The person who snapped this photo was more impressed than I was.

After the release, I was coined a “trout guru.” I could only laugh. While catching a healthy brown on the second cast of the first hole you step into isn’t a bad way to start the day, you won’t be the bodhisattva of trout fishing until you actually become the fish. As it turns out, we all caught dinks for the remainder of daylight, and night-time streamer stripping turned bust when everyone forgot their headlamps.

Later, I was asked to “guarantee” some bigger fish on the next outing. Ha. All you can guarantee in fly fishing is that sooner or later you’ll leave a rod in a door jam. Nevertheless, I retorted…

“You mean one of these?”