Nick retrieves his fishing rod from the leather rod case and prepares the leader line, the gut line, and the hook, and tests them: "It was a good feeling."
All preparations completed, Nick is ready to enter the water. As he leaves camp, he feels "awkward" but "professionally happy" with all of his paraphernalia hanging from him: His sandwiches are in his two front pockets; his bottle of grasshoppers is hanging around his neck; his landing net is hanging from a hook in his belt; a long flour sack is tied round his shoulder (this will hold the trout that he catches); his "fly book" is in one of his pockets; and he is carrying his fly rod.
Nick's first catch is too small, so he removes the hook and throws it back. Note that before he touches the trout, he wets his hand because he knows that "if a trout was touched with a dry hand, a white fungus attacked the unprotected spot." This kind of knowledge emphasizes again that Nick is an expert in this type of fishing; readers respect him. However, it also indicates something deeper: Nick has a specific code of fishing that separates him from other fishermen. It places Nick into a select, morally "higher" group that respects the fish and Nature. This totally integrates Nick with the fish and Nature itself.
Nick then rebaits his hook and, this time, spits on it for good luck, a typical thing for an experienced fisherman to do. This time, and it does not take long, he hooks an enormous trout: When it leaps high out of the water, Nick is overcome because he has never seen such a large trout, but then "tragedy" strikes: The leader line breaks, and the trout escapes.
