When the River Glowed Amber

The sun hung low like a copper coin as I waded into the shallows of the Deschutes River. Pine sap and cold mist clung to my faded flannel - the same shirt that survived last summer's catfish incident. My spinning reel whined softly, spooling out line through calloused fingers that still remembered yesterday's backlash disaster.

Three casts. Three snags. The fourth sent my soft plastic worm arcing toward a submerged log where shadow met liquid gold. 'Should've brought coffee,' I muttered, watching a bald eagle circle overhead. My thermos sat forgotten on the truck bed, next to the lucky baseball cap I'd worn since my first catch at age twelve.

When the strike came, it wasn't the sharp tug I expected. The line simply... stopped. Then the water erupted. My rod curved into a parenthesis as a steelhead trout breached, its scales catching fire in the dying light. The river's current sang through taut braid, my waders filling with icy water as the fish surged downstream.

Twenty minutes later - breath fogging the air, forearms burning - I cradled the exhausted fighter. Its gills flared once before it vanished in a swirl of orange pebbles. The raven watching from a cottonwood tree cawed, sounding suspiciously like laughter.