Thin Blue Line

I WALK UP the gravel shoreline trying to avoid mounds of fresh bear crap underfoot, while still focusing my gaze on the water, looking behind the gaudy, red-and-green forms of spawning sockeye for a more subtle movement: a mere shadow on the streambed. I’m trying to pick out a rainbow or Dolly Varden sucking up the drifting eggs, with the hope of getting a cast in before the fish sees my shadow and slinks off into the deep.

The river I’m fishing has