Big fish stories aren’t exactly rare among fly fishermen, and one tournament fishing friend summed up the fishermen’s approach to lost fish pretty nicely when he joked that “I lose very few small fish.”
Still, when the pictures arrived in Ian Rutter’s email, I immediately knew the truth. The Ugly Truth.
The one that got away, but came back to kick my ass a second time.
One of my largest big fish stories was about to come back and haunt me, and that even as it lay dying of old age, the giant trout surfaced one last time (belly up), and flipped me the metaphorical middle fin.
Sometimes, big fish suck.
The Backstory
Several years ago, I flew to East Tennessee for a weeklong “fly fishing, and nothing but” trip – normally cause for much rejoicing. Sadly, I was ill – the kind of “ill” that would normally put your on your ass for a couple days.
I’d love to cast the trip in heroic terms – our lone, chiseled hero battling millions of evil viruses intent on bodily domination – but the truth is less gratifying.
For starters, I lost the battle. Before I even got on the plane.
Once in Tennessee, I coughed continuously, metronome like (every five seconds). Sleep eluded me entirely the first few nights, and life got progressively more surreal, and after the first couple days of fishing, I clearly (in retrospect) lacked the ability to drive (if the alarm on fishing buddy Rich Margiotta’s face was any indication).
Still, you don’t miss a float trip with Rich Margiotta and Ian Rutter, even if you’re barely able to spell your own name.
And thus the stage was set.
With the Clinch’s blanket Sulphur hatches years behind us, I ended up throwing a big streamer, looking for one of the Clinch’s monstrous brown trout.
Early in the day, I’d found one, but in classic Chandler fashion, was too dense to recognize it. In fact, just after a “normal” sized rainbow trout turned away from his pursuit of my streamer, a much, much bigger brown trout rolled right in behind it – and stuck his nose on the tail of the streamer.
If you haven’t seen it in person, you have no idea how electrifying an event it can be. Unfortunately, I didn’t see it in person – I was captivated by the small rainbow swimming away.
Meanwhile, Ian’s in the middle seat making strangled noises, and I’m standing dumbly in the front, wondering what all the fuss is about.
“Strip!” he yelled, and I said “Why?” and pointed at the little rainbow. “He’s nowhere near the streamer.”
As Ian turned red and the veins started popping out, I kinda wondered if he didn’t need to calm down. You know, relax a little.
Then I saw the brown trout. And – successfully I might add – didn’t soil myself.
Naturally, that brown trout didn’t eat the streamer, and just as naturally, this isn’t the big fish story. This what we literary types call foreshadowing.
The big fish story came later. Much later. About the time I was approaching an unconscious state.
The Real Big Fish Story
We all saw the gout of water that shot up near some flooded timber. I thought a beaver had flipped out, but Ian knew it was a big brown trout, and because he threatened to throw me in if I didn’t act quickly, I somehow got a cast off in the general direction.
The trout charged the streamer, but because I’d lost my sunglasses just before the Tennessee trip, I didn’t see it.
The trout actually ate the streamer, but I didn’t see that either (see above).
The line went a little spongy in my hand, but by that point in the day, I’d pretty much lost the will to live, and simply kept stripping away (and coughing).
The then trout un-ate the streamer and turned broadside to the boat (I didn’t see that, but Ian sure as hell did), and both Ian and Rich stopped breathing.
That was my big fish.
Ian described him as a “zero to hero in thirty seconds” trout, leaving me to ponder how he really felt about my numerical status in life (zero?).
Naturally – whacked from zero sleep and too much cough syrup – I didn’t care all that much, figuring the fish was only seventeen inches long.
Now – a couple years later and 80 yards away from My Brush With Big Fish Greatness – this floated to the surface:
That's Ian with 34" of big, dead-of-old-age brown trout.
He was dying (presumably of old age), and yes, Ian measured him and he was 34 inches long.
That’s almost three feet of big dead fish regret.
Of course, I have no way of knowing if that was my big trout – it’s not as if it was wearing my wristwatch or anything.
Still, Ian – who’d actually seen the thing the first time – gave me better-than-even odds, and I realized that some people can be downright mean without even realizing it, though it’s possible he thought he was doing me a favor (the seven stages of grief apply to losing really big trout too).
Perhaps some people find closure useful.
Still, I don’t blame Ian completely for my lost fish (a really caring fishing buddy would have beat the thing to death with an oar while I was busy not setting the hook), and yes, I’m still grasping for a moral.
Maybe it’s that fly fishermen produce big fish stories the way Paris Hilton produces photographic moments, but hell, we didn’t need a big, dead brown trout to know that.
Maybe it’s this: It’s possible that the bigger the fish in the story, the greater the chance the story’s actually true.
Either that, or my original thought holds: Big fish suck.
See you (crying) on the river, Tom Chandler.
Wayne was oddly focused on catching a big trout on a mouse pattern, and he worked it to death in an attempt to prove… well, I can’t imagine what.
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