It’s the first week in October and waterfowl are on the move. The boat launch is half full when I fire up my 115 hp Yamaha outboard, skirt the Hanford Reach shoreline, and follow the spreading wake of a jet boat upriver. The golden glow of blooming rabbitbrush dots the hillsides. A pair of mergansers lift off and flush upstream. According to the boat’s speedometer, they can sustain flight at 37 mph.

I ease the throttle down where the channel crosses over to funnel salmon through a 20-foot-deep run and tie a K-15 “Double Trouble” Kwikfish to 6-foot of leader behind a jet diver. The chartreuse-and-silver plug came from a dearly departed friend’s collection and is marked with a “T” for “tuned.” Although Andy’s marking assures the plug will swim straight, I wish he had bequeathed me one marked “FC” for “fish catcher.”

My rod tip bows when the jet diver catches current and straightens up when the faithful back-trolling device touches bottom. Strands and “big hair” matts of weeds float by to lasso and loop around my gear.  Salmon are not vegetarians. I rarely catch them when milfoil and pondweed fill the water column.

A boat with four anglers passes at full throttle less than 50 feet away, rocking my boat sideways. I do not wave back. When golfing pals asked if I had caught a salmon yet, I reply, “The latest creek census shows one salmon per 20 hours of fishing. Evidently, I need to spend more time on the river.”

Giving up on salmon for the day, I drift along a shoreline where sand dunes meet up with the river and cast a Mepps spinner from my boat. I hook two mint-bright hatchery steelhead that I release for others to have a try. Seems I’m not alone in my lack of success for Chinook salmon. Back at the dock, I overhear a guide with six guys on board tell the fish checker, “We didn’t get any.”  High water temperatures are blamed.

One week later, daytime air temperature holds in the low 70s. I inform Nancy, “Ending the salmon season with none and done is not an option.” Despite the fine weather, I can’t convince any fishing buddies to join me.

Loose strings of spider webs drift above the water surface. A cacophony of Canada geese. Juvenile coyotes practice their howl from afar. A late hatch of caddisflies swirls around the windshield of my boat. “Patience,” a friend texts, when I report no salmon caught.

Hoping a change in location will improve my chances, I motor upstream to Ringold Springs, where half a dozen boats troll along the hatchery shoreline. Slowing to a stop at mid-channel, I fire up my trolling motor, spool out a “clown” colored Kwikfish, and ease towards the shoreline. Wham! The rod goes off with the violent strike of a Chinook salmon. My adrenaline spikes. Two long runs and several dives under the boat ensue before it can be led to the net. One treble hook is stuck in the corner of the mouth and the other is buried in its isthmus. Its orange-meat filets will be later grilled over wood coals.

“Got my salmon before twenty hours,” I tell my golfing buddies (albeit six trips and 19 hours on the water).

Moving on to mid-October, upstream passage counts of fall Chinook salmon at McNary Dam have dropped off, but I don’t feel like putting a fresh coat of paint on the pergola when I could be fishing. Three pre-school age children with long-handled nets scoop up crawdads that feed on salmon carcasses tossed from the dock. One young girl, bucket in hand, greets me with a sweet smile and asks, “Want to see them?”

“Here’s how you pick them up,” I reply, demonstrating how to grasp a fierce crayfish without risk of getting pinched with their clacking claws.

A boatload of duck hunters, bundled up in camo attire from head to toe, pull into the launch. “Were the ducks flying?” I ask. “We got a few,” one says. I think of them later when I hear the wing whistle of a passing flock of goldeneyes.

A long-legged great blue heron followed by a long-legged great egret flush from willows that lean over the water’s edge. A large dark salmon rolls in my prop wash but has no interest in a Spin-n-Glo sweetened with fresh-cured roe. While I munch on a peanut butter sandwich, a downriver-bound boat pulls alongside. “You’re Al’s buddy, right?” they ask. Turns out they filled their daily limit of one salmon each using spinners behind a flasher. Something different to try next year, I think, when I put my salmon gear away for the season.

The last week in October arrives. Morning chill lingers in the air. I give Ken a call and retrieve my Spey rod and a collection of steelhead flies from the bedroom closet. Water temperature has dropped to 58 F; a signal for fall Chinook salmon to initiate spawning activity. Ken mentions that he has not strung up his Spey rod in over a year. “I spent yesterday looking at YouTube videos trying to remember how to cast,” he says.

“I’m confident my casting will suck,” I reply, “but hopefully we will both get better with practice.”

On the way upriver, I point out places where I have caught steelhead. Ken nods his head as if to commit the information to memory. We pull in downstream of two rocky points and anchor the boat in shallow water. “You take the middle run where I hooked two steelhead earlier this month,” I tell Ken.  “I’ll take the upper run and work downstream.”

Unlike the traditional “two o’clock, ten o’clock” casting motion of one-handed fly rods, two-handed Spey casting involves a series of three or more coordinated movements that vary according to wind speed and direction, what side of the river you are on, and desired length of cast. I am embarrassed about my sloppy technique, but Ken is not watching, rather concentrating on his own casting.

We work in tandem along a gently sloping shoreline characterized by walking speed current with a line-up of boulders that provide refuge for steelhead. My right hand fights my left hand for position on the rod handle. The left side of my brain challenges the right side for control. Regular swapping of fly patterns occurs.

Water slips silently over smooth stone where river current is not thwarted by a barrier to flow. I remember once taking Wanapum tribal members on a boat ride into the interior of the non-impounded Hanford Reach. When we reached White Bluffs, where the current runs fast and strong against sheer cliffs, a blind, silver-braided Native American woman asked us to turn off the boat engine. “I want to hear the sound of the river,” she said. A peaceful smile graced her weathered face while we floated with the current, river song echoing off layers of ancient sediments.

Today’s low flow exposes shoreline cobble crusted with dried periphyton. The transparent wings of tiny insects sparkle in bright sunlight. A gentle upriver breeze stirs the water’s surface. In the time it takes me to move downstream 50 feet, Ken barely advances. Rather than leapfrog around him, I sit on a smooth boulder and watch. “Three casts, one step,” I tell him when we catch up.

Whether the swing of a golf club, fingers on guitar strings, or the dynamic backcast of a Spey rod, repetition is the key. Casting becomes second nature when well-practiced movement leads to muscle memory. “It works better when I’m not trying,” Ken says.

As if to confirm his notion, I lay out my fly line smoothly without watching where my anchor point ends up. At the end of a well-placed swing, in a narrow trough formed where current crests over a pair of submerged boulders, there’s a grab, followed by a head shake. A brief run leads to more head shakes. Then, another run. My reel sings to the tune of a small steelhead, ending the month of October on a high note.