Marty Sheppard Photo
The light from the rising sun wakes me from my fitful sleep. Throughout the night I woke several times always hoping to see the sun rising over the mountains. Now, finally, day is here. I roll over and peer out of my sleeping bag. I’m covered in a thick layer of frost. I crawl out of my icy nook, sit on the bed of the truck, and knock the frost from my shoes before I slip them on. Jim and Henry roll out of their own vehicles with tired smiles. They look a bit haggard from their two previous days on the river. I give them both big hugs; they smell of stale beer and fishy neoprene. A welcome smell after a weekend in smoky casinos.
We heat leftover gas station coffee and fry thick strips of bacon on the camp stove to warm our bellies and ignite our spirits. We sit around a small campfire to thaw out, enjoying an odd assortment of calories scrounged--peanut butter, bacon, bread, lentil soup and coffee. Conversation flows easily as it usually does between reunited friends. We tell tales of unnecessarily extreme adventures, friendly ladies, and get a little too philosophical about life. Eventually we decide that our day should move from camp to the river. We jam our day’s gear into the drift-boat and head out to shuttle the rigs. I watch Jim carefully organize the spey rods into his snowboard rack. The rods look foreign. I wonder, how different could spey casting really be? Just like throwing a dry fly with Jim’s old 5-weight right?
The Hoh. I’ve heard so much about this storied river, and now it flows before me. The river corridor runs wide; the silty blue-gray water winds through large runs with round river stone. On the borders, towering spruce, cedar and hemlock. I step into the water and the cold is striking even with long johns, waders and fleece pants. Nervousness fills my throat as Jim steps out to demonstrate the spey cast I will be attempting to use throughout the day. The C-roll he calls it, or Snap-C, or Snap-T. Already I can’t recall. He sweeps the rod around in a delicate arc, but really my mind is elsewhere, clouded from a weekend on the grimy strip.