I have a recurring dream that always starts the same way: I’m standing on the bank of a small stream that I know is home to big trout. It’s springtime, there are bugs everywhere, big browns are coming to the surface to slurp them up and I make one perfect cast after another—only to be refused time and again. Then, finally, I move a big one. He eats and the fight is on. I see him in all his spotted, golden glory for a brief second before he runs downstream and is gone. My personal best becomes my personal nightmare, and he haunts me.
Fishing small streams can be as technical as it gets for an angler.
