Rainbow Trout Fishing - What I Was Meant To Do?

For some people, working on teeth is their passion or working on cars, or maybe somehow working with animals, but for me nothing has ever felt like what "I was supposed to do" like being in nature and more to the point being in nature while standing in a river attempting to catch trout. I realize that this probably sounds really strange, but it is truly the only time that I feel like I'm doing "what I was meant to do".

The other day when I headed out to my favorite trout river, the feeling of "what I was meant to do" washed over me like a raging waterfall. I was on the river in the early afternoon, just as the air temperature was beginning to warm up. I was wearing a thin long sleeved shirt, although it probably wasn't necessary, and I was anticipating a productive afternoon on the river fishing for trout.

I knew the season was right because it was early fall and the trout fishing is usually good to great during this time of the year in Northwest Montana and I knew the weather was right as the barometer was dropping as a front was pushing through the area. What I wasn't sure of is if these factors would matter to the rainbow trout on this particular day?

As I made my third cast into a deep run that looked particularly promising, I quickly had my answer. As I felt the familiar tap,tap from a hungry trout I then felt the familiar pull that often means a good sized rainbow is biting on my worm. When I lifted my rod tip to set the hook, I immediately felt weight and knew I was dealing with a trophy sized rainbow trout.

The trout was no doubt heavy and as I looked downstream about 30 feet I saw the trouts head come out of the water as the he (or she) rolled and snapped my line. I was of course drift fishing with a set of gang hooks and when I reeled my setup in I noticed that the second hook had broken off. It could have been a faulty knot or simply broken line from the trouts teeth, because after all the leader is only four pond test, but the point was that the trout was BIG.

Rather than lose my focus, I simply tied on a new set of gang hooks and began fishing the same area. Within five minutes I had hooked another nice trout! "It couldn't be the same trout, could it?" I thought to myself, as I fought my current fish for the next fifteen minuted or so. I half expected to find a single #10 hook in the trouts mouth once landed, but it was not to be. The rainbow was very nice, nineteen inches long and about six inches wide, but there was no single #10 hook in it's mouth. This led me to believe that it wasn't the same trout that broke me off, which I then realized didn't matter at all in any case. I released this beautiful rainbow trout and stood there in the flowing water for a few minutes taking in the scene.

After about 10 minutes a thought came to my mind. "This is as good as it gets". I closed my eyes, said thank you and began the hike back to my vehicle. Standing in a river may or may not be what I was meant to do, but on this day it was no doubt "as good as it gets" for this guy in this so called life.  While many people would have kept fishing, I just had an overwhelming feeling that I had done what I was supposed to do on that particular day.