When the River Whispered at Dusk

The thermometer read 92°F when I decided to try my luck at the bend where the Deschutes narrows. My faded Seattle Mariners cap - stained with fish slime and sunscreen - rode shotgun as always. I could taste yesterday's coffee lingering in my thermos when the first mayfly landed on my waders.

Three casts with a spinnerbait yielded nothing but algae. The river looked like weak tea, swollen with runoff from yesterday's storm. 'Should've brought the fluorocarbon line,' I muttered, watching another rainbow trout mock my presentation with a lazy tail flick.

Dusk was painting the canyon walls orange when I heard it - the distinctive slurp of rising fish behind the submerged log. My hands shook as I retied. The popper landed like a falling cherry blossom... then the water exploded. For twelve heartbeat minutes, the 18-inch wild steelhead danced on my line, its acrobatics mirroring the kingfisher's dive nearby.

When I finally slipped the net under my prize, the river fog had erased the trail back. The GPS died with my phone battery, but the steelhead's crimson streak along my palm glowed like neon in twilight. Somewhere upstream, an owl laughed at my predicament.