There was already someone in the place he wanted. The man’s headlamp caught him coming down the path, then turned back towards the water.
“Morning.”
He said it back and kept walking. There was room below the man, but asking to fish there would mean admitting he hadn’t been heading somewhere else. He carried on beneath the trees until he found a gap in the branches, put his bag down, and cast into one of them. The hook came free easily enough. He glanced downstream to see whether the man had noticed.
He’d meant to come the previous weekend. By the time he had everything together, it had seemed too late to bother. The bag had spent another week beside the door, where he moved it with his foot whenever he needed to get past. Last night he’d finally put it in the car.
Now his coffee was warm and the sky was lightening. He found a place to stand that didn’t require leaning around a tree. On the third drift, the float travelled exactly where he wanted it.
Then it disappeared.
He lifted the rod. Something pulled hard, turned, and took line upstream. He laughed and went after it, getting clear of the branches just as the fish crossed the pool. Its flank showed briefly in the shallows. He reached for the net behind his bag and caught the handle in a strap.
He pulled it loose. The rod straightened.
“Oh, come on.”
The hook was still there. So was the knot. He must have lowered the rod while reaching. He tried the movement again, watching the tip, then laid the net beside the water where it should have been all along.
“Come off?”
The man downstream was watching.
“Yeah.”
The man shook his head and returned to his own float. He didn’t ask how big it was. He’d been ready to tell him.
For the next hour, he reconstructed the loss between casts. Sometimes they just came off. He knew that. He had said it to other people and meant it. But the hook was sharp, the line was sound, and he had a clear memory of the fish turning until he tried to place that turn before or after reaching for the net. Each version gave him something different to blame. He moved the net closer.
Above the pool, a back appeared between two stones. About the right size. He hadn’t seen which way his had gone, and there were other fish here, but he picked up the bag.
The path narrowed beyond the bridge. Through the trees he could see the lake and the parking area where he’d left the car. A dead salmon lay beneath a root beside the path, its tail moving with the current. He stepped around it on the higher ground and continued until the trees opened around another pool.
He stayed there through the rest of the morning.
It was good water. He found a drift that carried beneath the opposite bank and spent a while getting the cast right, then a longer while enjoying that he could. When he sat to eat, his jacket made a reasonable cushion on the stone. Sun reached his boots. Across the river, a dog ran down the bank, discovered the water was wet, and went back to its owner considerably less pleased with the outing. He watched them disappear along the path.
He took out his phone to check the time and left it beside him. There were people he could tell about the morning. Someone would send back a joke about the net. He wanted to tell someone who might ask when he was coming home.
There had been people. He remembered a woman standing against him at the stove, reaching past him with a fork. He’d complained that she was eating all the good bits, then held the pan still so she could get another. They had eaten most of supper before he got the plates out.
He could remember that more clearly than some of the arguments. He had loved her, and still found ways to make being with him difficult. Whenever she wanted to talk about what came next, he needed more time to be certain. He had explanations for how it ended. He was tired of how reasonable he could make them sound.
He still expected there would be somebody. He hadn’t put a date on it. He finished his sandwich, put the wrapper away, and sat with his face in the sun until he felt like getting up.
The man from that morning came along while he was changing bait.
“Anything since?”
“No. You?”
The man shook his head, glanced over the pool, and carried on upstream.
He watched until the man disappeared around the bend, then finished baiting the hook and cast again.
When he finally moved, the sun had gone behind the trees on his side. He’d thought he would be home for lunch. No one knew that but him, and now lunch was eaten and gone. He packed the bag and went upstream.
Above the bend, the river spread across a shallow shelf. He took the lower route around a fallen tree and nearly stepped over the salmon lying in a narrow wash beside the bank.
Its gill cover moved.
He put the rod in the grass. The fish lay on its side, its tail split along the lower edge, one eye just beneath the surface. It was a Chinook. They died after spawning; he had seen them here every autumn. Whether this one had spawned, he couldn’t tell.
A stroke of its tail stirred the gravel. It rolled upright and held there, facing into the current. He crouched on a flat stone. There was deeper water a few feet ahead.
“There you go,” he said.
For several seconds it seemed to be managing. He shifted back, making room although he wasn’t in its way.
Then it slipped over again.
He leaned forward. Water came over his boot.
“Shit.”
He stood too quickly and knocked gravel into the wash. The fish disappeared beneath the silt. He waited for it to clear, his wet foot raised awkwardly against a root, until the pale flank became visible again.
Still moving. He lowered himself onto the stone.
He didn’t want to touch it. He didn’t want to stand over it all afternoon. When the gill cover stopped, he watched until it moved again, and then stayed for the next one.
The fish’s tail moved against the gravel. He waited for it to turn upright again. He had no idea how long this part took. He had almost walked past before seeing that first movement. He wished he’d had somewhere else to put his foot.
Eventually he picked up the rod and followed the path until the bank hid the wash.
On a fallen trunk he emptied his boot and wrung out the sock. Getting it back over his heel took both hands. He had spare socks at home, a drawer full of them, and had brought several kinds of bait he hadn’t opened.
He could go back. The car had a heater. At home he could shower, make something to eat, put on something he might actually watch. It would be a perfectly decent evening. He sat there thinking about it until his foot got cold, then put the boot on and followed the sound of fast water beyond the trees.
The next pool was deeper than he expected, with a clear bank. He tried it without taking off the bag. Halfway through the drift, the float went under and he felt a brief, definite pull.
It came free before he saw anything. He examined the bait, looked across the pool, and set the bag down.
For a while he forgot the wet foot. There was a fish turning near the far bank, or more than one. He couldn’t follow them through the dark water. He adjusted the drift and tried again. He had room to use the net. Nothing was obstructing the cast. Going home now would be difficult to explain to himself tomorrow.
He wanted to catch one. He wanted a reason to ring somebody on the way back. He could already hear himself telling the story, getting to the part about losing the first one, knowing he had something better to tell after it.
He tried farther across.
The afternoon cooled. He packed the things he wasn’t using but left the net open. Each time he thought of leaving, he found a small adjustment worth trying first. Once he lifted too early, brought the hook back through empty water, and cast again before he had decided to.
That one went where he intended. He followed it past the place he’d seen the fish turn, expecting it to stop. At the end of the drift, he wound in and held the hook between two fingers.
There was enough light for a few more. He could still see the stones on the far bank. He stood there trying to work out whether he was being sensible or giving up. His foot hurt. It didn’t seem like a good enough reason, although he would have accepted it from anybody else.
He fastened the hook beneath the reel and folded the net.
On the walk back, he took the high route around the fallen tree. He stopped where the lower path branched off. From there he couldn’t see the shallow wash. He stood listening, knowing he would hear nothing useful, then carried on over the roots.
The spot he’d wanted that morning was empty. He hadn’t realized how wide it was, or how easily he could have worked the current from there. A fish broke the surface beyond the shallows. His hand tightened on the rod.
He stayed long enough to see whether it would show again, then went up towards the bridge.
Someone was coming down with a bag and a rod. He moved aside to let them pass. There was still enough light for them to see the path without a lamp.
“Any luck?”
“Lost a good one.”
“Ah, well.”
He almost told them about the one in the wash. They were already looking towards the water, and he didn’t know what he wanted them to do with it.
At the car, he sat sideways on the seat and pulled off the wet boot. He peeled the sock away, laid it on the floor mat, and bent to undo the other one. Somewhere below the bridge, the newcomer’s bag landed on the bank.
The dry lace had tightened into a knot. He worked at it, listening for a splash.
