The next morning, after fishing a while I put the rod down (that was close, I almost said “pole”) and just wandered around for a bit, taking in the setting and staring at the local inhabitants, smelling the roses so to speak, something I don't do often enough. In the first and only deep spot in the tiny tributary creek, a few kings and a handful of humpies were nosed into the bottom end of a riffle that was more shallow than they cared for, and so there they stayed. Every now and then another king or two would bust out of the relatively comfortable holding water at the mouth, charge into the shallows, and turn just as abruptly after not liking the looks of the path ahead.

While wandering about, beer in hand, wife happily reading a book on the beach, and with not too many worries close at hand, I happened upon a pair of very special fish and a moment that was unique to me, something I had never seen before. There were quite a few larger kings in the mix jockeying for position here and there, but a pair had split off from the main group of seemingly anxious fish and had begun a dance of sorts. Kings don’t “dig” reds in the same way that other fish do but rather they settle in. I am sure many have seen the way some (dare I say lesser) fish turn their bodies sideways in the water column, parallel to the substrate and use their gyrating tail to excavate a convexity of sorts in which to do their deed. More often than not, kings drop their eggs and milt directly into the medium to large size cobble over which they hover in their spot of choice, usually in the fast water/riffles below the classic tailout in a given run. It is hard water to describe but you know it when you see it and after floating over pods of spawning kings in exactly these same spots time and time again, it become as apparent as day is from night. Again where the kings lurk, there behind lie the rainbows.

Back on topic, the pair that had split off were obviously and without question the alpha male and female of the lot, larger substantially than all of their counterparts and cohorts. Forty five pounds a piece easily. They each seemed to know it and had found each other in the fray. I forgot to upload the short segment of video that shows them engaged in their dance, but something about the moment, the place, the time, made it very special. Though I have seen too many kings their reds to count, I have never seen two behaving in this manner, dancing, mimicking each others every move, and so perfectly in tune with the other. Believe me, I am the last to border on the edge of sappy or romantic and have often been accused of being dangerously absent of emotion, but this was neat. So cool in fact I rousted Lara from her comfortable reading position farther down the beach and gave her a piggy-back ride across a few braided channels so we could watch the pair going about their routine as if no one in the world was watching.





I really can’t do the moment justice with photos, but the video gets a little closer. I’ll try and get it posted before too long.