I went to one of my favorite backcountry haunts this last week, an annual visit during “hopper time” when big trout look up and nobody else is around to laugh at my casting.
But the fish weren’t there.
I climbed to the river’s headwaters where wild rainbows and bull trout congregate in late summer to feast on terrestrials and lounge in sun-kissed, yet snow-chilled water. Everything was different. Everything had changed.