When the River Whispered at Dawn

Three cups of coffee couldn't warm my stiff fingers as I waded into the Colorado's icy embrace. The smell of damp moss mingled with the metallic tang of my fly reel, its clicker singing a soft protest with each strip of line. Across the river, a bald eagle watched from a skeletal cottonwood - nature's sternest fishing judge.

'Should've brought the 5-weight,' I grumbled, watching my caddis imitation get bullied by the current. My trusty 4-weight rod dipped like a willow branch, its delicate action suddenly feeling foolish against these snowmelt-swollen waters. A rainbow flashed silver beneath the surface, mocking my nymph rig with theatrical disinterest.

Noon came bearing wind that stole hats and curses alike. I was re-tying a leader for the ninth time when the water blinked. Not a ripple, but a liquid wink - sunlight catching a dozen dorsal fins breaching simultaneously upstream. My wading boots became lead weights as I fought the current toward the feeding frenzy.

What happened next exists in fragments: The electric jolt of a wild brown trout striking mid-mend. The visceral hum of fluorocarbon sawing through rapids. Twenty minutes later, kneeling in shallows with a 22-inch masterpiece gliding from my hands, I noticed the eagle had flown. But the river kept whispering its secrets to anyone stubborn enough to listen.