You just drove hundreds, maybe thousands of miles from home. You can hear the stream gurgling enticingly just out of sight as you stare at a dark parking lot. You’ve made it past the screening process; proven not to be a hot-spotting, fish-counting, hole-burner through 100 posts or so on the board. You’ve been sufficiently welcomed into the cyber-society and have ascended to cool status, and now you’re getting eyeballed by perfect strangers.

I was a hot shot, know-it-all guide, 20 something and cocky in the world of ‘bows, bears, and sockeye salmon. The slaughter was on and I was the reaper. The salmon were taking the easy road up the river. Nose to tail, side channel after side channel was chock full of them. For a week, I watched 1.3 million run the channels and the sports picked them off easily. I was drunk with bloodlust; the unlucky ones were bonked by the business end of my Leatherman.
Then …