A Fishy Story

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rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 9, 2014 - 02:31am PT
This was originally posted to a thread populated by serious real fisherman and went immediately on life support, so I though I'd liberate it here in the hopes that other piscatorily challenged readers might share their own tales of fishing glory.

I was getting tired of dehydrated dinners on my trips to the Winds, and decided to supplement with fish. A minor detail: I didn't know anything about fishing.

No problem. I went into a sporting goods store in Jackson and bought an inexpensive collapsible spinning rod and the lure the salesman guaranteed me would work, bought a fishing license for a week and off I went on a climbing trip.

First rest day and I'm up early with my shiny new gear. March up to the stream, dump all my stuff on the bank, read the assembly instructions, and voila---I'm ready to kill dem fish.

The Winds weren't as crowded then as they are now, but on that day I became aware of a shadowy presence not far away. He was hunkered down low and seemed to intently watching bugs in the air. Very stealthily; I almost didn't see him at all. While I was fumbling with my gear (it took a while), I heard the whoosh-whoosh-plop of a fly being deposited with pinpoint accuracy by someone who actually knew what they were doing.

Undaunted by the presence of a nearby expert, and standing tall on the bank in my orange parka, I wound up with my new collapsible spinning rod and with all my then-considerable might hurled the lure into the stratosphere. Well, it would be more accurate to say that I tried to hurl the lure into the stratosphere. In fact what happened is that my spastic motions were more than the friction fittings on my dime-store rod could withstand, and the entire thing flew apart, the now liberated sections still held together by the several hundred feet of line I had expertly released with my Herculean cast.

The whole miserable assembly, now spread out over a considerable portion of the stream, roared in for a crash landing with a series of big splashes, followed in short order by an even bigger splash. Having stood at the very edge of the bank and failed to anticipate the forward momentum generated by my Al Oerter casting technique, I and my billowing orange parka had joined the thoroughly disjointed rod in the drink.

The fish, of course, decamped for Jackson Hole, if not Glacier National Park. The entire range would have to be restocked.

The shadowy presence on the bank slunk away too, muttering things I couldn't quite make out, but I thought I detected a negative tone and think it might have had something to do with me.

As my day of fishing appeared to be over, I retreated to my tent for yet another dehydrated meal.
mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Jan 9, 2014 - 03:22am PT
I'll bite. Good tale, Grasshopper. *sheesh*

It's too bad the baitswanmi.com did not exist when your had years ahead of you to enjoy "Piscatory Pleasures," a video I released several years ago, after I caught the images.

Here is what I found on the Information Super River, for your sake and that of anyone in range of your casts.
Stop casting porous-like. this was a famous Berkeley dictum on the Fur-Berkeley bay-front way back in the clock of the day. I doubt it had to do with fishing, though. I think it might mean something else.

Quien sabe, eh?

I'm inviting you to my bro's place in north Merced County for some fishing you will never experience in NY, Rich. Anytime.



mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Jan 9, 2014 - 07:59am PT
News flash.

They are the Valley Christians' SANCTIFIED FORM, STRAIGHT FROM THE TRANSFIGURATION!
steveA

Trad climber
Wolfeboro, NH
Jan 9, 2014 - 08:18am PT
Rgold,

Just what I needed--a morning laugh!

Man, that was funny.
donini

Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
Jan 9, 2014 - 10:31am PT
Funny! The Al Oerter reference might stump some of the younger crowd.
Larry

Trad climber
Bisbee
Jan 9, 2014 - 11:05am PT
In the '70s in Titcomb Basin, there were a couple of fly fishermen nearby. Lawyers from Chicago I think.

We could SEE the fish in the creek. We'd had luck in other parts of the range grabbing them by hand beneath grassy banks.

For some reason, I hefted a large flat stone, and tossed it into the creek. SPLOOSH!

When the dust had cleared, the tail of a golden trout protruded from the stone!

We had a nice dinner while the fly fishemen fumed.
MH2

climber
Jan 9, 2014 - 11:12am PT
That's a good story and a have-to-laugh visual.
this just in

climber
north fork
Jan 9, 2014 - 11:15am PT
That's awesome. One of the best traits is to be able to laugh at yourself and let the rest of us laugh too. Pure (r)gold.
donini

Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
Jan 9, 2014 - 11:20am PT
Yes...consider the cruelity of flyfishing.
First, they entice a fish to bite on a FAKE fly....not even real food.
Next, they play the fish, who is fighting for it's life, until, exhausted, it is pulled onto shore...as alien an environment as Mars would be for us.
Finally, they don't even honor the fish by eating it. No, they throw it back in so that they can repeat the same cruel process.

No wonder so many politicians, bankers, lawyers and hedge fund managers flyfish.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 9, 2014 - 11:25am PT
rgold, most excellent and I honor your forthrightness and humility in the
service of good story telling. But, an orange parka?

I've always counted on getting piscine calories and protein in the Winds
and have never been disappointed. Uncle Fred always claimed he didn't need
no damn gear - just grope around under the cutbanks with yer bare hand and
haul 'em out! That seemed so undignified, if not underhanded, so I always
took the high road.
L

climber
California dreamin' on the farside of the world..
Jan 9, 2014 - 11:43am PT
That was worth a good chuckle, Richie...especially you in an orange parka.
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - Jan 9, 2014 - 11:54am PT
L, orange is one of the many sartorially inappropriate plumage variations I've had over the years. Can't say I've done all of roygbiv, but the manufacturers bear some responsibility for failing to provide appropriate hues.

As it happens, my current rain parka is a delightful international orange, affording me part-time work as a traffic cone if the financial need were to arise.
L

climber
California dreamin' on the farside of the world..
Jan 9, 2014 - 12:02pm PT
LOL! It'll also keep you safe from those Mighty Hunters populating our woods during the season...important to remember around the Gunks.
mike m

Trad climber
black hills
Jan 9, 2014 - 12:43pm PT
In the winds sometimes they bite when they see you and you have the wrong fly. Had them tear apart my fly until there was nothing left but a bare hook and a small bit of fuzz and they were still biting. Guess I had the right fly.
Mark Rodell

Trad climber
Bangkok
Jan 15, 2014 - 11:11pm PT
Here is a short story I wrote a couple of years ago. It's got a fish in it.

The Rising River by Mark Rodell

The scar, well, life was good. I had bought three cabins next to a fishing river and the resort we had started was going fine—booked through the summer. It was mid-July and the sun was getting low but it was still hot enough for us to all be in shorts, flip-flops and loose shirts, if shirts at all.
My wife and I had been married for a couple of years, long enough to feel comfortable with each other but not so long for our ways to rub rough. She was a strong woman, physically and in character. That evening she had her guitar out and her strong tan arms were wrapped around it and she was singing at the worn picnic table we’d set out in front of the cabin where we were living. Our guests, five fishermen, were sitting around, drinking beer from cans. The barbeque was near ready for the trout they’d caught and laughter was backing up my wife’s silly songs of love gone bad.
She sang, “Cook your own supper sucker; I’ve run away with the Fuller brush man.”
Like I said life was good and this was just another carefree evening that was going to blend into a fine night where we’d tell jokes, get drunk and stagger into bed with full stomachs, weak from beer, pleasantly exhausted from telling stories.
Then came this kid, walking down our small road. I recognized him as the minister’s son. This kid played his guitar on the streets in town but he sang religious sons of how Jesus would save us all if we’d only let him. He sang of the glory of God but nobody stood round to listen. He was, basically, ignored, tolerated as an odd but harmless teen who would later come around to normal. I have no idea what his name was.
As he walked past our cabins, he paused, looked up at our group. He was in a white shirt and black slacks and his hair was slicked down with some oil that shone in the dying light of the day.
“Mind if I come up?” he asked.
One of the fishermen said, “Sure, join the party.”
And so he strolled up and then I saw he had a bible in hand and I began to fret.
My wife looked him over and then broke into another song—a blues number with lyrics that were boldly filled with sex. She looked right at the kid as she sang, tossing her long black hair when she came to the refrain about grinding down the mattress.
The kid blushed and the fishermen laughed at the words of the song and at the boy whose hands seemed nailed down to the wooden edge of the picnic table. I poured down the rest of my can, half a can in a long draw. I knew my wife and knew she was just beginning. I got up, went to the ice chest and grabbed another can from the sea of cubes.
The song was over and my wife was grinning at the boy. She asked if he liked the song and when he said no, she smiled and asked why.
“God wouldn’t approve. We should sing to glorify Him and his love.”
“You didn’t hear love in my song?” my wife asked.
“No. I heard fornication.”
I said, “Why don’t you go.” But my wife had no intention of letting this kid off.
She said, “You think you know God? You do not know anything, nothing about love, nothing about women, nothing. You don’t know people laugh at you. They know you are a joke and I say you are a sick, a sick little boy who wets his bed, sleeps with his mother and plays with himself at night. You do play with yourself, don’t you?”
The kid did not move. The guests were all quiet now. All the laughing was gone. One of the fishermen got up and went into his cabin. Others were looking down at dirt.
Slowly the kid’s eyes began to water. But still he didn’t move.
I got up, put down my beer and went to him. I put my hand on his shoulder and said to him quietly, “Just go. You better just go because she isn’t going to stop.”
He did and we saw him slowly disappear around the bend of the road that led into a dense grove of pine.
One of the fishermen said he was getting tired of trout, wondered if anyone else wanted to drive into town and get steak and they all did, saying my wife and I could have their day’s catch and said sorry if the coals in the barbeque were going to be wasted. Then they got into one guy’s car and drove off.
My wife went too, into our cabin to put away her guitar but she didn’t return. I drank hard that night, watched the coals grow cold, wondering if my wife’s voice would ever sound beautiful again, wondering if I would ever be able to walk across devil hot coals.
The next morning, a Sunday, I was free, didn’t have to work at the lumberyard so I went to see if the fishermen wanted me to guide them. After eight years of living in the area I pretty much knew where the good fishing holes were, where the German Browns waited for water nymphs to drift by in the cold currents of the McCloud. I knew the eddies of the Rising River, two hours away to the east.
One of the fishermen was a judge and he was outside his door drinking a coffee. He’d already been out, tried his luck that morning.
“How was it?” I asked.
“Skunked again,” he said. “Not a bite. I think this place might be fished out.”
“Oh, a person can land a few here on good days, but still, you’re right. This place has seen its best days,” I said.
I pitched him my services and he went in and asked the others and soon we were all getting into my beat up Jeep, heading off to the Rising River, where the rich have ranches the size of some towns.
My wife was along too. She wasn’t much into fishing but she wasn’t going to stand for missing a chance of fun. She had wanted to drive, even had climbed into the driver’s seat but changed her mind when she saw I had our camera slung around my neck.
“Last time you took the shots,” she said, “they all came out blurred. I’ll do it.” And the she grabbed the camera away.
I didn’t want a fuss so I let it go, leaving her to capture what she could of that day.
The Rising River is a catch and release sanctuary. This means anything you hook has to be let free. Fishermen also have to use barbless hooks, hooks that don’t tear up the mouths of the trout that school heavy in its waters. These hooks present a particular challenge. I mean, the fish can slip off easy if the line is not kept taut, but keep the line too tight, well then, the leader will snap and the barbless fly will be lost along with the glory of reeling in a monster.
We’d been there about an hour. The sun had crested above the distant pines and we were working the last hour of good fishing next to the grassy banks. The smell of yarrow was thick and the yellow pollen of wild daisies floated on a warm breeze. The clients were all spread along the river for about a quarter of a mile. They stood mid-current in their hip waders, hats on, with hand-tied flies stuck in the sheepskin patches attached to these hats, signature items, marking them as sportsmen.
I was casting at times but mostly I walked along the bank to aid the men with suggestions of where to cast and what fly to employ. I found the judge far downstream and my wife was there too, snapping pics of the casting judge.
“I’ve hooked a few but they all slide off. Can’t seem to keep the tension right,” he said.
“You’ll get it,” I said. “Maybe not today, but you’ll get it.”
I set down my rod in the thick green grass that had begun to curl down upon itself from its own weight. I waded out to the judge to show him how he could better use his free hand to take in or let out line. As I was showing him how I did it, I noticed my wife near my tackle. Then she was cutting off my leader, the filament that connects the floating fishing line to the fly.
I knew her, knew her well, well enough to know she was going to tie on a barbed hook. She wanted to snag admiration and show she could reel in a fighter.
“Where you going with my rod?” I shouted.
“Off,” she replied.
“I’ll be back,” I said to the judge and I waded slowly to shore as not to drive off the trout.
She was cutting across the meadow, a short cut that would lead upstream of all the men. I caught up with her.
“Hey,” I said, “You could have brought your own gear.”
“Well, I didn’t. So?”
“So you can’t have my rod.”
“You aren’t using it.”
“I am and you can’t use barbs anyway. It isn’t right, not here, not now at least.”
“I’m going to release, put back what I take, returned, good as new,” she said.
“No, you’ll tear them up. That’s not good as new.”
“You’re soft.”
“You’re a bitch,” I said and turned to return to the judge.
The trip was over in my mind. It was getting too late to fish. I was tired from the night before and if the game warden came and saw what she was using there’d be a fine. I was about thirty feet away from her when the pain sank in deep. My right cheek was on fire and my head snapped round. My hand flew up to smash whatever was stinging. I just drove in the hook deeper. She had, in anger, cast out at me, and had sent that hook right at me.
We were staring right at each other with the red/orange line tight between us.
“This about the right amount of tension?” she said.
“ You try, try and reel it in,” I said. My hand was still pressed up hard against my cheek, fingers covering up most of that eye too.
She yanked up my rod hard and I stood it, stood there and the pain just started to feel like a real hot day. She whipped up that rod once more and it gave; the leader snapped and I saw her stagger back a step. Then everything went slack, the line between us lying in the grass like a dead snake. I walked up to her and retrieved my rod.
The judge dug out the hook with his Swiss Army knife and he poured Jack Daniels on the wound and when some got in my eye I howled like a gutted dog.
We explained it as an accident, to the clients, to the doctor who later sewed me up and maybe even to ourselves. It was reasonable, things happen. What I do remember clearly, and what has not faded a tad, was how it felt to stand there and not to give and how she got in the passenger side and how I was at the wheel leaving the Rising River. Oh yeah, and when I tuned in a gospel station, soaring singing voices, nobody said a thing about it.

the albatross

Gym climber
Flagstaff
Jan 15, 2014 - 11:36pm PT
Spent 31 nights in the Winds in June 93 on a NOLS Instructor Course. This guy Steve must have caught a hundred trout with his pole and another dozen with his bare hands ("tickling"). What an amazing place, fish and earth. Food for the belly and rock for the muscles.
Long live wild places. And fish.
aspendougy

Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
Jan 15, 2014 - 11:42pm PT
One time, I hiked into the Walker River area near Sonora Pass and lived mostly off of freshly caught trout, and it is nice, until you start to get tired of eating fish.

If you can get a copy, YOSEMITE AND KINGS CANYON, TROUT is a great read. Charles MacDermand, the author, did backpacking trips in the 1930's and 40's in the Sierras when it was basically untrammeled. You get a real feel for what it was like to explore the High Sierra lakes and streams back then.
Mark Rodell

Trad climber
Bangkok
Jan 17, 2014 - 09:16pm PT
I looked up Internatioal orange. Did not know there are three shades of it and that outdoor gear seems to follow the aerospace hue. Always though the down parkas that showed grease best were orange. Orange haunts me...high school colors, The Giants, my university colors (The Orangemen), my family is Orange Irish.
MisterE

climber
Jan 17, 2014 - 09:27pm PT
Great story, rgold.

Mine is is short and painful.

My friend Ted and I were working a fish-tender in Alaska for a few seasons on a lease-deal - it was my step-dad's boat.

We would run it up the inside passage from LaConner WA to Ketchikan AK and back. As a buyer, you have lots of down-time waiting for deliveries from the fisherman, and we loved fishing. The second season we got smart and invested in a vaccuum-packer and a chest freezer.

That summer we packed that freezer with rock cod, halibut, black cod, and several varieties of salmon. We got back to LaConner in the fall, psyched for 2 things: a mountain-biking trip to Moab and sharing our catch with friends over the winter. We hooked up shore-power to the precious freezer, and left for 10 days to Moab.

The next day, my step-father, unaware of our precious cargo, shut down the power for the dock. Rancid fish on our return was a bad news day.
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 14, 2014 - 09:56pm PT
Ha! Found another of my off-topic posts to bump up and clutter the main page for a few nanoseconds.
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