Time to go.

I hate this part of the day. I feel it approaching like an itch and mentally begin attempting to outrun it. Casting harder, harping more on my clients, moving to new water....I think if you knew me, you would probably see a bit of frantic panic in my eyes. I just can't seem to welcome it with grace. It's the end of the day.
Time to break down rods. Time to go home. Time to meet the float plane. Time to drive the boat to the dock. It's that time...

So I try for one last cast before I call it a day. Just one more fish I tell myself as the minutes are ticking away, many minutes past the time I should have called it. I'm gonna be late but just a few more seconds....one more cast.

My client, Don, hooks up!
Nevermind that it is a tiny minnow of a rainbow...we got one on the last cast. I feel brilliant. I care nothing for the time or tardiness. As he brings it into the boat and I tell him not to, the rainbow jumps off the hook. I watch in slow motion horror as this tiny little youngster drops through space to flop on the wooden floor of the boat. I dart my hands down to retrieve the little guy, he makes one helluva effort to jump out of the boat, and time turns to slow motion as he misses my hands reaching out to catch him and slides right down between the wooden floor beams and the metal boat. 'Thank God I haven't bilged this sucker yet" as I watch him flop underneath me and the 2x4 flooring in a puddle of dirty boat water. I grab the skinniest longest thing within grasp, my engine grease gun, and start shoving him towards the side where I can grasp him. My stomach feels sick as he keeps flopping back to the middle of the boat. I command my clients to get to one side of the boat and with our weight we create a slide and I push the little youngster out through the gap of the flooring and metal boat. Grabbing the slippery little guy firmly, I place him overboard in the net. He flips belly up and my clients tell me he's a goner. Stubbornly, I begin attempting to resuscitate him in the water, holding his tiny tail and forcing water into his gills by pushing him into the current. Don makes a joke about giving him mouth to mouth as I desperately say some little prayer like 'please let him live through this?'
I felt a twitch from his body. Hope. I jump out of the boat nearly filling my waders and get real active in the resuscitation. Soon the little fish is twitching in my hands and struggling to swim away. I gingerly let him rest in the net for a bit longer as I breathe relief and sigh thanks that I didn't kill the little guy.
I saved a rainbow today.