Smitty knocked on the only door with a visible light on in the house for what seemed like country miles. It was 4:30 am Central time and an elderly woman appeared in her wrinkled bathrobe. Cautiously, she cracked the door and peered across her front lawn – her husband showed his face moments later and appeared as disoriented. Smitty broke the silence, ‘Ma’m, we hit a cow out front here on Hwy 55, do you know who might own some cattle close by?’ ‘Those folks down the road have a whole mess of cattle, you might check there.’ The hazard lights on my Silverado flashed in the darkness as we accessed the damage and decided to look for the cow’s rightful owner. Five minutes later Smitty approached another home, this time in total darkness – until the motion detected light on the front porch startled him and woke the homeowner simultaneously. ‘I think we may have hit one of your cows down the road,’ I heard Smitty respond to the ‘who is it?’ call from a bedroom window. Another rural Kentucky woman eventually came to the door in her bath robe. A big bull heifer mooed in the darkness, maybe 30 feet from where we stood on the porch. We exchanged phone numbers and insurance information after her husband said he would figure out whether the cow was theirs, their son’s, or their uncle’s – all of which own property in some of the state’s most precious country and run cattle. The last time we saw the busted, black-angus bull heifer it was running South on Hwy 55 – and the old farmer agreed to search for the cow’s whereabouts while we fished. It was agreed we would return to their property after the day’s fishing just to verify exactly who was responsible for the escaped cows. Smitty and I left with the assumption that my insurance company would be in touch with hers. When we returned to the farm that evening, she denied owning the cow and rejected our attempt to probe for more information on the neighbors. Smitty runs cattle on his farm and figures she was covering for someone since farmers all know who their neighbors and who run cattle. I’d always heard not to leave the scene of an accident, but this year santicipated caddis flies are hatching – midges too – on the river. At all costs, we were going fly fishing. Nothing short of a blown motor, or bodily injury was going to keep us off the river. I felt pretty strongly that the cow belonged to the farmer, now our insurance company’s are in the process of determining who is responsible. I accept responsibility at this point just because I hate to accuse someone of lying and it was my fault for leaving, though I’m dreading the increase in my insurance premiums – the estimated damage is $2378. After driving 250 miles in the middle of the night, my judgment was impaired, and the trout become way more important than the cow. We indeed had a fair day of fly fishing, costly, but fair. I did the wrong thing leaving but we caught fish and were able to make it back home by dark – a full day of cows and caddis behind us and lessons learned.