Rise by Greg Seitz I wish I could feel that way again right now. I wish it bad to feel so focused and independent. So calm and so awake. So still. There was a fish rising right next to a rock sticking out of the water at the top of the pool. I noticed it as soon as I got within sight of the pool. I was walking slowly upstream on the bank. The sky above was flat gray and it was quieter in the valley than I could ever remember. It was a quiet that called for measured breathing and the careful placement of every step. My eyes glanced back and forth from the uneven ground at my feet, concealed by weeds and made perilous by the workings of water, to the flat water of the river, looking for signs of the trout which were leisurely and sporadically feeding on the late morning Blue Wing Olives. I couldn't tell if it was a big fish, but it was rising pretty regularly. I stopped and watched. While I was watching, I noticed that there were five or six other fish rising in between where I stood and where the fish was rising by the rock. Not as regularly as that one, but I couldn't just ignore them. Even if I wanted to, beelining right for the one at the top of the pool was senseless as I'd only spook the ones closer to me and they'd probably in turn spook that one. And what was the sense of hurrying, anyway? I had already fished up about a quarter-mile. It was a good stretch of water to be fishing on a day like this. The classic pattern of riffle and flats. Not necessarily big fish water, but good water with lots of fish. And it held sentimental value, it was the first stretch of river I ever fished a few years ago when Fisherman first introduced me to trout, to the fly rod, to this river. He never seems to want to fish it anymore and I usually do just in the spring when the weeds aren't bad and I can hike quite a ways to some favorite holes way downstream. But, here I was. I'd come alone and it would be the last time I'd get out for the season, something which causes a distinct feeling of melancholy. There were no other cars at the popular bridge when I got there and I wore a heavy shirt and my jacket against the cool day threatening drizzle. After hiking down quite a ways, I started fishing my way back up. I tried nymphing in a couple of the fast riffles but I found that my heart just wasn't in it. When I saw rises in the first flat, I tied on a Blue Wing Olive and I started a game I sometimes play: "you will get one of those fish." And I did and it had been a little brook trout and it made me very happy. Beautiful and feisty and, better than anything, wild in this river. The Tricos didn't come off; it would have been crazy to expect them to on a day like this when the temperature never got above 60 degrees or so. But there were a couple different sizes of Blue Wing Olives and the fish seemed to like the smaller ones and they had the trout looking up enough that I could reasonably hope to convince one or two more to rise to my fly. The water was very flat and had the appearance of mercury. Between that, the irregularity of the rising fish, their spooky natures this late in the season, and the overall quiet of the day, I had to be focused and I had to be patient. Somedays I can't do that. Somedays I just want to catch a fish goddammit or I don't even care if I catch a fish goddammit or sometimes I'm just happy enough looking around at the beautiful valley that it doesn't really matter. This day, being quiet and focused and getting a couple was all I wanted in the whole world. All I felt I could reasonably ask. The hours had slipped by and then I found myself at the bottom of this flat, studying the riseforms of the fish scattered between me and that one at the rock. The fish was rising precisely the same distance from the rock every time, maybe six inches. It was such a predictable place for a trout to rise and maybe that was what intrigued me. Or it might have been the little bubbles that floated on the surface for a moment after each rise. But within casting distance from where I stood there was another fish rising along a weed line and I tried for him first. And I got him, a 10 inch brown, also to the size 18 Blue Wing Olive. He leapt and pulled and even tried to walk on his tail across the surface of the water. After releasing the fish, I took a few more careful steps upriver, careful not to stumble and splash and put down every fish in the flat. On my next cast, I caught an overhanging branch on my backcast and had to snap off the fly. My tippet snapped off with it and I retied tippet on and then had to find another suitable offering. Blue Wing Olives are kind of the staple on this river for much of the year so I am usually well-prepared. Of course, no fly instills as much hope in you as the fly that just got you a fish but I chose something similar and took my time tying it on. A few casts later, I was picking up the slack in my line before picking up to cast again when another fish struck. I wasn't prepared but still managed to hook him. This one was a little better and made some muscular runs and I worried a little about a log underwater in the middle of the river that he kept trying to go under but eventually I brought him to my hand and quickly let him back into the river with the hook out of his mouth. I fished some more without success, taking another couple careful steps upriver occasionally. Finally I was within a cast of the rock where the fish I had first noticed had been rising and I stood and watched. I saw no rises. I don't know how long it had been since I had seen the fish rise because I had been preoccupied by that which presented itself between us but I had expected it to keep rising. But it was not. It was gone. All the fish seemed to have settled down after that. Not that they had been very active before, but I saw very few rises for the rest of the day and I caught nothing more. I stayed out there nonetheless. If anything, I felt more centered than before; the quiet surge of adrenaline brought on by rising fish now having passed, I could absorb more of what else was going on. Birds were squawking and squirrels crept around in the tree tops, occasionally knocking twigs and the such to the ground. Once or twice I mistook the sound of gusts of winds in the trees at the very top of the bluffs for the sound of rushing water and I looked upstream to look for the rapids. Ready to fish but not fishing, I crept upstream, sometimes in the water and sometimes on the bank. The day was possibly the most fall-like that I had ever fished. With the season ending at the end of September, most of my memories of late season fishing are golden sunny days. This day could have been November if not for the mostly green leaves (though I was treated to the sight of crisp yellow leaves floating high in the water several times). It was a good day to fish because it gave me a rare opportunity to think about whatever crossed my mind, rather than just the events barreling at me that have consumed most of my thoughts recently. I could think about where I was going on a larger scale and I could think about the winter ahead and the spring which would follow. It was also a chance to look back. Fall is good for reflection and I had a lot to think about from the blur that had been the summer. When I got back to the bridge I sat on the bank and stared at the hole where I had done quite a bit of fishing during the Trico hatches. I knew it was about time to leave and I knew I couldn't take it with me, but I just sat and I just stared and I just was. 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