Rickr's Story Of The Week

[reevesr1]

So to date, most of my stories have been from my youth, or my family's youth down in Texas. This story is all Alberta.....

 

 

My eyes popped open at 5 am this morning. My first thought was "ok, so am I hung over?" after drinking 3 bottles of wine with my wife. Thankfully, I seemed ok. There was some gentle snoring from my wife (she drank a lot of wine too!), but that wasn't enough to wake me up,or keep me up . So I tried to go back to sleep. But it seems as I've aged, once I'm up, I'm up. 5 Freakin' AM. Getting old sucks. I fought the obvious for about 15 minutes, but at 5:15 decided I was up for the duration, so might as well make the most of it. Said to the wife "Honey, I'm going to hit the river. I'll be back in time for Church." Her reply was HHHRRMMPHHHH. Now almost 20 yrs of married experience has taught me that HHHRRMMPHHHH could mean:

A. HHHRRMMPHHHH

B. Ok, honey have fun. I'll see you in a couple of hours. Can you bring me a coffee when you come back?

or

C. I am sick and tired of your fishing. Get your @## outside and do some $#$^& yardwork.

 

I picked B.

 

Dressed and went downstairs. Spent 15 minutes looking for my wallet, keys, phone, jacket, and camera. The ole memory ain't what it used to be. Slid out of the house at 5:30 or so and went to McDs to pickup my Sausage and Egg McMuffin and a large coffee. Yum. The simple pleasures. I am a creature of habit and that is my morning breakfast. Me and all the other older guys I see there in the morning.

 

Start my way toward the river. I briefly considered calling Troutlover, but that voice of experience told me that waking up his lovely young wife (and mother of young uns) to ask Jared if he wanted to go fishing quite possibly wasn't in my best interest. I knew what her HHHRRMMPHHHH would mean! So sorry Jared. But I'd rather have you mad at me than your wife!

 

Hit the parking lot at about 6 or so. Put on the gear and made my way, slowly, down the hill. Saw a couple of deer on a ridge. I would say I admired them, and the geese flying overhead, but mostly I was bitching internally about my stiff back, the stupid rock inside my stupid waders, and the fact that I wished I had gone to the bathroom before I left. This is starting wonderfully.

 

Get to the water. Look at the run and briefly consider working out halfway to the main seam so I can work the quiet water inside and the faster water outside. I decide that I just don't want to spend the effort necessary to wade in moderately fast waist deep water and put in the casting and mending effort to fish the faster water when I can be lazy and walk the bank and fish the slower inside water. I would like to say that was totally a fishing decision, but in actuality it was a too damn lazy and old to work hard decision.

 

Made the first cast into almost motionless water and 5 seconds later, fish on. And a big fish. But strangely no head shakes. Or runs. Just dogs it. Big brown? No, 4 lb sucker. Oh well, at least its a fish. And a old one at that. Nice start, I guess.

 

I won't bore you with the next hour or so, but fishing was pretty good. Nice rainbows making flash, jumpy runs. A couple of young (I think) energetic fish had run me well into the river. I wanted to follow and tried, but kept slipping on rocks and didn't want to fall. Lost them both. But a pattern was developing. The smaller, more energetic fish were out closer to the main seam. The bigger, older, (and in my mind smarter, lazier, grumpier and therefore able to defend their territory) were in the slower inside water.

 

After an hour, I hit the first really nice fish in very slow water. Big male rainbow that jumped right in front of me. Unlike his smaller kin, he did not run out into the middle of the river. I like to think he thought about it but decided it was too much effort. So he stayed in the slow stuff and jumped, ran across the surface, and mostly made a splashy spectacle of himself. After 5 min or so, I slide the net under 24" or so(and by or so I mean maybe bigger) of gorgeous male rainbow. Sweet, my biggest Bow rainbow! Funny, I'm not feeling quite as old now.

 

Half an hour or so later, I slip and almost fall making a cast. My coordination is shot and getting worse every day. The cast falls about 2 ft. inside of the swirl I was aiming at. But the sloppy cast had a bit of slack built in and drifted nicely so I let it go. The indicator twitches, I set the hook and the biggest trout I have ever seen in my life blows out of the water and starts working upstream. I realize with horror that my line is caught in the buckle of my vest. I fumble with getting it off, and then in a move belying my age, quickly flip the line before it goes behind my reel seat as the beast makes its first run. On the reel now, it spins, jumps again (I let out a war whoop here) and takes off downstream with really bad ass head shakes. Like its big old friend before, it never goes into the fast water. But its looking like a long battle. But like lots of old things, I think its lost some coordination and really gets itself badly wrapped up in my line. So after a shorter fight than I expected, I'm trying to tail (I broke the lanyard of my net earlier when I clumsily stepped on it) in 26 to 27" (measured quickly against my rod) of an unbelievably fat and pissed off old brown. The fish was so fat I couldn't grab it anywhere else. I quickly took a picture, held it up for the guy across the river and let it go back to its home. Slowly and grumpily I bet.

 

I fished for another 1/2 hour or so. It was good. I didn't feel old anymore and actually looked forward to the brisk walk up the hill. Good for the back.

 

When I was at Church with my wife and 3 kids it struck me how blessed I am in my life, my family, and how lucky I am to love the place I live in. I also said a quick prayer of thanks in being allowed the honor of meeting 3 other older souls today (I have to count the sucker. He was big and old too!) and in having experienced enough in life to be able to appreciate it. Getting old ain't so bad!

[Guest bigbadbrent]

so wheres the pic!?

[reevesr1]

so wheres the pic!?

Writing the report now. Didn't think the pics belonged in the story.

[Tako]

Lookin forward to it

[cheeler]

Great story! Sure beats mine about me trying to look cool for all the lady joggers in FCP while sloshing my way back to my car because I forgot to repair the hole in my waders I made last week.

[beedhead]

Good story....Getin older cant be that bad if you can drink three bottles of wine, get up early ... not be hung over... and get into some huge fish... ...Nice to hear you got into some nice fish.

 

Cheers...Jeff..

[Hawgstoppah]

My wife's HRRRMMPPPHHHH is worse than yours.

 

Nice story, can't wait to see the pics from the old folks home you found there..

[reevesr1]

My wife's HRRRMMPPPHHHH is worse than yours.

 

Nice story, can't wait to see the pics from the old folks home you found there..

 

Not sure about that Hawg! Maybe my interpretation skills aren't as good...

[ÜberFly]

Rick,

 

Don't forget that with age comes wisdom!!!

 

Thanks for sharing!! God bless ya (hope you said a prayer or two for us heathens that used to go to church and now just [selfishly] pray for a good days fishin!)!

 

Cheers!

 

Peter

[murray]

Rick, that was a great story, you have a real story tellers knack. Today I decided to forgo fishing in favour of raking the lawn. Now I not only feel every one years, I ache too. I think I made the wrong decision. If you're ever up at 5:30 and want to hit the river on a Friday, give me a shout.

 

Murray

[Crowsnest]

Good story Rick,

 

and yes, you are blessed, and in fact, so are we all.

 

Thank the lord.

[SteveM]

Yet another in the series of great stories from our favorite Texican...

An awesome story, well told. Hope tomorrow yields a great story as well.

Pat McManus must be starting to get nervous; these stories should be published, my friend!

Later,

Steve