As I write this, in late August, it seems that September is already here. Nights are a bit chillier than usual. There are flocks of migratory geese in the field below my home – flocks that usually don’t arrive until mid-September. A few trees down by the river are already turning color. They, like the geese, usually wait until mid-September.

We could be in for a rough winter. Still – I welcome what we have now. Winter will have its way soon enough. Between now and then there is a lot of fishing to be done.

There is a gentle urgency to this early autumn season that I seem to feel more keenly every year. It comes in part with the need to store up enough fishing to last through the coming winter, but has more to do with things more subtle, and more important.

The whole earth seems to be getting ripe for harvest. The trees down by the river turn color; just a bit at first, hinting at what is to come. The river cools down, a few degrees at a time, and the seasonal procession of aquatic insects goes through their brief rituals in rhythm with the changes in the river.

I want to watch those subtle changes up-close, day by day, and bit by bit, and find myself being gradually surrounded by what becomes an overwhelming amount of beauty – beauty that won’t last forever. Miss it, and its gone.

My wife is my best fishing buddy. She is a primary school principal and busy during September. When we can we fish together. The right person can complete the experience by sharing it. The fishing is only part of it.

As to the fishing, I know about the hatches, the flies to match them and how to gear my approach to the cooler, quieter, more serene sense of the river. I also know that the trout are fattening up for winter, and the browns are getting ready to spawn. While things seem benign on top, underneath the water’s surface the trout’s world is very much alive.

They can pod up under a raft of small #20 trico spinners in the morning, switch to #18 blue-winged olives precisely at 10:30 or thereabouts, munch #8 hoppers and #10 fall drakes during midday, and switch to #14 mahogany duns and big #8 October caddisflies during the afternoon and evening. There is plenty incentive to fish for them this time of year.

And they, too, like the leaves on the trees above them, are changing color. The spawning browns have redder spots now, and their pale yellow sides have turned golden. The rainbows look as if their sides were splashed with a vermilion paintbrush.

And what about the cutthroats? Why are their bellies so bright now, nearly crimson, brighter than their orange sides? Why are these trout so beautiful, now, amid all this other beauty? I cannot be here without encountering these questions, even if I only sense them in awe and humility, much as I sense comfort in the answers they bring.

So I wade in, and feel the tight chill of the current against my waders. My casting becomes automatic as I take it all in; the faint whiff of smoke on the air along with the scents of drying leaves and wet grasses mixed with the pines. I see a few fall drakes in the air and the lazy rings of a trout downstream that just rose for one. I’ll cast to him later.

For now I stop fishing to do a one-eighty. I see the first snow on the mountain peaks above the bright changing colors in the long afternoon shadows along the riverbank, hear the geese overhead, and maybe take that crisp, tart local Macintosh apple out of the pocket of my fishing vest and feel it break against my teeth.

I toss the apple core where birds can make a meal of it, and get ready to go do business with that trout. He might quit rising soon, and I know that the day, like the season, won’t last forever. I walk down the gravel bar and feel a smile break out across my face as I slow down, so as not to spook him. I start to cast and it all comes together: This is where I want to be, doing this, right now.