As we walked the dirt road in the rain, felt soles beneath wading boots hushed our steps. We remarked about all the worms lying about on the road, joking about all the flies fly fisherman tried to force feed to trout. Someone said it and we all laughed. “Trout like worms. They like worms you know.” I laughed and we carried on comically about it, but I was thinking of something else in my mind.
Out of the back seat I grabbed my gear. A fly rod tube, a fly box, a dry bag with a change of clothes and my lunch. I walked to the passenger side of the truck. I got in the front seat and looked over to see Mike holding out a pillow case. “Put this over your head.” It was at that moment that I realized there were two scenarios that could play out from this point. One, Mike was a fisherman serial killer who used the hopes and dreams of huge trout to lure his prey to their deaths. Or two, this was the first time I’d ever had someone tell me they had a secret spot with huge trout in it that was actually true.
At first glance it looked fishy, really fishy. But once you were in it you realized that there wasn’t much trout holding water. The bottom was a smooth green shale, sometimes the only structure were the random cracks forming miniature canyons in the creek bottom hardly big enough to wedge a wader boot in. There were only a couple spots were there was enough gravel and bottom structure to hold and produce food for a trout in the ravine, but I still wade it and make occasional casts every time anyhow. It’s too beautiful not to.
I met JC in a motel parking lot where we hooked up his trailer and inflated the floor of his raft by the red glow of his taillights. Normally something all lit up in a red glow looks warm, but not that morning. I have an idea what hell looks like frozen over. It looks like a white raft covered in snow in the red glow of a ford’s tail lights.
Now I know I’m a fisherman. I’m very aware that the word of a fisherman is to be taken lightly, or to be taken with a grain of salt, or to be completely disregarded in some instances, say, when hands are held out and the statement “It was this big” is uttered. But...
I thought the worse thing about a divorce was the divorce. Now I’m thinking the worse thing about being divorced is not having anyone to tell me no.
He’d told me once the history he knew of the lake, and when you have no other proof but the story coming from your grandfather, you have no reason to question it. You take it as fact, ignoring the fact that all fishermen lie, tell tales, or in the least exaggerate. I never knew him to do any of these things, so I hold what I remember him telling me of this place as fact for no other reason than all grandfathers know everything when it comes to fish and lakes.
The way I see it, if you’re catching small fish, it’s better than missing a couple big fish and not catching anything at all. So at least starting with small fish is a good place to begin. I’ve always thought that you need to catch your first fish before you can catch the rest. It sounds blatantly obvious, I know. But in my head, I always tell myself after the first fish that now it’s got fish stink on it. Now, it’ll work.
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