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90 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S I wanted him to be me. But she did not need for him to be me. She needed him to be himself. She already had me, and knew she always would. What she needed now was for him to be himself. And so I kept silent. He would have to do this on his own. And he did. The old brown trout stole from beneath the ledge as the dry fly drifted past, and slammed it like he meant to kill it. Philip's hook-set was perfect, lifting his rod firmly but not too hastily, fervently stripping line as the fish charged him, then settling in to play it as it ran up-current and down. Into the air it leapt, then twisted back into the darkened depths beneath the ledge as Philip angled his fly rod hard to the right with just the right amount of counter pressure, until he could eventually turn the fish back downstream and guide it into his net. I was speechless. I had somehow moved up onto the rock above him as I watched him play the trout, my own fly rod laying back in the meadow behind us. I had completely forgotten about the camera hanging useless across my shoulder. Quickly I retrieved it and shot a couple of photographs as Philip eased his trout from the net, slipped the tiny hook from its lip, laid it back into the flow and carefully revived it. As the fish swam away, Philip looked up at me with a big, fulfilling grin. "Wow, that was awesome!" he declared. "You know, I think I'd rather have caught that one trout here than any of the big trout from the lakes." He could not have said anything more appropriate. "You, Sir," I gratefully replied with a big grin of my own, "are now a Trout Fisherman." n Editor's Note: Michael Altizer's latest books, Nineteen Years To Sunrise and The Last Best Day, can be ordered at www.sportingclassicsstore.com. Or call (800) 849-1004. The author always welcomes and appreciates your comments, questions, and input. Please keep in touch at Mike@ AltizerJournal.com. to ambush the unsuspecting caddis and hoppers and such that form the basis of the food structure there. This was much more difficult, much more technical, fishing than what he had been doing for the past few days, and I couldn't help but be concerned that he might become discouraged or frustrated, particularly when I considered the fact that if he did catch a trout, it would likely be only eight or ten inches or even less in length—hardly comparable to the three- to five-pounders he'd been catching in the lakes for the past few days. To complicate matters even more, it was a windy day, and few of his initial casts found the water without first being intercepted by the long, overhanging grasses that swayed in the breezes above it. But contrary to my concerns, he seemed to be having a grand ol' time, asking the right questions, learning where the trout might be lurking, how best to present the fly. Then we came to a kink in the creek where the water widened as it flowed toward him from the bend 25 yards upstream. I stayed back, kneeling in the grass with my camera as he positioned himself for the cast and laid his fly 30 feet up-current, skirting the undercut bases of a pair of big glacial boulders. Something sizeable tore from beneath the upper ledge and took a swing at his offering. Whether the fish missed the fly or Philip was late on the strike, I could not tell. He again cast eight feet above the ledge and fished it out perfectly. But the trout did not return. Undaunted, he eased upstream a few feet and into the center of the creek, and lightly laid his fly into the tail of the fast water coming around the bend above him. It was a perfectly good cast, but it produced nothing, and neither did his second. On his third presentation, another trout took a look at the fly but would not commit to it. I wanted so badly for him catch a fish here, now—for now seemed the best opportunity he'd had all morning. I wanted to speak to him, to coach him, to guide him, to talk him through where he should place his next cast, how he should mend his line, how he should hold his jaw, and what he should be thinking. We fished the high lakes for days, up to 10,000 feet, and I reveled in watching the three people who mean more to me than life itself catch these big beautiful trout. Then on the last day Philip and I left our wives at the lodge and headed back up the mountain and across the divide together and dropped into the Poso Valley to fish the tiny stream that meanders four miles down the glaciated basin to the head of the big box canyon, through which it plummets 2,000 feet to the valley below. By now Philip was becoming fairly proficient with his new fly rod, his timing nicely refined, lightly dropping the flies onto the water's surface, managing his line tolerably well, and playing and bringing to net the trout he'd caught with minimal wasted effort. But that was in the lakes. Poso Creek would present a much different challenge for him. It is a winding and narrow stream, barely two feet wide in some places and never more than ten or 12 feet, overhung by tall, wild grasses most everywhere, with deep, dark undercut banks and ledges that the trout use as lairs