Launching themselves into the water. Attacking hooked fish. Troubling the shorebirds. Running off. Chasing the fly line. Barking at the fly line. Chasing the fly line while barking at the fly line. There’s all manner of ways that a dog can fuck up your fishing. We entered the eastern slopes, him and I, with two objectives: catch fish and create some semblance of a fishing dog.

Summer seems to grow hotter every year, this August was no exception. Each day around noon we would do what the government would not and enact our own Hoot Owl closure. I’d put my faith in the head of the pool and a Morrish Hopper. In search of one good fish, that would signal the end of that day’s fishing. We’d briefly admire that orange slash, the crimson belly, the black spotted back and the golden hue before watching the fish disappear again. Then we’d reel up and leave the fish alone. Content instead to spend time reading, swimming, napping or just clambering up some elevated ledge with a couple of beers where we could watch the spectacle of Cutthroat gracefully sipping bugs in the water below.

Just after supper we’d pack up camp in search of a new spot to park the rig and begin the next day’s adventure anew, albeit on a different piece of water. Casting small PMD patterns to rising fish in the mornings and slowly but surely turning a two year old bird dog into a partner with decent riverside manners.

It all might be forgotten over a long northern winter but by the time we pointed the truck north and rolled out of the foothills I had a dog who now sticks mostly to the bank, is steady to fish in the net (as well as the sandpipers*) and eseentially “hups” like a flushing dog whenever I start casting line.

Satisfied to sit and watch the fly drift along, waiting on a rise, just like the rest of us.

^{_{*(the taunting Dippers can still get the better of his emotions still however)}}