#50 White River, Michigan

The fish are neither spooked nor interested, and cast after cast produces nothing but a wide swath in the school. I think of seasons past, and it is just as I remember - the salmon run as a moveable feast, my fishing as a moveable famine.

Ted Leeson, The Habit of Rivers

Off to Hesperia this morning to try White River below the dam. Only a few fishers when I got there. Walked up to the dam just in time to witness a guy land what looked from a distance like a steelhead of all things. It would be his last, our last. I took my place downstream a bit amid a great many fish coming and going. A few redds were busy. I float a two fly rig with yarn indicator down through the obvious runs, using the long drift technique I learned on the Colorado. The current is slow and a drift lasts a good minute, with another minute or so taken to retrieve and recast. Let's see, that would be about 30 casts per hour not including the frequent broken cast, or about a hundred casts by lunch. No takers. At least my new fishing vest proved a good purchase. A couple, I surmised a husband and wife, sat close together on a nearby picnic table, staring down the river at nothing in particular, perhaps killing time. On returning from lunch at Angelo's and Riccardo's Pub, one of the fishers was changing gear at his car. He began to speak and I looked around to see if the conversation was intended for me, though know one else was near. "We should be thankful, appreciate the day." I agreed, assuming he was referring to the seventy degree blue sky day. "Did you notice the couple sitting on the picnic table?" I told him I had. "Well, I stopped to talk with them. He has eight months to live. Learned about it just this morning. Cancer." I looked over to the now vacant table and then back to the fisher who was already walking down to the riverbank. He needed desperately to tell someone, say something, anything, and I was the first to come along. I packed up and drove to a new access at the end of 198th south of town. My own private beat. An unfair hooked Chinook broke me off. Appropriate I thought. The day had lost its luster.