I know this may be from a while ago but I felt the need to share this experience with fellow anglers. As I prepared for the day ahead of me on the river I gathered all of the weapons in my arsenal, from worms, to jigs, spoons, spinners, to floats, weights, line, rods, and reels. The jitters were filling my 5'7'' frame from head to toe as the excitement for the day ahead overwhelmed me. I set the alarm for an early rising of 4:30 and rest my head upon my pillow to let the silver sided warriors run wild amongst the depth of my slumber.

I slowly revealed my pupils to the sharp sound of my alarm waking me, I rolled out of bed still dozing off as I proceeded my way to my dresser to layer up for the cold I was about to face. After I layered up I wound up my tools for battle and set way towards the arena. As I was not driving I could let the olive backed bullets control my thoughts and the task of coaxing one into taking one of my many offerings I had to show.

Finally, we had arrived at our stage. We proceeded to pack up our food stored away in the crevices of the ford focus that brought us to our playing field, stepped outside to the cold crisp January air that cleansed my throat with each inhalation and begun to pick and sort through which offering we would like to present first. I slipped on my 15 gram cleardrift float with a 1/4oz inline sinker which lead to 30in of 8pnd maxima to an 1/8oz orange jig. I was confident in my offering and set foot to the water.

Upon arrival we noticed that our original hole was much to shallow to properly fish as the fish would be much to spooky so we trekked on further downriver. It was a treacherous hike as the boulders were as slick as ice due to the previous showers, along with the upcoming rapids and the already hard to navigate rock field it made it extremely difficult. But finally after about 45min we had made it to a very substantial hole that gave us much confidents.

Right away we began to sling our offerings into the gin clear water the skykomish had presented us with that day. Within the first ten casts my mother decided to call me in the middle of my drift, I risked it and I answered. She asked me the standard questions any mother would, " You catch anything? Is it pretty? Did you bring enough food?" right as my mom was babbling about the dishes that had yet to be completed my float began to sink very slowly and off to the side, I lazily lifted my rod tip as I believed it was bottom I was rewarded with a pleasant surprise of a few violent head shakes on the other end of my power pro, although as soon as it came the feeling of victory was lost as the fish had eluded me with only a few thrashing movements of its head to show.

Although I was hurt by the fish I never got to see it allowed for some fish stories to be created such as the 20lber I lost in the sky, or the moby dick of a steelhead had taken my jig once, I think you get the gist. But anyways after that I knew the fish was stung so I decided to switch my color, I changed to a white and pink jig as I was hoping to seduce the fish I knew was holding in the hole into grabbing my presentation once more. I casted probably 15 more times then proceeded to a lunch break and to have some chatter with my fishing acquaintance. As we went on through our numerous fish tales about the one that got away and the one we never saw I decided it was time to get back to mining the river for its silvery glory.

I stuck with my choice of jig as I believed that it could seduce one of those magical creatures out of its hiding hole. I began to plug away at the river working all the lanes that I believed could hold fish. As my float silently drifted down a seem near the middle of the river it began to come out of sight as I had long lined it down the river, until finally the floats gently slipped beneath the ripples on the surface of the water. With a snap of my X11 the battle was engaged. The fish tore off as if it were trying to pull me into the next hole downriver but eventually it turned tale and headed back towards its opponent, myself. It performed quite the aerial display as well showing its silver sides multiple times as it propelled from the mirror like film atop the river. The game of tug of war had begun to reach its end as I felt the energy of the fish begin to seep out, I brought her closer and closer to shower where my free hand was waiting patiently to grasp the motor that I had been fighting against for the last few minutes. As she edged closer and closer I could see that she had a missing adipose indicating a hatchery fish, and one for the bbq. Finally I felt the last burst of energy leave her bullet like body, she was within an arms reach I lunged forward in an attempt to land her and came up victorious with her caudal peduncle firmly grasped in my right hand.

As I brought her to shore I humanely put her out of her misery with a sharp blow atop her skull. After a few pictures and high fives we began our trek back as it was late afternoon and we had an hour long drive ahead of us. On our hike back to our chariot I had time to reminisce upon the day that rest behind me, between the beautiful scenery, the great companionship, and the cooperative metalheads it was an amazing day. As we arrived at the car we stowed away our gear for the next time we do battle with the shadows of the skykomish. I slipped my body into the ford and begun to doze off from exhaustion due to the early rise and hard day of fishing but as my eyelids fell it allowed my brain to enter the dream realm which is full of bent graphite and silver sides.

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