Ok, you do your part and I’ll do mine! Here’s how I saved the day and a world record trout survived my fly fishing misdemeanor!….
I was on the Lower Stanislaus and it was raining really hard and I had suffered a large gash on my left thigh while slipping off a wet boulder. (pure embellishment to make this story appear more interesting than it is) Well, after successfully gliding myself down the epic canyon face and with securing the tourniquet to my wound I was able to make a brief roll cast to the outer piece of white water I believed a massive trout to be holding.
With the twitch of my caddis upon the rolling foam this beauty of a Rainbow slashed the surface water fly in lip and sent me reeling after I watched her soar another two feet into the sky! I set the hook while falling backwards and landed my buttocks against a tree trunk with a loud thud.
As I managed to keep my hands on my rod with the tip now parallel with the river she spun quickly upstream and pulled many yards of line out. The blood on my thigh spurt out underneath the crimson rag and the throbbing was only momentarily a nuisance as the pounding in my heart rose with every play of my line!(more embellishment) I kept the drag just tight enough as not go far into the backing and whenever I had the opportunity I pulled some line ashore.
After several long stretches of time which seemed like an eternity and frequent blasts into the air followed by splashes of water against my bloodied stump I eventually wore her down and pulled her into my net.
When it came to to release her she leapt straight up into the air some 6 feet and splashed down into a deep hole surrounded by rocks that trapped her body in an aquatic cocoon. I felt she was going to die if I didn’t do something drastic so I stripped naked and plunged my whole body into the icy river to free her from her watery prison.
In the end it was was not only the right thing to do, but the freezing cold river water clogged my gash in my thigh which kept me from bleeding to death. I now I stand here to tell of this heroic story! So please while you are hugging trees this Earth Day, don’t forget to hug a fish as well! Tight lines! PM
