It was a dull November day, the sky the color of beaten lead. The air pressure was sliding downward, and the moon hung in its last quarter, signs that were, whether empirical or merely superstitious, auspicious enough for hunting large predators on a broad, slow-moving river.

After packing two boxes of streamers, big ones of twenty centimeters, medium patterns of ten to twelve, and smaller offerings just under eight I made my way to my favorite spot. I rigged a simple leader in two sections: a meter of 0.45 knotted to seventy-five centimeters of 0.35, and at the tip, a wire trace I had fashioned myself.

I began to comb the water with a large streamer, working the seam where the heavy current met the swirling eddies. An hour passed without so much as a breath from the river’s hidden life. So I downscaled, tying on a flat-winged streamer of a dozen centimeters, still a hearty mouthful for any predator prowling the greenish depths. As I tightened the knot, something stirred at the corner of my eye. Out in the broad football field sized pool before me, fifty meters off, perhaps more, a fish prowls in a slow, deliberate pattern.

A fish was hunting, following a looping, concentric route, though it kept well beyond my casting range. I could not tell whether it was one fish or several working in concert. After a few minutes of stillness, my heartbeat eased back toward normal, and the sharp edge of excitement dulled. I kept casting anyway as I stood at the channel that joined the pool to the river’s main flow.

I was reckoning those distant shadows were no pike or zander and that perhaps I should remove the wire trace when a sudden, violent tug arrested my stripping hand. The fish dashed for the heavy current with powerful, shuddering runs. It was an Asp, a nice one, that had engulfed the twelve-centimeter streamer without a second thought for the wire. Now it fought with wild determination for its freedom though, unbeknownst to it that freedom was already promised.

A fine Asp, and a fine reward for being on the river.