I can’t hear the screaming and yelling coming from upstream. I don’t see the anglers above and below me. There are 20 pound salmon crashing around in the gravel at my feet yet I don’t give them a second look…
“There he is again” I mutter quietly under my breath as I cup my hands over my face, squinting a little harder to fight through the glare. A wild brown trout of substantial size just edged on to the lip of the gravel bar, inches from a pod of spawning fish, to gobble up an egg before quickly dropping out of sight.
Amidst the chaos and mayhem of the King Salmon run I am in my own little world. This game of cat and mouse takes a Zen like patience. These fish are there for the taking but they are no pushovers. The right drift, at the right time, with the right egg pattern.
I wait another five minutes and my golden friend has not shown himself again. I’m growing impatient but I know better than to rush him. Then, as if to reward my self-control, he appears again. This time he hangs on the gravel bar and I see him eat a pair of eggs in quick order. This is my shot. My first cast is a little short, but the second is flawless. He slides a few inches to his right, I see the tell-tale white flash of the mouth, and I lift the rod into headshakes. Several minutes later as I slip the 20 incher back into the water I realize I’m laughing to myself like a lunatic. The true trophies of this river are hiding in plain sight. Dwarfed by the boisterous salmon, amongst hundreds of other anglers, they are seen only by those who seek them.