One step closer......

Three trips, 8 days, 2000 miles.  Many nights we spoil ourselves in a comfortable hotel.  The latest trip my son and I have but two days to ply the waters.  We decide (well our wallets decide for us) to spend one very uncomfortable night in the back of the 4runner.  Sometime during the night I awake to rain pelting the roof, in my slumber I realize our waders are on the top of the 4runner.  In a near panic I wake Marshall up, insisting we pile out immediately to save our waders.  Even after repeated assurances from my son that he indeed put the waders in the front seat, frantically digging through the front seat and seeing a pair of waders (that turn out to be mine) I reluctantly agree and am thus saved a cold jaunt outside in my boxers.  We settle into a fitful slumber, sleeping near the banks of the river we hear the very waters we will fish the next day.  We can almost feel the currents pulse through out veins.  Somewhere inside of us, we feel that tonight we are truly paying our dues, and will be rewarded with steel.  We rise well before daylight without an alarm, our sore backs and cramped legs prod us to start the day.  We decide to forego breakfast, hoping our hunger will somehow make us fish harder.  I let Marshall take the bucket and settle in below him.  The water is noticeably colder this morning compared to the last two trips.  Fall has settled into the air and is palpable on this crisp morning.  I settle into the rhythm all steelhead fishermen know, cast, swing, mend, strip, step.  A half hour in my initial anticipation begins to wane when out of the dark waters of the Clearwater in the half light of a foggy morning, one solitary fish solidifies my belief that one day I will catch a steelhead on the surface.  It also fuels my obsession that much more......

The fly has now been retired to the bill of my cap.