What is life if there is not laughter?
Welcome to the lighter side of flyfishing! We welcome your stories here!
October 28th, 2002
Beaver Shuffle By ‘cap’
Publisher’s Note: This is straight from our Bulletin
Board, no editing, (well just a little). If you are short on humor you might surf
your way through some of those opportunities.
One time I was poling my canoe upstream… I was paying big
time attention to what I was doing and I didn’t want my canoe
to get sideways and head on down… (I now realize I should
have been downstream fishing cuz my pole must of surely been
sending down a cascade of tender trout morsels)
Anyways…
I pole up into this pool and it seems like a nice place to take a
breather and have a pipe…the sun is starting to go down and
it is very serene and scenic …I’m looking around, puffin’ on
my pipe and I see that a hatch is commencing to come off, so I
get out “Old Bessie” (that’s my flyrod) and commence to do the
10 to 2…
I’m fishing for a while and I hear this rustling off in the
woods…I get down low and I’m real quiet and lo and behold I’m
watchin’ and a big bull moose comes out into the stream right
in front of me…he is fully racked if you know what I
mean…he’s a big bastid and he is within a stones throw of
me…he starts giving me the evil eye…I don’t know if you
have ever been in a stare down with a bull moose during the
rut but it is kinda scary…anyway, he’s giving me this moose
look… I’m lookin at him and he’s lookin’ at me and it’s gettin’
real creepy… like something bad might happen so I put down
my rod and I start to move the canoe away from this
guy…basically giving him a wide berth, if you know what I
mean?..now I haven’t taken in my line yet, as I just put my rod
down and picked up my paddle and as I’m moving across the
pool in my canoe, all of a sudden my rod bends over and if
it doesn’t go over the side as I try to reach for it…now my
rod is between me and that big ole moose and the damm fish is
pulling the rod closer to him… so I move up with my canoe
onto my rod to try and reach out for it, and the rod keeps just
being out of my reach… and all the while I’m keeping one eye
on that moose…everytime I get close to the rod the big bastid
just snorts and shakes his head just as I’m about to reach out
and grab it…this of course scares the beejeezuz out of me and
I miss snatching up my rod… so I just get lower and try to
become invisible like all the while getting closer and closer to
that big ole moose and watching him with obe eye and my rod
with the other…Well, I just get over to the rod and I’m
watching that bastid and just as I reach out to grab it, by
damm if a beaver doesn’t do that slapping thing with his tail
right next to my boat right behind me!..I nearly jump out of
skin, but worse I go over the side!!!..now my rod is floating
one way, my canoe is floating the other, I’m in over my head
…and …I got a bull moose watching me and I’m hoping that the
#@*! beaver isn’t rabid and gonna come up and nip me in the
ass…I figure I’ll retrieve the rod first… which I do, but the
damm fish is still on and he is swimmin all over the place…I
start getting all tangled up in the line as I thrash over to my
canoe…the moose at this point figures he’s seen enough and
he takes off for better entertainment…I get my canoe and I
trying to scissor kick my way over to shore with my canoe in
one hand and my rod in the other all the while with all this line
wrapped around me and my other stuff floating around in all
directions…I feel that the fish must have broken off cuz he
ain’t fighting no more…I finally get over to the bank and I get
my bearings …I’m thinkin’ ain’t that the #@*!dest thing and I
feel something flopping around in my coat…what the hell is
that? I reach into my pocket, it’s one of them big coats with big
pockets and I pull out a nice big brookie all shiny and
nice…must’ve been the one I hooked earlier…!!!
true story…!
Originally published October 28th, 2002 on Fly Anglers Online.