City Limits

Behind the stockyards trout are taking nymphs, so you ditch the evening news and hit the stream. On the first cast you get a rainbow, a piggish wallowing blimp of a fish. It’s headed for the biker bar downstream and into your backing when it finds a rusted turquoise Plymouth fin and breaks off. On the road, a car squeals to a stop beside you. "Must have been a whale. I saw it get away. What did you use?" says a pizza delivery kid. "Hopper imitations," you lie, "size ten." The next evening, that pool you once enjoyed is full of hopper-slinging pizza delivery boys.