Cigar Creek, Rocky Mountains

To begin with I’m a bit nervous. Creeping and crawling upstream in the small Cigar Creek I am just too conscious of Mike, Kathy and Hanno watching me. I desperately want to do well in front of them. Furthermore the rod in my hand is borrowed and new to me. A 7´ bamboo dream for a No 3 line. Mike, who builds Bamboo rods for a living, has made it and I feel myself being perhaps overly cautious when I start fishing.

Around me the woods and slopes reaches up to the Rocky Mountain peaks. I still can’t believe we are here. Looking at Eva I smile, she understands exactly what I feel right now. And then a fish rises and all my focus and concentration is back on the water.

This morning I felt a bit strange, a slight headache and a lightheadedness of sorts, not just jetlag. It got even worse walking up from the car park to the Creek. Mike looked at me and asked how high we lived above sea level; I must have looked confused because he said: “We are at eight thousand feet or so now, if you don’t get enough oxygen try hyperventilating”. Altitude, I had never given it a thought.

We keep fishing upstream in the fast water. It feels like there is a fish in every likely spot, and some of the unlikely ones. I start laughing when a Brook trout that I’ve missed five times just swims away, obviously disgusted with my ineptitude. I fish the whole day with the same fly, a size fourteen Parachute Adams.

As we take a break Eva tells that she has seen a golden eagle. I’ve seen nothing but water, rocks, whitewashed trees and fish. Rainbows, Brookies, Browns and the greenback variety of cutts.
My lightheadedness makes it hard for me to separate the sights, smells and sounds. The smell of conifers and water, blue skies, the smooth surface of the bamboo rod against my thumb and fish rising to a dry fly whirling in the current by a rock, it all merge into one impression, one sensation.

The ravine darkens and even though the sunlight is strong and yellow on the slopes overhead a shade of purple gray creeps along the water. Sulfur colored caddis dances over the surface. Around us is the fragrance of conifers and green shimmering water, of clean air and the glaciers above us.
In my mind I still see the incredible colors of the fish in the stream.
No jewels could ever be that vibrant and bright.
I am surrounded by the scent of trees and clear water.