When the daylight is fading I can fish, when it's dark, I'm done. Give me a smidgen of light to work with and I'm your boy. But once the lights go out overhead I start putting friend's, flora and fauna at risk. So I sit, in the dark, and wait.

Last night, from my right, I get a warning shot, "hey your back cast just swished my ear". I said, "Did you move" maybe it was a bat"? No you bone head you're loosing site of the target, and by the way it's an entire lake," I waded down shore, sloshed for terra firma and tore my rod down. I think he was just getting antsy waiting and because I caught more trout.

I did catch more trout to. I also got one alder branch, two stalks of raspberry cane, two wind knots and managed to catch my own fly rod once. It's just me getting excited when the fish start to feed in a frenzy. Then I start flailing in a frenetic method not much touted in the annals of angling.

He waits for one distinct rise form on or after dark with the perfect plop. The guy can stand there like a heron and not move a stinking muscle. My head is swarming with bugs that I swat at. He's gone in the trout Zen mediation state hacks like me will never understand.

Dobie is all poised and more centered when the hatch is coming off and can site cast to one set of rings perfectly. Then he waits. I don't, I hammer the water and haul em home, I figure their on the prowl anyway and great fishing never lasts long enough for me. He "twitches" the offing.

He has all the patience, perfected form and just wants to dance the evening away with one fish, he drives me nuts. I'd rather have a dozen twelve inch fish hit than his one bowed pink arc of triumph. Sometimes he doesn't even get a strike. He thinks I'll grow into this attitude some day, I sure hope not.

A grunt indicates its time to walk over and not be able to see what has line ripping away into the darkness. Dobber is talking, one for him and one to a fish. "Easy, easy", is what he keeps repeating. If I don't look directly at where he is I can sorta see his silhouette. "Whoa, nice fish" comes from the dark. I think I hear him net it." Hey come here". Now he's wading towards shore.

With his fancy hat light he beams over the bow. It's a net filler for sure and hasta go 18 inches. I said, "Dobbs, that's a nice trout". Dobbs shouted, "Yeah look at that baby, now wasn't that worth waiting for?" I replied, "it was for you".

The Trout Whisperer
justnorth.com