Gone Fishing (youngsters:non fiction, 1561 words)
Author: Lou Hill	Added: Jun 11 2002	Views/Reads: 5824/2728	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Some true fish stories---honest!

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He would thread the minnow on the hook in such a way that the minnow
would spin when trolled on the surface.  The barrel swivel kept the 
line from twisting. 

We watched as he stood on the ledge and cast the minnow way downstream
and then pulled the line, hand over hand, through the guides bringing 
the minnow up stream.  The minnow could be seen, spinning on the 
surface, leaving a small wake. Suddenly, as we watched, the minnow 
vanished.  Curley waited while the trout swallowed the minnow, then set 
the hook.  He battled the huge fish for at least ten minutes Then, like 
a teenager, he jumped down the slippery ledges, stuck his finger in the 
gills and lifted a twenty inch brown trout out of the water. 

Wendall and I looked at each other dumbfounded.  Until that moment
neither of us had seen a trout that big caught much less ever having 
caught one.  We were believers! 

From then on we used "the method" extensively.  We still used worms and
night-crawlers, but in warm weather and low water conditions, minnows 
worked best for us. Wendall was the first to catch a trout over twenty 
inches long, in fact I never managed to break that barrier.  I came 
close though. 

One night in early August I was fishing alone, Wendall was in the Air
Force and I was going to be in my last year of high school that fall.  
I was using "the method."   I trolled a minnow up the brook below the 
big hole.  The minnow left a barely visible white wake in the dusk.  
Suddenly the wake vanished, a fish had swallowed the bait.  I let the 
fish take the minnow for what seemed like a lifetime to be sure that he 
had swallowed it, then set the hook.  The rod bowed under the weight of 
the largest fish I had ever had on a line. Suddenly the line went slack 
and the rod straightened.  The fish was gone!  I reeled in my line 
expecting to find that the large fish had straightened out my hook.  
All that was left was the barrel swivel on the end of the silk line.  
The knot attaching the leader to the swivel had come untied.  Because 
of my carelessness, I had lost my trophy. 

A few weeks later on August 14th, the last day of trout fishing in those
years, I was checking out the branch.  Of course I had my fishing rod 
with me.  I was squatting on a ledge some 10 to 12 feet above the lower 
hole where I had hooked the big trout when I spotted a nice bull-pout 
swimming around.  Scrounging around under some large flat stones I came 
up with several wriggling red worms.  Since they were small I put all 
three of them on my hook and dropped it down in the general area where 
I had last seen the bull-pout.  Suddenly a huge, hook-jawed female 
brown trout came charging out from under a large rock and picked up the 
mass of worms.  I would estimate her to have been at last 24 inches 
long but quite slim.  She lay on the bottom for several minutes with 
the worm-baited hook just barely in her mouth.  I could see the worms 
wiggling.  Fearing that I would pull the hook right out of her mouth if 
I yanked on the line, I begged the big fish to swallow the bait.  My 
arms quivered I was so tense and I was leaning over the ledge so far 
that it is a miracle that I didn't loose my balance and fall in.  Then, 
as if she heard me pleading with her, she spit out the bait, flicked 
her tail and was gone. 

The next year I too went into the Air Force.  Wendall had been sent to
Alaska and spent most of his spare time fishing.  I ended up being sent 
to Korea and spent most of my spare time griping. 

I did luck out when I came home from Korea in the spring of 1956.  If I
remember correctly it was the first year that trout season opened on 
the fourth Saturday in April instead of the first day of May and I got 
home just in time for opening day. Of course I hit my favorite spots in 
the branch right off. It was a bitter cold day and no one, myself 
included, seemed to be having much luck. 

For some reason, just before giving up around noon, I tried a hole that
had never been too productive for me.  This time I hit the jackpot.  In 
five minutes I had a pair of matched Rainbow Trout, each about sixteen 
inches long, weighing roughly three pounds apiece, in my creel.  That's 
what fishing is all about. 

Enosburg Falls, VT June, 1994 


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