_“Good news, good news, good news, that’s all they wanna hear” _blasted the morning alarm courtesy of one Mac Miller. I rolled out of the bed with malicious intent, bearing down on the gallon jug of water on the trailer floor. After consuming enough of the clear stuff to make a camel blush, I began to jump into the regular trout bum attire - MRO hat, bugstopper sum hoody, quick dry pants, and the ever present chacos. I was meeting a relatively new fishing buddy (Drew) on one of the most prestigious stillwater trout fisheries in North America. The clock read 8:16 and I had shook hands on a 9:00 meeting the night prior at the local bar. after a brief and albeit hungover phone call and a McDonalds run we were trout water bound by 8:45. the majority of hours 1-2 were spent fruitlessly flaying the water in front of very spooky brown trout patrolling the points and ledges of Hebgen. After defeatedly agreeing to walk back to the cars, we spotted a quality brown cruising the shallows. This was a happy fish, extremely unconscerned with any ominous 5x among his feeding grounds. We had made a game time decision to switch to a beetle dry and single chironomid dropper. My first cast was pitiful in the fact that the leader piled very prominently around my dry. This brown cared extremely little about that though, and naively sipped the beetle on top. After he turned on it I subtly raised the rod and made perfect contact with him. There’s a feeling that I’ve only gotten from fly fishing in which you are truly _in the zone. _Leading him, watching him eat, and fighting him, are truly some of the most trying moments of my life. Fly fishing is very esoteric that way; Most of my finest days on the water were followed with some of my most haunted memories, whether it’s a lost family member or the death of my dog. It all comes back to water flowing over my feet. - _Ramblings of a Man_