A Spot on the River
by John Rickard

I know a spot on the river where a rush of white water collides and falls through large rocks and into a turquoise pool of a billion bubbles. Trout rise in the tail-out sipping their meals from the foam line. They are rarely large but always there. The Trail comes down to the river at this spot, thus it is often fished in vain. On the opposite bank, in a nondescript oak tree hangs a weather worn fishing vest with a sign reading “this was his favorite hole”. It has hung untouched for over a decade.

Down-stream the river drops six feet with a plundering noise to a cliff lined pool, where with me a man caught the brown trout of a lifetime, perhaps eight or nine pounds. Odds were against him, but the gift was given the day before he started radiation treatment back in the real world.

Down the Canyon is a giant boulder, lichen covered and overhanging one of the deepest pools. An old cable bridge once attached to this massive rock but now only traces remain. On my last birthday my wife climbed atop of me just as a five pound brown took a mayfly off the glassy surface. I saw it only peripherally as my focus was on my beautiful wife but I know it smiled at what it saw.

A long narrow pool lazily flows past rock and rhubarb, silent, peaceful, calming. I walked her banks dazed with a Zen like high towards the tail-out where she shallows and drops through boulders roaring their baritone warning. From mediation to ALERT I barely heard the words “help” and found fear in the eyes of one of my clients. He was clinging to a rock, waders full of water and visibly growing weaker. Below, likely eternal silence and no time to get help… The following morning the river apologized and showed us forty plus fish, a covey of quail, an osprey, a bald eagle, a fox, a bear and a 250 pound lion.

It is wonderful to know such a great friend as the McCloud River.