The blizzard was bad enough that I considered heading back to my in-laws’ rather than continuing the drive. I’d been there all week, though, staying with them while on a work trip to Utah. I wanted to get home to my wife and daughter, and I definitely wanted to stop off at the river on the way and get some fishing in.
Once I broke through the blizzard, the roads were dry, the wind died down, and the sun even peeked through the low ceiling. When I pulled up to the river, it felt like one of those days that I’d never be able to describe well, mostly because no one else was along to witness it. My fishing buddy was too busy with work, and in all honesty, I shouldn’t have stopped, either. My wife had been home all week with our sick baby, and I needed to get back and relieve her while she got some much-needed alone time.
I need a bit of it too, I thought while I parked the truck, fully aware that I’d have eight hours of alone time on the drive home.
When I called my wife earlier to see how she was doing, she told me not to worry about stopping to fish, so long as I wasn’t home late. In our almost six years of marriage, she’s only asked me to come home early from fishing once, and it was for a legitimate emergency. To say my wife is a saint is an understatement.
So, I rigged up quickly, jogged down to the river, and fished hard and frenetically because I wanted to cover as much water as possible.
Within five casts, I had a nice whitefish on the line. I missed another, then the run went dead. The fish were in the shallower riffles, hanging on the ledges where the river got deep and turned into buckets. This wouldn’t be another day of nymphing slower, deep water, looking for subtle ticks on my indicator.
I walked downstream to a big ledge where half the river tumbles down a wide riffle, then the riverbed drops five feet almost instantly. It’s a reliable spot, because it’s such classic trout water.
As though the fish were matching my quick pace, I hooked a cutthroat and two more whitefish in quick succession.
After I grabbed the picture of that cutthroat, I sent it to my fishing buddy and told him the river was better than either of us expected.
He didn’t reply.
I hooked and landed a brown trout that went almost 20 inches, but he snapped my nymph rig right at the net, so I had the chance to rest the hole for a few minutes while I tied on new flies. On the first or second cast through the run, the fattest rainbow trout I’ve seen this year came to play.
It was the sort of fast fishing that, while not exactly easy, makes you feel like an angler who really knows his stuff. The fish were right on the ledge, but the drift had to be just right, with the flies dropping just so, or else I’d come up empty. A quick upstream mend once my cast landed was key, and I caught myself giving my skills too much credit when, in reality, I was just doing what most of us hope for: I was in the right place at the right time. The fish were hungry and moving around enough that anyone could’ve caught them.
Eventually, the fish in the run wised up to my rig, so I checked the time. I’d been fishing for the better part of two hours, which was an hour longer than I wanted. I trudged back to the truck, tore down my rod, but paused at taking off my waders.
If I took the dirt road that cut through the sagebrush back to the highway, I’d pass by another shelf just like this, and of course, I’d have to stop and fish it. A low wall of clouds charging off the mountains talked me out of that plan, though. The roads are a soupy mess when wet, and I could see snow squalls tearing across the valley.
So, I put my waders and boots up and gunned it for home. I left the dirt, hit pavement, and was just settling in for the next leg of the drive when my truck started beeping. The tire pressure sensor was going off, so I pulled to the shoulder and got out.
I could hear hissing, and sure enough, the back right tire was flat as a pancake within 30 seconds.
A flat tire isn’t a big deal, but I wanted to hurry. The clouds that I thought would dump snow, and had talked me out of the dirt road next to the river, were quickly bearing down. I pulled the jack and tools from behind the back seat, dropped the spare from beneath the bed, and grabbed the tire iron.
After a few minutes of fiddling, I started to feel pretty stupid. The tire iron wouldn’t fit around the lug nuts. I checked the iron—nothing was stuck inside—and I carefully lined it up on the lugs, but it wouldn’t slip over like it’s supposed to.
I swore and called my dad, who reassured me that yes, I was doing it right, and yes, the tire iron that comes with your truck is supposed to fit the lug nuts.
But I drive an F150, and some engineer there apparently decided my year of truck needed a lug nut with a chrome cap. That chrome cap swells up and gets too big to fit in a standard-size tire iron. As the mechanic who drove an hour from the nearest town informed me, there’s a special tool made just for prying these awful lug nuts off F150s.
I followed the mechanic back to town (thank goodness I had cell service), bought all new lugs for every tire, and had the flat patched. By this point, I was three hours late, and still had another four and a half hours of the drive in front of me.
My wife wasn’t upset. The baby was asleep, the dogs were happy to see me, and even though I was bone-tired by the time I pulled into the driveway, the sting of an expensive trip to the tire shop hurt a bit less.
The fishing had been outstanding, and I suspect it’s just the start of a great spring season.