The next trip I was wading up to a rising fish. My younger son, Matt, was wading wet right behind me. We had a system. I would cast and set the hook and hand him my rod. He was pass me his, and I would try to hook one before he could land the first fish. It was the only way I could get to fight a fish myself. Matt was screened behind me when I spotted something red on the surface floating down the drift line exactly into my body. I turned around and asked, "Matt, do you want a Coke"? Again the puzzled look. "What do you mean?" "Do you want a Coke!?" "Right now?" "Yes." He shrugged. "Well, sure, but..." "Then have a coke." I stepped inside the drift line and the coke floated right into Matt's hand. His eyes widened, and he giggled. He didn't stop talking about it for the rest of the day. The next day I had stopped to fish an unusual place where a small, hidden side channel emerges into a little grotto before joining the main river. If you didn't know it was there you wouldn't see it. If you saw it you wouldn't think that fish held in it. I had seen it long before, and I knew. But this time the lower water level of August nearly drained the channel. Nothing was in the usual holding lie. There was only one other possibility, a really tiny spot at the head of the pool where the 5 inch wide flow dodged left and right around two large rocks. The cast had to be right on the money. As I was false casting, I saw something yellow sweep into the tiny pool from above, disappear from sight, sweep around the second rock, and clunk out, bobbing, right to me. A well battered Miller High Life. "Well, that does that!", I said to my watching sons, who refused to believe that a fish would hold in such a place. "This damn beer just swept right through that pocket. There couldn't be enough room for both a fish and this beer in there at one time!" My kids hooted at me, I actually think there was a bet on it. So I cast anyway, luckily got the second one just right, the fly disappeared behind the rock as the beer had, and when I lifted a second later to avoid snagging in the rock, I was tight to another standard, run-of-the mill 15" Redside. What I really wanted to know was just why the can didn't drive him out? Was it that common?
		<= Back
									More Text =>
						Fishtales Start
			Table of Contents					Order/Contact