Of Men and Mountains by William Douglas

Author:William Douglas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
Published: 2012-12-21T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter XV

A Full Heart

I STOOD at daybreak one August morning on the ridge above Diamond Lake in the Wallowas. We were camped at Tombstone Lake and I had risen early to find and explore Diamond, which lay below me 800 feet or more in a deep pocket of the mountains. The dark sapphire of its water, its remoteness from the trail, the steep slopes surrounding it, the fir that almost hid it from view—these combined to give it an air of mystery in the faint light that preceded the sunrise. The view stirred in me a feeling of eagerness and suspense that I have experienced again and again on coming to a ridge overlooking an unexplored lake in the wilderness.

I hurried down as though I were late for an appointment, intent on rainbow cruising the surface for food. Where were the deep pools and the best feeding grounds? I thought of one-pounders and four-pounders. Would the big ones be at the end of those logs lying in the water?

I thought I was alone, so it was startling when I saw a buck deer, two does, and a fawn going around the lake ahead of me. I wondered what bugs might be on the water and what flies to use. A rise showed fifty yards from shore—a swirl under something white. The circles expanded themselves as they reached toward shore, and all was quiet again.

As I began to whip the surface with my fly, great expectations filled my mind. This was a remote place that perhaps only a half-dozen people a year ever reached. It was largely unexplored water. “There may be four-pounders here,” I thought. So I matched my wits against the imaginary champion, and changed from fly to fly until a bucktail caddis brought a pound-and-a-half rainbow to the net.

The sun had not been on the lake an hour when I had to leave. I had climbed halfway up the steep mountainside when I sat for a few minutes on a granite ledge and looked down into Diamond. I felt then as one does when he meets for the first time an interesting person. One gets only an inkling of the full personality, and this slight acquaintance whets his appetite. This was the beginning of a friendship; Diamond had much to offer and I had a longing for its offering.

Lakes, like people, have personalities. It takes time and patience, but if one goes about it the right way he can get on intimate terms with a lake. Lake Wentworth in New Hampshire was such a lake to me. I discovered on my own every good bass pool that it harbors. Some are near points of islands, some are in unsuspected spots offshore where a ledge is concealed 30 or 40 feet below the surface. Others are in sandy stretches where the bass like to cruise. One is in the least likely place of all—three feet of water a few yards beyond a marshy shore. Here at sunset I would

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