I’m not a record holder, but I interview record holders on TV. It’s true. I’ve shot stories with Idaho’s brown trout record holder and Idaho’s hybrid rainbow trout record holder. Fine fisherman and woman. I’ve even spent time with the taxidermist turning those trout into art. The common outcome here is harvest. Those trophy trout saw their last hook the day they made the record books.

It's dark, about an hour before the sun wakes up the rest of the world, and I’m methodically laying out fishing gear in the garage waiting for my ride to the river. Luke is one of those casual, successful people who runs a minimum of fifteen minutes late for seemingly everything in life, so I’ve learned to plan around his quirk. I take the extra moments to string up the fly rod under sixty watts of incandescents and retie a few knots in my leader. Really though, everything is ready.