Most moms save their child’s handprints smeared on construction paper with craft paint. I’m saving a smattering of blue yarn embellished with natural hues of brown and green. The keepsake is art in its most juvenile form and yet it is a masterpiece.

The blue yarn outlines our nation’s major rivers. Columbia, Colorado, Mississippi to name a few. The Gulf and Great Lakes are marked too. I’d like to say I’ve fished them all, but I haven’t. I’d like to say they’re all pristine, but they’re far from it. The Stream Protection Rule was supposed to help with that, but now it’s gone.

The drag was squalling. There’s no better word for it. No staccato clicks at all. No crescendo. Just one long note of protest.

The protest began as gills flared after a nervous cast and one strip. I remember outfitter Ryan Lambert yelling at me to set the hook, then raw power transmitted from leader to line to rod. The reel took the brunt of it with a silky smooth confidence and that shrieking battle cry.