The big “Redside” is five pounds, 23 inches long, and six years old. He is in perfect physical condition, and is the dominant trout in this riffle. His home was taken in combat, by driving out previous occupants and succeeding interlopers with his size and aggressiveness.

This is the prime hold in many acres of water. The fish rests at the edge of an
intermittent slick of calm created by the displacement of a large, flat, angular,
mid-stream boulder. The Deschutes River rushes by, its jade green water
races to the Columbia, and finally to the Pacific Ocean. The big trout rests in
his lair ... in a tubular calm behind the boulder. A curtain of bubbles securely
screens him from above. His home is a calm tunnel amid the raging torrents.

Here no angler can see him. In the suction behind the boulder is a tiny eddy,
which traps food and pulls it deep into the water. The big “Redside” has
perfect escape routes to either side, into rushing water that will instantly
hurtle him away from danger. Long filaments of blue green algae wave with
the flow, even further concealing the trout’s home. The boulder, a chunk of
basalt, recently discharged from the rim rocks, anchors the algae and breaks
the flow into a cascade, which plunges a thousand oxygen-laden, silvery-
green bubbles deep into the river. They mix with the long trailing algae and
bounce off the gravel bed like an endless procession of transparent rubber
balls.

The afternoon sun filters through the leaves of the streamside alders. A gentle
breeze animates the leaves, changing the spaces between them, turning the
rays into dancing columns. They penetrate the turbulent surface of the river
and play upon the ever-changing pattern of the bubbles. Some of these tiny
orbs of light cling momentarily to the algae and other water plants, before
wandering downstream – and then back to the surface from whence they
came.

The water is a melody played by the afternoon sun upon the bubbles full of
light.

The current slows next to the bank nearest to the sun. Here the large,
smooth, current swept stones gradually give way to a bottom of sand and silt
as the flows diminish. The finer silt provides a solid footing for Elodia plants
and all of the creatures that live in them. The strands of bright green
vegetation trail in the gentle current like an undulating wall of Christmas tree
garlands. These fronds are lighter than water. The river moves through them
in well-defined pulses. Groups of garlands rise to the surface as the changing
currents subside but sink beneath the weight of stronger flows, so that they
dance up and down, in and out. Their pulse adds melody to the harmony of
the bubbles.

The Elodia rises on straight stalks and fans out to cover more of the surface of
the river than the bottom. It forms caves and funnels and tunnels. Several
small trout flit about in the caves under the Elodia, capturing many of the
hapless dwellers as they are washed from the foliage.

The big trout need not waste energy by flitting among the foliage in search of
prey. The river brings him an endless smorgasbord and deposits it in the tiny
eddy inches in front of his pointed snout.

Using polarized lenses, I cautiously peak over the streamside vegetation.
Several small trout are visible along the edge of the weed bed. One is directly
below me. It rises splashing to the surface and dispatches a small yellow
stone fly.

My binoculars disclose other stone flies upon the riffle, but there are no other
trout rising to them. The rest of the riffle seems curiously barren of fish. My
view rests momentarily on the slick behind the boulder. The visibility is
unusually good but the seamy, boiling surface is hard for my eyes to
penetrate. Yet there is a grayish-greenish-reddish cast to the streambed in
the far edge of the slick. At first I think it is a fish. Then I am not so sure as
the image seems too immobile and too large.

A tiny yellow stone nymph leaves the gravel upstream from the boulder. It
struggles to the surface and the pressure within its body splits the
exoskeleton from the top of its head to the center of its back. A viscous,
bleached version of the adult insect emerges through the rended skin. First
the crumpled wings appear and then the back of the head and finally the
thorax, feelers, and legs. Last to leave the nymphal shuck is the abdomen.
Finally, the Stonefly rides the choppy, undulating meniscus as a fully
developed air-breathing adult. It rides the surface only a short distance and is
pulled under by the spill behind the boulder.

There is a short, swift movement as the trout lunges forward and the stone fly
disappears into the giant maw.

Standing crouched on the bank, I see the movement and for an instant the
trout is fully visible. A shot of adrenaline shoots up my spine and lodges in the
base of my skull. The primal hunter is aroused. The quarry has been detected.
Briefly his camouflage has failed. He is now vulnerable because the predator
has uncovered his presence.

Brush and tall weeds surround me. The alders, which shaded me earlier, are
now an obstruction to my back-cast. My eyes trace out the only possible
trajectory for my fly line, which must be high and behind the trees. The
forward cast must change direction in the air to align itself with the target.
Since the line and the fly will land in water travelling at drastically different
speeds, there will have to be a lot of slack in the leader. As I trace and retrace
the path that the line must follow, my confidence falters. There is a brief
search for alternatives.

There are none.

Carefully, the leader is inspected and the 6X tippet is replaced with three feet
of 5X. To its end is knotted a size #14 low floating Yellow Stone Fly – which
was constructed complete with feelers, tails and flat Fly-Film wings. The
colors, size, and shape matches the real ones hatching from the river. The fly
is not dressed so that it will sink quickly as it enters the spill below the rock.

The leader and 20 feet of fly line are carefully coiled in my left hand. I raise
the rod quickly with my right, and the coils feed out of my other hand into a
high back cast, which hangs momentarily over the alders. The rod tip is then
brought forward in a shallow arc and the forward loop sails out high over the
water. The loop changes from vertical to horizontal with the swing of the rod
tip. An instant before the loop flows into the leader, I push a tiny amount of
slack into the line and the cast dies in the air. The fly line lands on the water
upstream from the fish, with the leader pointed downstream and the fly on a
direct course to the center of the boil below the rock. There is a quick rush of
air from my lungs, and the incredible tension from executing the impossible
cast is suddenly gone.

The fly drifts a foot and disappears in the spill. There is sudden movement in
the slick below the rock; I raise the rod more by instinct rather than by
observation. The line comes instantly tight, and there is an explosion of water
meeting the air as the wide caudal fin hurtles the fish into the raging current.
The trout and my fly line are a blur as yards of the white Dacron backing
leaves my shrieking reel.

The huge trout launches himself into the air near the far shore and then races
downstream into the eddy. Still he takes line, and the black felt marker stripe
signals that 50 yards of backing have left the reel. Incredibly the fine leader
holds up against the pressure of the light rod and smooth drag.

The trout pauses, and then runs toward me, and I reel frantically to maintain
tension on the line so that the tiny barbless hook will stay embedded in the
flesh. The trout shakes his head in angry violence and I ease off on the
pressure slightly. He reverses his course and the reel spool, which is now
small in diameter from loss of line, turns with unbelievable speed. The shiny
black handle disappears in a blur.

A red felt marker stripe signals that the reel is almost empty.

To my relief the trout pauses again. There is no accounting for the luck. A
few more yards and I will be out of line and he will break the light tippet.
I must follow him.

Immediately downstream, alders over-hanging the deep eddy block my path.
The river bottom is mud and sticks. Off comes my vest and binoculars, which
are tossed into the grass. I can barely feel the trout on the end of my line as I
slide down the bank into the cool water.

Now, I am into the river up to my shirt pockets, and fighting my way through
a floating raft of flotsam and midge shucks, which readily adhere to the fabric
of my clothing and the hair on my chest. I hurriedly reel myself downstream
to the fish, which is heavy against the current of the river. Line is gained
slowly back onto the reel. Alder branches hang nearly to the surface of the
water. The throbbing rod tip slips through the water surface beneath the
limbs. I fight my way through beneath them as quickly as possible with my
nose underwater. My waders are totally filled. My feet sink into the bottom
and I finally emerge downstream.

I crawl up the bank, water gushing from the top of my waders, while still
maintaining pressure and gaining line back on to the reel. The fish is still far
below me as the red marker stripe comes back onto the reel.

For a while the fish gives ground and I reel continuously until the black stripe
is also back on the reel. By now, I am downstream 50 yards below the riffle.
As if raising a ghost from the deep, I first see my fish as the backing knot
comes into the rod guides. He is only a silvery-green blur deep in the clear
water of the eddy. My heart jumps. He is even larger than I had thought.
For a long time the fish stays deep along the far shore and bullies my light
tackle with the force of the main current at mid-stream. The backing knot

seesaws back and forth through the guides. There is a tremendous down-
stream bow in my line, as the fish stays straight across the wide green river.

Finally after many minutes, the constant pressure takes its toll and the big
trout starts to give ground. A few minutes more brings him to my hand.

He is a wondrous creature, subdued but still full of life. His body is nearly as
deep as the length of my hand. I can’t close my fingers around the waist of
his tail as I slide him into the shallow water. The rose colored gill plates pump
rhythmically. His nose is long and pointed, but the lower jaw lacks the
pronounced kype of sexual maturity. All of his fins are in virgin condition. He
has never spawned. The predominant male red stripe from whence his species
got its name is but a faint glow of the ruby it will become. Every scale
contains a sparkling mirror crescent. His muscles are hard to the touch.

Energy returns to this body and he starts to struggle, at first feebly, then with
vigor. Complete equilibrium returns more slowly.

He is tired. I am tired. I turn him toward the river and he struggles free from
my hand. His form dissolves into the green depths of the eddy, and is free
again.

And so am I.