That better part of him knew there had been too many treacherous and aggravating drives into the traffic hell of Denver each day. Far too much aggravation when he got there; far too little of what he loved about living here.
But there was a choice, there always are when it comes to fly fishing.
Usually those choices revolve around streamflow reports, insect hatches and the chance of catching big fish. On this day, it came down to the avoiding more traffic and fishing a stream that was small enough to allow him to easily wade in shorts and Crocs.
As he slipped into the cool - the Midwesterners would say cold - water, it occurred to him that catching fish wasn't even the main priority that day. The water quickly cooled the heat and aggravation of the day; the canyon shielded him from much of the sun; and there were few others there to ruin the solitude.
If it came down to standing in this creek and waving around a stick pretending to fish, that would be just fine.
But that better part of him had not led him astray. This creek -- the very one in which he had really learned to fly fish -- apparently had recovered in the last few years. He had spent few of those precious fishing days here in that time, so there was a feeling of coming home, as well.
There were more fish apparent on this day, perhaps the happy byproduct of a wet spring, washing down the overflow from the dam. They were rising to a late pale evening dun hatch, later they would rise to the spinner fall from an earlier, larger pale morning dun hatch.
As dusk turned to night, he would fight the failing light to tie on one last pattern to match the spinner fall. He would realize it was too dark to properly release a fish that fell for the fly.
He would leave in the gathering darkness and rising moon and realize this had been an exceptional day.

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