Fred and I went trout fishing the other day, the first time in over thirty years for me. It was a two hour drive to get in the general area of where we were to fish. Another thirty minutes and three turnarounds and we were at Fred’s fishing hole.” Just a short 100 yard walk and we will be fishing” Fred tells me! The first 100 yards was along a field, the next fifty yards were on a pretty clear path through the woods. We came to a path to the left, but Fred said to keep going straight. The trail wasn’t so clear for the next fifty yards. We came to another trail off to the left, but again Fred says to stay on the trail we were on. I questioned Fred’s navigation skills at this point because no one had been on this part of the trail in over a week and I told him so.  But never being here myself I went on and hacked a trail for the next fifty yards, finally coming to a clearing.  never went in the clearing, I stood in the trail, just looking into the clearing. Fred comes up behind me and tells me that we have gone to far…so we turn around finally getting to his fishing hole!

Despite losing a pint of blood to the briars, mosquitoes and stinging gnats, the fishing was fun. Fred caught the limit (5) and I caught three, not bad at all I think. We got back to the truck, I put the fish in the cooler. my rod-n-reel in the back of the truck and I climbed in the cab and turned on the AC. Fred spent another two minutes at the back of the truck sorting his gear out. I will say that Fred is meticulous about his fishing gear. Well he finally got in the truck and off we went, back down the mountain headed home. I backed up to the shed at Fred’s house, so we could clean the trout, about 10:30 that night. I got to the back of the truck to find the tailgate down, no cooler….hence no fish.  The next day my wife told some of her co-workers that I had gone trout fishing. One of them said they bet that the trout tasted good. All my wife could say was ”you would think so”.