Boots or tires?

The August air seems to have lost some of its honey jar stickiness, for now it is like sweet tea cooling in the pitcher, awaiting chunks of ice from a tray.
The trees stir a little in the breeze. Joe Pye weeds nod their purple heads, agreeing with the maples and beeches that this is a marvelous end-of-summer day. My mountains appear comforted by fluffy pillows of clouds that darken.
And, taking a cue from nature, I tied on a big ole hopper, a scruffy large dry fly that excites larger trout, drawing them out from their hidey places under rocks and tree roots. Most of the time, it works. I noticed a couple of the frenetic bugs hopping in the grass like children playing, so I dug out a couple of imitations from the fly box and tied one on.
I got quite a few good splashes before finally setting the hook on a pretty rainbow. I had to sneak behind a boulder and flip the fly into the pool below, all while keeping low and out of sight. Whap, I got him.
The rest of the day on the bright, sunny Davidson River was not as good, though I saw plenty of trout, most of which scurried in fright at my clumsy approaches. Midday fishing in autumn  is more about enjoying the outdoors, inhaling the sweet air of late summer and in general just getting outside.
When the sun begins to dip behind a curtain of mountains in the evening, the rivers come to life again and the trout become active. I saw only one rise when I arrived at the fire station pool on the North Fork, but that was all the encouragement I needed.
Within a half hour, I had whacked half a dozen fat rainbows with a dry yellow CDC caddis. When I hooked into the biggest of those fish, he scooted under a rock before I realized what he was doing and broke off.
I had a brief moment of exhilaration when I felt its heft struggling at the end of the line, but that feeling was short-lived.
I had better luck picking blueberries, which at the time were plentiful near the parkway. I even stumbled upon some ripe blackberries on the slope.
And, speaking of slopes, I finally decided that the old wading boots' protective felt covering, that keeps this old fisherman from slipping on river rock, was disappearing faster than the mountain blueberries. The week before, I had busted my butt in the Pigeon River when I slipped on a rock. Later that day, I slipped again just walking down a moderate slope to the riverbank.
Hey, I thought, what gives?
When I took off the wet boots, I noticed the felt was almost gone. My boots were almost as bald as the troutmobile's tires, which were beginning to show air.
Alas, new boots had to wait. Tires came first. I reasoned that if I could not get to the river safely and ran off a mountain road and plunged hundreds of feet into wilderness oblivion, I would not even get a chance to slip on a river rock while trying to catch trout.
So, tires it was.
Along the banks, the Joe Pye weed nodded approval, bobbing their heads in the sweet autumn breeze.