At the end of the day...

Rick said "Today was a really good day." So simple and so right.

We ended the day with a couple hours of fishing catching.

We awoke this morning to frost on the pumpkin and a cold 32 degrees. We rarely feel 32 degrees in Arizona and this is only the first of September! Yikes! What will the coming weeks be like? We skipped our morning session of fishing and went to town for groceries. And a stop at Tim Tollett's Frontier Anglers for the latest scoop on flies, fishing and a dose of friendship. Although we do see Tim on the river, we almost always catch him in the shop. What a pleasure to be able to share a few minutes with him and Mike in the shop. They are knowledgeable about the fishing and flies of the local rivers and willing to share what they know. Rick always finds some new fly tying material he needs. One of the guides we know, Ryan, also happened to be in the shop. We hadn't seen Ryan on the river lately and that's because he's been on the Madison River most of the summer. He talked about how good the fishing has been on the Madison.

We stopped for an authentic Mexican lunch at Fiesta Mexicana, the white school bus converted into an eatery. The food is very good and really Mexican. You just have to get over the atmosphere.

We fueled up the Honda for the first time in months. Safeway offers a discount on fuel based on grocery purchases and we had earned 40 cents off. It still ended up costing us $3.48 per gallon. I'm afraid of what diesel will cost when we have to fill up the motorhome.

We were back to the campground and on the river around 2:30. We started out tossing dry flies, but there were only a few fish feeding on the surface. I missed 4 very willing fish and after that they just weren't interested in what I had to offer. I looked at Rick a little upriver from me and he'd switched to nymph fishing. I switched to a large crane fly (if it's the last thing I do, I'm going to get one on a crane fly). Watching Rick hook a couple and miss a couple, I moved near him and thought about changing. He hooked the brown trout in the photos and I had him bring it to shore for a couple photos. He showed me the small nymphs and offered to set me up while I fished with his fly rod. I insisted that he continue to fish and I'd change up. He gave me a couple nymphs, went back out to the middle and I followed shortly. He wanted me to fish in the best location and within a few minutes I hooked a rainbow trout that ran up, down and all around. It was almost comical and Rick was smiling the whole time. I stripped in line over and over and it still ran around like a crazy fish! I brought it to me, about 4 feet away, and it got off. Nice fish! I looked at Rick and we both laughed. We went back to casting our nymphs and Rick coached me to fish a little closer to me. I put the fly within 10 feet of me and I immediately had another rainbow on. And it was another speedy one. I eventually brought it to me and (without a net) removed the barbless hook and let it go. It was a good size fish. I said to Rick we should have gotten a photo of it so we'd have one brown and one rainbow. But it was free and back to living in the grasses where it belonged.

It was about 5:00 and the warm sun was turning to a cool evening. I looped my hand through Rick's arm and we walked together back across the river. It was the end of the day, a really good day.