My grandfather used to say that there was only one striped bass in all of Long Island sound and it was not interested in being caught by us. My father and I both rejected the idea because we saw acres of bass feeding and knew that there had to be more than one.

I could see the seam on the other side of the current. It was as wide as a car and was spinning back on itself. The eddy created a column of water that trout could dip in and out of lazily and consume the insects that floated by. Big trout lived in that eddy. And I was in a big trout mood. So I stepped into the current. One step, then another. And on my third, I was no longer standing. Instead, I was bouncing off the rocks on my ass. Scrambling to gain a foothold, trying to not drop my rod or break my neck. Fifty yards later I stood. Soaked but intact. And now I could try the eddy from a different angle.

It had been a long day. I could see it in his shoulders. The weight of the past month had taken its toll, and he moved slower. More deliberate. As if his waders were heavier than usual. It had been everything to him. His world was undone when it was over. I asked how he had done tonight. He only replied, “I hooked a few.” Good, he was still in the fight.

This was the dream I have always fantasized about. Spey casting to giant bull trout in a pristine Oregon river. The crunch of snow under my feet. Nothing but the sound of the river as I hike a deep canyon in central Oregon looking for the great white shark of the river. I stepped into a pool that my friend had told me about and I begin to flail with my rod. Trying to cast the impossibly large streamer to hopefully entice a hungry bull. It’s made to look like a mouse. Not the gentle mayfly of summer.

Everything about the world was gray. It was drizzling and the light had retreated, so the world felt more subtle. A warm, rich gray. The kind of gray that makes you feel as though the world is simple and close. Large places become small spaces, and sounds become muted.

For a couple of weeks each summer, my cousins and I would visit my grandparents in New Hampshire. They had 40 acres on a hill in the southern New Hampshire forests. It was land that was growing a second forest after being farmed at the turn of the century and was charming as hell: old barns, stone walls, ponds around every corner. You couldn't help but love being a kid in New England in the summer.

We drifted slowly in the bright afternoon sun. My cousin was fidgeting and making a nuisance in the middle of the canoe, and my grandfather was irritated and trying to get him to sit still. I was old enough to sit in the bow and felt like an explorer in an exotic forest. For a brief moment, there was quiet, and the water was still. That's when we saw it move underneath us.

Those that fish for trout are fools. They are the optimists who cling to hope despite the clear lack of evidence that there is none. And we maintain this ridiculous pursuit because of the sheer poetry of evenings like the one I experienced when I was eleven or so.

When my grandparents moved to New Hampshire, they bought 40 acres and an old saltbox house on a dirt road. It was beautiful, and the sense of freedom in that place was palpable.

My grandfather always said that the ravine on his property was cut out of the granite during the last ice age. Despite that, I knew the land was shaped by giants and that some were still here.

The town I called home as a child is not the same. Forty years ago, there were still open fields, and you could bushwhack through the New England forests exploring streams and ponds that are now fenced in and surrounded by private property. Thirty years ago, you could still camp overnight in the forests and cut across the fields to get to where you wanted to go.