Colorado, an Old Friend, and a First Catch

For the first time in a long time, I leaned my head to the right, rested it on my sun-stained and freckled shoulder and looked in the rear view mirror to see myself looking back at me. It was someone I felt I had truly not seen in a while. That is probably not something people like to talk about so much and with good reason. We are confident, capable, always highly functioning human beings, but to be honest I had only sort of felt all of those things while rushing through my daily life and somehow had forgotten to take a moment to process all that had swirled around in passing time and so, I settled here in this moment to finally do so. There I was, in that same old ugly and too small yellow tank top I’ve kept for years for the same reason we all keep old, soft, shirts with a hole or two in them. My dirty blonde hair with the roots grown out to the length any responsible middle class woman’s hair should be grown out to was whipping around my face and I gladly welcomed the tangles. I was staring at formidable and tempting mountain peaks while moving along in the passenger seat of some vehicle that my old friend Willy was poorly driving. I often found myself, in life, sitting in the passenger seat of some vehicle that Willy was poorly driving. Maybe it’s not that he’s a bad driver but that he pokes his head out to see the passing elk or avalanche devastated ponderosa path on the mountain with just one hand remaining on the wheel while we ascend into some switchback highway. I can’t say I blame him. After all, I am always doing just the same on the other side of the car, and even though I have been in this same spot so many times before, it somehow felt like a first.

Willy is an old and favorite friend of mine and we have often joined each other for adventures in the great outdoors over the years. This time we had decided to meet in Colorado for a crack at fly fishing in and around Rocky Mountain National Park. I greeted him at the airport with musty wading boots packed tightly into a carry-on suitcase that was

desperately in need of fumigating after a year of items like bloody duck feathers, well used waders, and otherwise not-washed-too-often clothes stuffed into it. Before heading north, we made a pit stop to track some mule deer at the national refuge and take guesses at the local flora that was blooming all around us. We eagerly pointed out wild yarrow, lupine, and wallflowers. We muddled pollen and dirt as we walked through the white fairylike flower clusters, periwinkle lupine wings, and buttery yellow wallflower pedals. We delighted in an electric orange poppy with a honeybee napping in it. The bee was clinging to the soft underside of the neon pedal, the flower resembled the birthday paper you stuff into gift bags, and the bee appeared to be napping on his back. We chuckled imitating the kicked back bee, he might as well of had his arms behind his head. We then made our way up and north, escaping buildings and concrete as we all must do whenever possible.

The next morning, we woke up at 3AM to enter the park and scope out our first fishing hole.

On our groggy pursuit for the lake, we were kindly interrupted by perhaps hundreds of elk and their nearly new offspring. The calves chirped and sang as day arrived. The alpenglow was welcomed by the graceless yet charming calves crooning like a flock of faraway seagulls. The peaks erupted in an entrancing salmon-colored glow and we moved slowly past the elk nursery, admiring the milking calves and shifty mothers while their young drank and the mothers kept watch. We cruised toward the lake slowly and allowed multiple elk bulls to cross the street at their own, seemingly aimless, pace. We didn’t mind. We only stopped once more on our way up the road, when a puffed-up turkey tom ran along the shoulder. It was the same tom I had dreamt up all spring but never got a shot at and I asked Willy to roll the window all the way down. I shouted “morning” (totally legal) and he retorted with a loud, involuntary shock gobble. We laughed and watched him strut into the timber, his feathers were fanned out and his back feathers and beard were swaying like cheat grass in a summer breeze as he disappeared. Onward.

At last, we reached the lake. After a quick car nap, we were knee deep in the shallow lake. We meticulously tied our flies on. Willy had offered his fly collection and I thoughtfully chose a fly that reminded me of a porcupine. I enjoyed its two-tone wings – I will leave it at that. I had only got into fly fishing a year ago and had left dry fly fishing at the bottom of my to-do list until today. I stood there watching Willy’s lengthy candy-cane-like casts for a moment then shrugged and gave it a shot. I studied the water for a few seconds, scanning the calm between breezy ripples, watching carefully for surfacing trout. I watched a dorsal fin skim the surface then vanish. I watched it again and aimed for that. My dry fly tapped the water and I stripped it so that it danced as similarly to the real-life mosquito next to it as possible. I casted again, then took a quick peak at the mountains, evergreens, and wildflowers around me that all generously reflected their beauty off of the lake we fished. I looked over at Willy once more to see him feverishly pursuing trout and smiled at his determination. I was so happy to just be there, I thought. Then, in my distractedness, a trout ate my fly. I hollered like a child. It ran for just fifteen seconds or so and I pulled it in, no net needed for the little guy. I held his fragile body in the water while popping the fly out of its mouth. He was dainty and perfect and my first catch on a dry fly ever.

Trout always earn my gaze but this one did for particularly longer. I held him just below the surface looking at his golden brush stroked belly and distinct amber vermiculation. Glossy, ubiquitous spots scattered across his back and sides. I held him up just above the water for Willy to see; Willy held up his hand to “air high five” me from where he stood. I held him for another second or two until his tail started to twist and he returned to the lake far away from where my legs stood there in the water. Then, it was Willy hollering. His rod was bent the minute I looked up and a brook trout or should I say, show pony, flung into the air. I lumbered toward him, kicking water, holding out the net and Willy guided the brookie in. We caught trout for the next half hour the same way you might share a bottle of wine with no glasses, one person after the other taking their turn, getting their kicks. We were catching fish back-to-back with proud and life drunk giggles in between. In the midst of our luck, I cockily tossed out a fresh green fly and deservingly missed the same trout over and over again. Finally, I relaxed into the moment again, grateful for the day itself, and like that my fly sank and I pulled back my rod swiftly. The reel was spinning so fast it was smoking (no, of course it was not actually smoking, but it sure felt that exciting). The trout and I fought for a couple of minutes and we finally landed him in the net. Nearby hikers cheered and I was happy to see it was a family with young daughters. I, without doubt, like to see all kids excited about fishing but there is something about smaller versions of me clapping and shouting, “let’s see it,” that makes you look forward to the next generation of female anglers taking to the water and the thought of a little girl maybe asking for a fly rod next Christmas. I held up the trout and the kids cheered sweetly. We snapped a quick photo of the brown trout and then watched as he regained his strength and swam away. Willy and I hugged and celebrated with a lunchtime beer before heading back out.

Round two was an entirely different day. As we made our way back toward the lake we paused and were stopped by a large cow moose wading in the water. We watched the moose grazing and flicking its rabbit-like ears at the mosquitoes buzzing around her. It walked through the water the way we did in waders, though more smoothly. Its heavy mud caked hooves raised up out of the water dripping thick droplets and then pressed heavily ahead of it while the next leg rose and did the same. It trudged gracefully, a hypocrisy I envied. The mystifying creature peered over at us with the whites of its eyes visible, its face amicable but its body-language wary. We walked in the other direction and kept an eye on her while hikers began to gather and snap photos. We found a spot of tall trees and marsh that led to a shallow bay and decided to head toward this new spot with our rods dropping pine needles from the tall branches behind us while we walked. “Oh shit,” Willy whispered. I looked up and another cow moose stood in the water, this one visibly more agitated than the last. We backed up slowly and waited for her to move toward the woods where she was originally headed. She ended up parading around the shoreline instead of retreating into the forest. We then practically circled the lake, disinterested in drowning by moose that afternoon but happy to watch the largest member of the Cervidae family browse for aquatic plants from afar. I never had a chance to watch moose this intimately and it was hard to focus on my casts while the pinecone-colored beasts munched at the other shoreline about a hundred and fifty yards away. Their backs had a hump like a grizzly bear and their soggy dewlaps dripped water as they rose their mighty head to have a look around between snacks. They had two rabbit-like ears or maybe kangaroo looking ears, at any rate their four legs were long, gangly and had knobby tennis ball knees, very giraffe-like. It was as if God borrowed the parts of a couple of already created animals and put them together to add this mutt-like moose to the Rockies. Then again, they were a creature all their own. I imagined great satellite-dish paddle antlers sprouting from a bull’s head all summer while I watched the equally astonishing female moose move through the lake. I shifted my attention back to fishing while enjoying the unexpected company Willy and I had that afternoon. We casted and missed for the next hour or so until calling it a day. I wondered what made a trout spit a fly entirely out when at other times they would swallow a fly whole. The question would be cause for return, I figured, and we retreated to the car cold, achy, and smiling.

The next day we fished the rivers. We had a few close calls but nothing worth writing home about. More extraordinarily, while sitting on the side of the river and watching over the valley a herd of bull elk joined us. A handful of crowned bulls leaked from the mountains into the tall valley grass. After watching them for quite some time, we noticed they all began to trot then run at what appeared to be full speed. I had never seen an elk or herd of elk run like that. We watched to see what spooked them and guessed they caught our wind until we noticed a couple of coyotes. The coyote’s bodies were nearly flush with the valley floor, their gray backs bouncing just above the grass. They would occasionally hop onto rocks to have a look around. The elk eventually settled and the animals shifted around each other unalarmed, the elk grazing, coyote hunting voles we guessed, the sky and us watching over it all. You spend enough time sitting outside and you’re bound to come across something worth recollecting. We began walking back to the car from our last night of fishing Colorado. We took a path along the river while maintaining a view of the valley. The elk, the coyotes, the sun, and us all drifted west.

Colorado holds a plethora of wildflowers, high, pretty peaks, and a handful of mountain creatures that move inherently through the land. It is now lovingly the home of my first dry fly catch and a place Willy and I will both think of fondly. A land full of intrepid moose and rising trout and people who still cheer when a fish is caught. A place of many firsts and surely not lasts. The incredible thing about a pursuit like fishing: You can do it for almost thirty years and still not know anything about it. There are infinite species to chase and a lot of ways to land a fish. Be it fly, spear, bow, ice, good old rod and reel spin fishing. It is like falling in love with the same person over and over again, like having a beer with a buddy you’ve known forever and still finding things to laugh about and ponder over, like seeing the sun come up – it does it every damn day and it just never gets old. Fishing and firsts go hand in hand. Even in my late twenties I am still experiencing many firsts in fishing, though it is something I have been doing all my life. I look forward to many more firsts in waders, boats and rivers. It’s half the reason I keep at it. Half the reason I started at all. The whole reason I keep meeting my friend Willy in places with oceans and rivers and lakes. I look forward to the next time we get together and do what we do best, Willy: Catch fish. Or at least try.