Sage Seasons: Trout Season

Recently Sage launched a new section to its website called Sage Seasons, which shares some wisdom and passion about all aspects of fly fishing and contains some helpful knowledge, spectacular photos, and compelling words. Following up on their first two installments, Sage released Trout Season with words by Jeff Galbraith.

THE LAST CAST

The exodus of guides, clients, bewildered DIY sports, game officers, and a few locals proceeds forth from the cracked blacktop of a country boat launch.

The day softens; yellows turn to amber, ambers turn ochre and life begins to stir. Grasshoppers waiting out the afternoon breeze take a day’s last flight, clicking heels against the waning heat. Mule deer slip between cottonwoods, drinking sweet snowmelt after a shaded slumber. Mourning dove post up on wires and dead branches, awaiting their turn at the saloon.

As evening on the American Serengeti awakens, the march of driftboats and rubber craft exit onto a darkening highway, tail lights tracing their paths into the distance. More deer slide up on the bar as the dove slam their drinks and hit the road, searching for roost.

The first one appears like a tiny chimera, rolling, dropping and fluttering in the dusk. Then two, three, five dozen more. Brachycentrus streaming from below and gently rustling the evening air. Caddisflies represent a calming at the day’s end, an exhale of anxiety and heat as the crowds drift away to campgrounds, taverns and cabins.

Upstream from the launch, not more than 800 yards, lays another universe. A tributary the width of a small garage softly empties into the mainstem and the cutties, rainbows and occasional brown trout have begun their late happy hour celebration. Quiet slurps punctuate the gurgling outflow. A couple gentle flicks of the five weight tipped with an elk hair appetizer brings a stunning wild rainbow to hand, iridescent and fat with late summer fortune.