When you spend a lot of the time on the stream pursuing trout, strange things are going to happen. I have written in the past of almost being shot, being stalked by deer and realizing I left my boots at home after a two hour drive. While crazy things can happen on any given fishing expedition, many more days go according to plan. All the gear gets packed, fish are caught, memories are made and pictures get taken. This past Wednesday was not one of those “according to plan” days.
Average Joe Fisherman Scott arrived at my house right on time in his new truck. After quickly admiring his truck on my part, we were on our way. Hurtling north on I-75 at almost eighty miles an hour, we arrived a small trout stream in a little more than an hour and a half. Hopping out of the truck, I quickly started to suit up. The trout were calling me! Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Scott’s melon of a head sink as he rifled through the container that holds his fishing gear. Turns out Scott forgot his waders. After the last trip he hung them up to dry and was planning to give them a good cleaning and, in his hurry to head north, forgot to pack them.
Being the friend I am, or try to be, I offered to pack up and head home. “No way,” Scott said. “One way or another, I’m fishing!” After exhausting every possibility, the decision was made that he would wet wade. Now, wet wading is not normally a big deal. Wet wading Average Joe Fisherman style however, is. The only clothes Scott had was the pair of blue jeans he was wearing. After rolling them up as far as he could, we started to walk across a bridge and down to the stream. What a sight he was… fishing boots and what looked like women’s Capri pants.
Pausing on top of the bridge, Scott noticed a flash in the rifle directly below. Casting his spinner some twelve feet down to the run and bringing it slowly into position, a brook trout grab hold. Reeling the fish up out of the river, he brought it to hand. “Now that’s impressive,” I said. “But watch out for the release, it’s a long way down!”
After Scott got over the shock of how cold the water was, we started to fish. It didn’t take long until I was holding my first brook trout of the evening. While brook trout generally run smaller than rainbow and brown trout, I believe them to be the prettiest trout. Over the next few hours, both Scott and I caught several of them between us. In addition to the brookies, Scott was able to entice a few small brown trout with his offering.
As the evening started to wind down we approached a sharp bend in the stream. The bend was completely shrouded by large thick pine trees. Trees littered the far bank with many of them lying in the deep water and piled up at the end of the bend. “That is a brown trout bomb shelter if I have ever seen one!” I said to Scott. I stepped up onto the right bank to walk around a down pine tree that was half in the water and half out. Once I had a clear casting lane, I let my spinner fly. With Scott looking over my left shoulder we witnessed a large brown come from the depths to inspect my spinner with his teeth. I quickly set the hook. The trout shook his head once and came unbuttoned. “Ugh!” Scott, rubbing it in, almost mockingly, said, “Nice fish!” Stepping to the side, I said, “Finish the hole.” Scott stepped into the stream on what looked like sand and promptly sunk to his knee in muck. Scott, screaming like a little girl, said, “That’s nasty!” Laughing, I helped pull him out. After removing his boot and inspecting for leeches, we continued on.
About thirty minutes before calling it a day, Scott, as he had done many times earlier, grabbed a handful of jeans to pull them up. This time however, the material on his right leg gave away with a loud tearing sound. For some reason he did not find this as funny as I did. By the time we stepped out of the little stream, Scott had a huge hole in his jeans over his right thigh and two more of over both pockets in the back, exposing his underwear to everyone who chose to look in that direction. While he did not find much humor in how he looked, I laughed all the way back to the truck. I suggested to Scott that he stick his right leg through the large hole in the front of his jeans so it would not itch on the ride home from the wet pant leg rubbing. He thought that seemed like a good idea until the lady at McDonalds went to hand him our food. Scott, looking like he was wearing a pair of Daisy Duke cutoffs on one leg and women’s Capri pants on the other, fruitlessly tried to cover his bare leg sparing the drive-thru lady from having to see him that way. I asked him, as she approached the truck, what he was doing? “Hiding my stanky leg!” came the response. I laughed the rest of the way home. Just another Average Joe Fisherman fishing trip!
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