It was a Saturday in May in the year before I got my first fishing car. I’d ridden eight miles to the trailhead, hid my bike in the woods, and walked a mile to one of the upstream branches of the Knife River. The water was clear and running bank full, and the air and the water were warming in the late morning sun. This was brook trout water, and I had half a limit of ten inchers when I got to the foot of the islands. ...