Marcyn Clements

Haibun for Piute Lake

I wake at 6:30 am. I slept eleven hours...best night yet! Backpacking muscles stiff...stretch a little. I retrieve my fly rod from the chinquapin bush and sneak quietly down to the lake to try my luck. Little strings of cumulus clouds line out along the east ridge. Sun not here yet, still rising. At 10,000 feet, my nose feels the cold. The water lies still, a little ripple, like a cliché of heat-rumpled glass. The snow-draped peak that rises stretches toward me in the reflection beneath my rock where I flex my fly line.

Last night I caught fish with every cast, but this morning I might as well be in casting school. They must be deep, as there's no action on the surface, no cruises, no rises. I retie my frayed tippet, but keep the same fly and send the sturdy little mosquito out again and again with not a nibble. Then, after an hour I hook one, a nice heft to the line. This one's breakfast!

sunrise
on the still water
white-crowned sparrow sings