Last part of an autumn day memorable for a fisherman

The shortening of days has lately coincided with spectacular twilights that end too soon.

In late June you can fish until 9 p.m. and still see well enough in the gloaming to hike back to the truck without tripping over logs or tangling yourself in multiflora rose.

Now, with night and day evenly divided, it's pitch dark at 7:30, and the leisurely, four-hour, after-work outings of early summer have shrunk to frenetic, two-hour scrambles, made all the more so by the frenzy of game fish exploiting their lowlight advantage over their prey.

Fishes' evening feeding binges make the last half-hour of daylight the best part of any day. That brief interlude assumes heightened glory in autumn, when vivid sunsets often bathe the river valley in rainbow hues reflected by the river's glasslike surface.

In that warm glow Tuesday evening, game fish intent upon fattening up for the winter herded minnows into the shallows, where they skittered atop the water in their bids to escape.

Up and down the riverbank, the splashes of pursuing fish amped up my body temperature, adrenaline level and the speed of my casts and retrieves. With daylight fading, I almost resented time spent releasing fish and repositioning the plastic grub on my jig.

Then, 20 feet directly in front of me, a big smallmouth bass riled the surface, seeming to make eye contact with me as it fell back into the river, prompting three fruitless casts into the rings radiating from its disturbance. Before the last ring had subsided, it leapt again in the same spot, as if I were not even there.

When I replaced the jig with a topwater plug, I felt a little like Augustus McRae in 'Lonesome Dove,” when he flipped up the ladder sight on his Henry rifle and took aim at the Blue Duck henchman who, thinking himself safely out of range, taunted the retired Texas Ranger with a chicken dance.

Like the bemused smile that crossed Gus' face when his slug thumped into thug's gut, a similar expression no doubt crinkled mine when, on the popper's second bloop, the 18-inch smallmouth slurped the lure from the river's surface.

To quote characters in almost every fishing show I've ever watched on television: 'That right there is what I'm talking about.”

I'd have been satisfied with that ending to an enjoyable outing, but, as the sun's last beams streamed above tall trees on either bank, contrasting with the deepening gloom of the shaded river bed, the evening unveiled one more indelible memory.

While I scanned the pink and gold surface of the river for my next target, a strange reflection flapped upriver toward me. I looked up to see an adult bald eagle, its white tail and head burnished by golden rays.

l Comments: (319) 934-3172; orlan.love@thegazette.com