satisfaction, decided that it would keep the place warm in the few hours of their absence so he closed the door. He went to the kitchen and grabbed a box of plain cake donuts from the counter and two small bottles of milk from the refrigerator. He paused for a moment as he placed them in the backpack remembering how his father used to bring the same thing along on their early morning fishing trips years before. He grabbed a few sticks of beef jerky and two sodas and then zipped up the backpack and slung it over his shoulder. As he turned to leave the galley, he met his nephew who was considerably more awake and anxious to depart.

As he pointed to the door, the man whispered, "The gear is already in the car, are you sure you have everything?"

"Yep, but did you get plastic bags for the fish we're going to catch?" asked the boy.

The man patted on the backpack with a small smile and the two walked towards the wooden door and down the stairs to the old red and white pickup truck. The boy took the backpack from his uncle and placed it behind the seat of the truck. After giving all of the gear in the back of the truck a thorough inspection, the boy gave his approval with a nod and climbed into the worn passenger seat. The two had a relatively quiet drive up over the mountain and when they crested the ridgeline, the boy reached behind the seat, and withdrew the bottles of milk, handing one to his uncle and placing one between his legs. He then pulled out the box of donuts and opened the box, first offering one to the man and then selecting one for himself.

"It's foggy this morning" the boy noted. He then added, "Should be harder for the fish to see us, but without any wind, the water will be calm and easy for them to spot a bad cast."

The man smiled knowing that the boy had heard him say that a hundred times before on their previous fishing trips and added, "Makes it harder for us to see them rise though."

When they finally arrived to their destination, they casually dressed in their waders, then boots, then vests and finally assembled their rods. The boy inspected his leader and tippet carefully for nicks or cuts even though the two had spent an hour retying and prepping their gear the night before.

"A blue wing olive dunn with a pheasant tail dropper I think," said the man decidedly. "Do you have some or do you need to borrow a couple?"

"Nope, I'm going with a brassie dropper...the extra shine will grab their attention," beamed the boy.

"OK, do you have any particular piece of the river in mind?" inquired the man.

"Up at the split...right off the front of the island so I can cast to both banks. I want to hit that undercut on the left side" the boy commented nonchalantly.

"You lead, I follow...you're guiding me today" said the man with a smile and a pat on the boys head.

Off the two went, into the water, their waders still a bit damp and cold from the day before. The man held back and fished some of the tailout pools after the ripple while the boy moved on to the head of the island. The man stood and watched as the boy gracefully managed the unforgiving holes and boulders and picked his position. Only after standing and watching for a few minutes did the boy detach the hook from his rod and feed out a few feet of line. The man remembered that he always judged a new fishing client by how long they waited before the first cast. It somehow implied patience and experience and that the fish hungry novice would stagger and stumble over the rocks with hook in hand, ready to launch a cast a few yards and plop a fly down to the "best looking spot" right off. The young boy waited, working only a few yards out at a time, fishing only the riffles and eddies that were capable of producing fish. On the third cast, the boy hooked a moderate fish, fought it well, and landed it without incident. Just as he was turning to his uncle for recognition of "the first fish of the day", the man turned away, held a stern look on his face for just a moment, but then broke a wide, knowing grin while nodding his head.

It was a long standing tradition for the two, that whoever catches the first fish had to clean the catch for the day and while the boy liked to indulge in this task, the man always managed to be outfished on the first fish of the day. The man fished casually, reminiscing about the past and how much the boy had grown and learned about the sport of fishing and the outdoors in general more than concentrating on the multiple rises on the misty river. He managed to hook an occasional fish, turning loose his fair share and keeping a couple in his wicker creel for dinner. As the sun finally burned through the mist, it began to warm up the air around them. The man, satisfied with his catch for the day, worked slowly towards the shore of the island. He clipped the fly off of his tippet and tied the line to the keeper. He pulled some wet grass from the shore and covered the 4 trout in his creel. His attention then turned towards the boy, who, throughout the morning was certainly catching his fair share of the trout as well. He hadn't seen a great deal of action in the past 20 minutes from the boy but that could have been due to the sun spooking the fish down.

The man walked to the head of the island, unclipped his creel, letting it slide off of his arm to the ground, laid his rod atop the creel and leaned back against a tree trunk. He reached in his chest pocket and withdrew a donut that he had wrapped in a paper napkin and munched it down. He then tilted up his worn and dog-eared cap and placed a cigarette to his lips. He retrieved his tarnished brass Zippo lighter and lit the cigarette, letting the smoke dance up into the trees. He noted that the boy was fishing the undercut on the left bank of the river, "going after the big one" he thought to himself. He nonchalantly motioned towards the bank and in a loud whisper, said, "You might have waited a little too long. The sun's got him hiding for the day." The boy barely nodded in acknowledgement, knowing that it was probably true but hoping that it wasn't.

The man looked down at his gear and noted the years of wear on the cork handle of his favorite rod. From the corner of his eye, he noticed a brief flash of commotion, a quick jerk from the boy. The boy was holding his right arm straight and high above his head, rod extended but bowed. He followed the line down to a swirl in the water and as he did, the boy yelled, "Fish on".

The man watched for a few moments thinking that it was just another 12 inch rainbow, but when the fish hit open water, it began to pull line off of the reel and kept a horseshoe bend in the rod. "How big?" asked the man.

"Don't know, I didn't see him broadside...feels big though" returned the boy.

As the final words came out of the boy's mouth, the fish neared the surface and splashed. A quick judgment of measure told them both that this was a large fish. The man leaned forward off of the tree and began wading out towards the boy. He stayed off the boy's left shoulder without speaking a word, watching as the boy masterfully angled his rod against every run of the fish. As the minutes passed, the boy gained line against the brute, and like a well rehearsed dance, the man stepped up, lowered the net to the water and the boy led the fish's head into the net. The man raised the net and the two stood in the water staring in amazement at the magnificent brown trout. They waded back to shore and after a few pictures, the boy lowered the fish back down into the water. The fish gently glided through his hands as it lazily swam off to a deep pool to the right. Placing his hand on the boy's shoulder, the man said, "I'm proud of you, that was a magnificent fish and you fought him well."

"Thanks Uncle Chris, I guess all of those years of broken leaders and tangled lines paid off" smiled the boy.

"You forgot one golden rule" said the man. "A guide should never out-fish the client" he smiled and rubbed his hand upon the boys head. "Now let's get back to camp and see what your Aunt has cooked up for us."

As they rode home, they talked the whole time of the great fight that the boy had been through. He recounted the fly, the cast, the lay of the line and the strike. With broad smiles, the men arrived at camp and the man's wife just knew that there would be stories over breakfast. She had made biscuits that morning and was greeted with a hug from her nephew and a kiss from her husband. "Did you catch anything?" she smiled, knowing that she had just opened a book of fishing tales.

"We did alright I guess'" beamed her nephew.

"I knew the day would come," said the man, "I finally got out fished...wait until you see these pictures."

The three passed the morning over breakfast retelling the story once again. Both of them were like boys, each taking a turn at the details of the morning's adventure. When they were done, the men cleared the table and cleaned the dishes and later filled the afternoon with cleaning fish and tending gear. They would fish together again throughout the years, but this one story was always present amongst them and unlike most fish stories, this fish never needed to get any bigger than the day that it was caught.