Ya just never know, in Hunting Stories

So he wants me to show him how to catch a nice big old fat trout. He wants a wall hanger. The kind of trout that will never go in the oven, but instead be forever immortalized on his trophy wall. He made no bones about not being a purist, so I told him to stop at the outdoor store of his choosing and choose some over priced, over insulted chest waders. I mentioned he better purchase the best wool socks he could afford. Spring steel heading is always cold from yer feet to your head.

We met at the river. First I took his money. Then I rigged a rod in front of him and had him try it. We waddled down to the river bank slippin and sliding in some recently thawed red clay. The river was a roaring but he said he was game to try it.

I picked a piece of very safe water and Within minutes he was sweep casting for his first steelhead with nothing more than a orange glow spawn fly. I think the fourth cast he snagged up the river bottom, ripped and lost the leader, fly, lead and tippet. I gave him my rod and re rigged his. In an hour, I hooked two fish, landed one. During the same amount of time he went from warm to permafrosted and mad. I was so glad he already paid me because I retied his rig at least eight times.

We headed up the bank to thaw him out. During a cup of coffee he wanted to know of any other way of catching a trout. The little bright yarn fly wasn't his cup of tea. I said, look at everybody in this ditch full of fish, this works, just give it some time. He wanted something else, something different. Remember, “I paid you” he said.

I opened my cooler and grabbed a tub of night crawlers. Then I changed his yarn fly out and tipped his line with a number six egg hook topped off with a fat juicy crawler. We went back down to the river. I told him to plop that big old bait at the head of the deep pool and where it settles out just leave it. It may take awhile, but with all the fish in the river, one is bound to grab that free meal.

He sat there for an hour, watched eight other guys with spawn bags and yarn each hook and land a trout and then said he was gonna go try some other holes on the river. I kept an eye on him and when he got more than fifty feet away downstream, I just wandered after him.

He took that crawler, plopped it here, dropped it there, in the most willy nilly fashion I’ve ever seen and finally dropped it in no less than eight inches of water between two rocks that wouldn't allow a minnow to get through when the steelie hit it. He played that fish as it shot up stream and was netted, and not by me, but one of the other guys fishing. You coulda knocked me over with a feather. The trout whisperer

“I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it.” W. C. Fields