Words: Miles Nolte

On rare glorious days, or in certain magical locales, trout fishing can be deliciously visual. The allure of casting to rising trout is in those ethereal circular forms. But you rarely glimpse the entire fish, just their blunted snouts and the disturbances they leave behind. I have crept along the banks of countless rivers peering valiantly into the soft angles of current. Often I will see the enigmatic shine of sunlight reflecting off the scales of a fish that has turned sideways in the current to catch a passing morsel and then, there is nothing. I might catch that fish with a cast to the head of the pool that drifts down into his feeding lane, but rarely do I get to watch the entire spectacle of a fish cruising and consuming, observing my fly and passing judgment on my angling, on me.

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