As the sun broke the canyon rim once more I didn’t feel as though this episode would end any differently than all the others before it. Cast, mend, step. Repeat. Make no mistake , this is what I want to be doing. Here in this moment watching the sun illuminate the sky that was previously cloaked in headlight impenetrable darkness, casting a line in a spey style to fish that are unknown to the majority of anglers in the country, assuredly this is where I want to be. Now that the method and repetition have become common, I feel more comfortable than I ever have while doing this . I know that success is more than likely not in the cards in the sense of landing the creature that I desire so greatly but, now success is taking on a new form. I’m here, in this canyon, marveling at the high red walls and drooling over the canvas of color that is displayed as the sun makes it entrance. That is success to me now.Today though, things would be different, today I would get all of those things and the true desires of my angling heart. Today I would meet my first pacific run, wild steelhead.
They say that insanity is the continual repetition of similar action with the expectation of a dissimilar result. If this is the true definition of the word, then steelheaders are the embodiment of it. Since moving to the Pacific Northwest I have flown, driven,and walked over and around countless rivers wondering if the fish that would fulfill my desires was below me. This type of wonder and hope is what renders the thoughts of ones insanity null and void. It doesn’t seem to matter to a steelheader that the chances of catching and releasing a steelhead are woefully low, because the anticipation of the tug, the fight, and the chance to look into the gleam of a wild creature that has traversed thousands of mile to be there at that exact moment is overpowering.