ALMOST FISHING -- S-R colleague Jim Kershner couldn't have been more excited if he'd just landed a whopper brown trout.

He came into the office gushing about the salmonfly he found fluttering on the sidewalk on his way to work.

Vaguely reminiscent of the legendary Spokane River emergences that supposedly greased the trolley tracks around the old Natatorium Park,this was the only big trout-teasing bug in sight this morning. But it was enough for hope.

We had a brief scare when the huge hunk of protein disappeared briefly during the pizza break to which the editorial staff was treated at noon. No one would put it past Doug Clark to slip an invertebrate under Rebecca Nappi's pepperoni.

But Jim finally found the adult salmonfly and every fly fisher in the room began fantasizing about rivers, rising trout -- and why the office manager bought so much cheese pizza and so few combo-sausage pies.

Kershner finished his lunch hour by taking the still-kicking bug to Riverfront Park, where he offered his Pteronarcys californica to the trout.

Unfortunately, Spokane River trout apparently have forgotten that a salmonfly is a feast.

Instead of a noble ending as calories for a whopper fish, the salmonfly drifted down the current unnoticed and into the Monroe Street Dam intake.

"It became a kilowatt," Kershner said.