At 4:30 this morning I woke from a dream. I couldn’t remember it after waking, except that I was wide awake and a couple of attempts to get back sleeping didn’t work. Time to head out and be on the water at first light. I hadn’t planned on fishing today, but it seemed like an opportune time. Halfway over the hill I started feeling sleepy again and really wanted to be able to crawl back to bed. But I was here now, and on the back road to North-South run, I passed the suicide dogs – lying in wait for passing cars to pounce on. I swore I missed one of them by fractions and I cringed as I passed them driving a bit too fast to begin with. But they won their game, escaping unscathed.

I fished upper North-South and was into fish right away. I haven’t been fishing this piece of water much in the last few years, it hasn’t produced like it has for me many years ago when I first started fishing it. I’ve probably spent more time, over more years, at this piece of water – from my first casts some 23 years ago, getting chased out by a bear at dark with a full moon rising, my first large adult steelhead on a swung fly, an epic mid-November day with the water up to the base of the willows and fish after fish in the skinny edge water, and lots of time just sitting on the old half buried culvert along the bank watching the water go by while a friend does a pass through it.

Middle-North-South was quiet this morning. No grabs. I hurried through it to get down to the bucket at lower North-South. Oddly, no grabs there either. I fished it down through to the slow bottom water where a few salmon were rolling along the edge of the back water. I missed one, maybe two grabs. Someday, I am going to hook a large adult steelhead down here. I keep coming back to this slow water every time, year-after-year for that one fish. When I finally do get a good fish out of there, I will be able to proudly boast that the fish took me at least 23 years to land. I thought of all the places I fish regularly where I’ve yet to get a good fish out of, yet still keep trying. There aren’t many places, but I will continue to visit them. Persistence is the name of the game here even if it is measured in decades. I am not the least bit dissuaded. Instead, those places have become even more mysterious, haunting and infectious with the passing of time.

I decide to check out the wade across and down to the holy water of East-West. I turned back on Wednesday, but I push forward today. There is one single path across, down, across and down again pushing the top of waders much of the way. I thank my mother for passing along at least a few of the tall genes to me. An inch shorter and I probably couldn’t have made it at this flow. And, yes, there is the angst of getting back across: replicating the precise path up, across, up again and the last push across – all upstream – all deep.

East-West is another place to reminisce on. It was a natural extension of my early efforts on upper North-South and the need to explore just a little bit further down around the next bend. It, too, holds more than a few memories – a foggy morning with fresh coho rolling in the riffle, hot, late-summer evenings with half pounders in abundance. All of these memories peppered with a few instances of bright, sassy adult steelhead hooked, released, broken off, unbuttoned, and just plain missed. East-West is arguably some of the best steelhead fly water in the valley. Though, I would never call it the best water, in a valley that has a succession of classic water to fit any mood from fast to slow and deep to wide. There are fish there this morning lying far down in the belly of the run in a little slick on the far side of the river, grabbing numerous swings that I can’t hold on to. It takes everything I got to just get a cast over there with enough slack to get a swing to hold for just long enough… They grab on the mend, they grab on the slack, but they don’t grab on the full swing halfway across the river. They just don’t seem to move very far. I do three passes through, finishing up with a chunk of pink and purple meat – just to see. Nothing to hand here, but a fully satisfying time is had as the morning fog parts, a breeze starts to kick up and the decision is made to head home.

Fished the valley section of a tributary river today. Overcast skies and about an hour of rain midday made for ideal conditions. I started out at lowermost North-South and was immediately into fish – half pounders. The final count was five fish to hand with many missed grabs. Flows were at 900cfs and it was just high enough to preclude the wade across and down to the holy water of East-West. All fish were taken on a 1/0 purple and pink (subtle pink yak hair wing). The slow water at the very bottom of North-South yielded several good grabs, including the one that could have been. But it was a day of many quick and light grabbing fish. Middle North-South gave up a couple of fish along the edge of the fast water – as is usual here. Didn’t fish upper – Charlie hit it pretty hard, coming through on a pontoon boat. Went up to Security East and missed a couple of grabs. Finished up at Supply Creek with one more fish and several grabs. I saw a halfway decent looking salmon porpoise in the fast water.

A good day for this time of year – though missing the big fish. This river has not done well for me this year and I think today probably ranked out as the best day this year.

It’s on just as soon as the fly hits the water at the top of boulder house run.  Unfortunately, it was a poor cast, so I took the chance to adjust a strap, clamping the rod down under my arm.  As the line came tight on the swing, the rod came alive under my arm.  I dropped the straps trying to get the rod back in hand as the fish cartwheeled to the inside – all air.  I recovered line and came tight on the fish again and another burst of aerial mania. The fish looked all of five pounds easy.  The fish kept angling toward the slack water on the inside just as the line pulled up empty – fish off – pure operator neglect – and a lesson learned for the hundreth time: the grabs always happen when fiddling with something or otherwise not paying attention.  The rest of the run was quiet save for a spunky half pounder pulled up at the very bottom of the run.

Moving up river, I scored one half pounder in the super secret tailout water – no other grabs to be had. At the Hotel run, a jumbo half pounder came to hand after working down through most it. No other grabs to be had.  Down to the garden, and one fish to hand, then nothing. Time to move down to slate creek for the later afternoon.

This place now doesn’t see the sun most of the day and the dew piles up on the stones, never drying. Come December and some cooler weather, the frost will accumulate day after day lending a snowy feeling to this place. The wade across is a wee bit trickier with a little more water. Not so much the depth (flow 2,070cfs) but the added velocity and snot slick cobbles – and there is some angst about getting back. One grab in the upper half and can’t get the fish to come back for more. On the lower half, a couple of deep pulls at the top of the far side fast water and I moan and curse that I can’t get a hook into them. These fish won’t come back for second helpings. It’s tough going – cast-swing-step-cast-swing-step – nothing. Those mystery pulls … dam… Counting down to my last cast I decide to practice my single spey cast a little towards the bottom of the run. On the first swing the line comes up tight and heavy. Backing rolls off the reel.  The fish goes airborne across and upriver while my line bows around and downstream. Coming back tight on the fish, it decides to head down and down – towards the lip of the riffle.  I do a clumsy gait downstream trying to catch the fish resting at the lip of the riffle. Then another burst of line and over the riffle it goes. The line stays tight on the fish as it eddies out down below. It swings back out into the fast water where I catch up on all my line and finally roll the fish into the shallows for a quick picture and release.

In summary: had to work much of the day for a few grabs – would have thought more activity at mid-day – but no. No fish showing. But with two adults hooked and a smattering of half pounders, a fruitful day at least. I ran into an acquaintance as I was leaving the Hotel run and they reported similar for upriver. The wade back across slate is uneventful – though I desperately need new soles on my boots. The first adult took the 3/0 purple swimming shrimp I tied up for tidewater – it seemed perfect, if not large, for probing the depths of the shadowy boulder run. The second adult took a black and orange rump fly – a more traditional offering. I dropped the purple shrimp in the water by accident – will have to experiment more with larger swimming shrimp….. full moon might have kept the bite at bay a bit…

By mid-afternoon, a heavy, misting fog lays across the river, killing the faint breeze that had been threatening.  The long views down the water and across the floodplain suddenly vanish in a thickening, darkening morass of wet, heavy air. The late afternoon sun loses it hold as this place descends into some netherworld lost between day and night.

The tide goes about its quiet ebbing, running along the bank where years of erosion has left a maze of fallen trees, gentle eddies and quiet backwaters. ­A place where a fish, fresh in from the sea, might seek refuge from the sea lions that prowl the water here. Some of them have hauled out on a nearby gravel bar, now faded to only grunts and groans punctuating the dark air. A splash comes from down along the bank, catching the corner of my eye in what looks to be an enormous, dark salmon. I float quietly down, hoping that might indicate the presence of more brighter fish to offer a fly to. Staring down the current, I see the fish surface again, a sturgeon maybe four feet long comes partially out of the water and lays over on its side in a slow, walloping splash.

This was an afternoon where the waves of bright fish streaming up river on the outgoing tide failed to show. Maybe the high tide pushed them farther upriver, away from the predator gauntlet here. The wet air pushes in closer and rustlings can be heard back in the trees. Far off in the thickets of cottonwoods, willows and fog to be seen, faint wailings can be heard. Zombies prowl these woods on the days before the full moon – searching for something, maybe a way out – a way off that wretched tangled island. Goosebumps. The Cockrobbin zombies aren’t supposed to swim, but I pull a couple of quiet oar strokes to get the boat out from the bank a little further. Back in the woods, a tree comes crashing down despite the utter lack of wind.

I don’t carry a watch, but by all reckoning the sun should be well up, but this place continues to slide into darkness. Debris caught floating in the tide slides by and farther up I think I can make out the faint outline of a hand bobbing up and down in the soft currents. I pull the oars to move down and out of its path. Moving down is easy in the tide, and I feel the urge to move closer to the launch spot, still over a mile downstream.

Along the way I begin to make out the faint image of a small boat ahead. I can see a figure sitting upright but unmoving, yet the boat glides silently across the water by no apparent means. I stop, now caught between the approaching hand and the unknown boat that moves across the water to the far bank. Long ago, I heard tales of the lost boatman out here – some old fellow who got lost in the fog several decades ago, now only seen on the foggiest of evenings or early mornings shuttling back and forth, looking for a way home. Of course, I dismissed them as old stories told for fun by the locals. Just as soon as it appears, the boat slips into the fallen trees along the bank, disappearing into the dark corners that now line the banks. I move on down, determined to get back to the truck. The fishing hadn’t been promising from the beginning, really. Now I just needed to get back down river. The sound of a plane, or far off car horn would be comforting now, but not even the sea lions can be heard anymore. This place has come to an immense, screaming standstill.

I row steadily and quietly, picking a course that will keep me mid-stream and heading for the launch. The wails from the woods fade away as the bridge approaches into a fuzzy view. At the bridge, a break in the fog can be seen off to the west where the sun begins to pour underneath in a spectacular coloring of water, sky and light. It will be a nice evening here, but I think it is time to leave this place to rest in peace for the winter.