The young man packs his lunch for the day, trying to be quiet as not to wake his family. He reached for his well broken in day pack, it had been a lot of places with him. It has only been a few days since he came home for good from the Marine Corps, and he needed to be alone for awhile to clear his mind. He jumped in his old rusty 78’Ford F-250; she wasn’t much to look at but she was tough and ran good. He turned his radio to his favorite classic country radio station, and started the hour long journey to his favorite fly fishing hole. It had been a few years since he had been home on his rivers, the North fork of the Couer d’alene or the St.Maries river. These rivers had been his friends and comforters during a rough time in his life and was the last place he had visited before he left home for MCRD San Diego. It was the season opener for the rivers; he had spent the last afternoon tying flies with a older friend of his. His friend also had been a Marine during Vietnam, they had spent the evening talking like only Brothers can of barrecks stories and of fellow Marines who had received their final orders to MSG duty of Heavens Gates. Scott pulled off of the highway on to an old dirt logging road that lead deep into the mountains of Northern Idaho. It was late spring and the mountains were alive with the sounds of singing birds, and bees buzzing lazly from one flower to the next. Scott rolled the window down to let in the fresh mountain air. The sun wasn’t up quite yet, so it was still chilly out, but he didn’t care he wanted to smell the cool fresh scent of the pines and cedars. There had been a forest fire last summer, so the mountain was alive with life and fresh green growth, as he pulled around a corner on the twisty mountain road he saw a herd of elk grazing in a meadow at the bottom of the valley he was driving down into, He made a note of it “who knows “he thought “maybe they’ll be around come October and the hunting season”. Scott pulled up to his favorite old fishing hole, the fish were never very big due to the fact that they were so close to the road ,but they put up a great fight. He reached around the seat to reach his fly rod and pack, made sure he had his fly box, vest and waders and most importantly his hot coffee. Scott set his gear down next the river and got his waders and vest on, tied on a blue wing olive that he had tied himself. Once he had that done, he poured himself a cup of coffee out of his thermos and sat down on a big flat slab of peppered granite. The sun had finally reached the bottom of the valley, the river began to sparkle like a million tiny diamonds as fish began to rise and sip flies from the rivers surface. “Well better stop wasting daylight” Scott thought, he poured the rest of his coffee out and started wading into the river. Once he was up to his waist, he began to strip out his line, and began roll casting till he had enough line out to reach the line of foam behind the big boulder jutting up out of the river. He cast just up stream of the rock, his fly landing perfectly, leaving only a little ring of dimples on the rivers surface. He began mending and jerking on the line ever so slightly to give the fly a life like appearance. All at once there was an explosion out of the depths as a huge cutthroat trout took his fly and began running down stream! Scott’s reel began screaming in protest as the trout began to strip line from it, He quickly began palming the reels edge to apply drag to running trout. The fish fought long and hard, but after running up and down the river a dozen times and striping all the line out of the reel down to the backing Scott managed to get the trout into his net. He saw now the it was a Yellowstone cutthroat, a rare catch in this river due to over fishing, and guessing on its weight by its length he estimated it to be around ten pounds! The largest trout he had ever pulled out of this river! He quickly snapped at picture of the fish and remove the fly from it’s mouth. Gently he cradled the fish in the river to revive and let it rest after its long fight. After a few moments he released the fish to swim back to the depths to see another day. Scott closed his eyes and turned his head towards the rising morning sun, the sun warmed his body in the chilly mountain water; “at last.” he thought to himself “I’m home.”