“Hey, G—, I just finished fishing the slough,” I shouted to my friend from my passenger side window. “I was driving by when I noticed you here.”
“Oh, hey, what’s up, bro?” He shouted back, as he gathered gear from his car ready to hit the water. “Did you catch anything?”
“A pikeminnow down the way. Nothing big, about eight inches,” I responded
“Dude, come back. You gotta fish this hole I caught a five-pound brown in,” he shouted back.
My day started fairly early. Last night I determined to drive to Missoula in the morning. It’s about sixty miles away, but I really felt compelled to hit Cabelas for some fishing stuff, primarily more jig heads for my trout magnets and some siwash hooks to replace treble hooks with. My anxiety got the best of me, so left earlier than I needed for the store’s 10am opening.
“Oh, look, Rapala lures for seven dollars.” I thought to myself, as I stood in the fishing aisle at the Super Walmart. I couldn’t resist stopping there, since Cabelas wouldn’t open for another hour and a half. “I really don’t know why I left so early.” After paying ten dollars in Darby for Rapalas, this seemed like a steal. “I’ll take this Countdown CD9 right here. Oh, damn, let me get some of this fluorocarbon line also. Ooh! they have trout magnets too, sweet.”
“That’ll be forty dollars,” the cashier said to me.
“Sheesh! that wasn’t supposed to happen.”
While I waited for Cabelas to open up [You didn’t seriously think I wasn’t going to go to Cabelas, after finding what I wanted at Walmart, did you?], I swapped out the line on my rod for the vanish line I bought and swapped in some siwash hooks on some more of my lures.
“That’ll be twenty-one dollars, please,” The cashier at Cabelas said.
“Wow! Did I really need to spend more money? Yes, yes I did.”
With all my new gadgetry in tow, I made my way back to Darby. “I guess while I’m out here, I’ll stop by Lee Metcalf preserve and fish the slough [pronounced SLEW in America].” My work buddy had told me about the five-pound brown he caught in the slough, so figured since I was out this way, why not.
I walked in about a quarter mile to where the trail ended at the slough. I could have fished the first bridge, but really like to be alone without passersby engaging me, so made the extra trek.
I tossed a few casts of the Rapala… Nada! Next, I tried a spinner… Zilch! “I guess let me try the trout magnets I bought. This black and dark pink one looks cool.” Cast, jig, jig, jig… FISH ON! I landed my first fish of the day, an eight-inch pikeminnow. Not even worth taking a picture of. By this time, the skeeters were starting to get really bad, so I headed out.
I turned left on the road leading out of the preserve, exploring to see if there was more to the preserve, but the road turned away from the preserve fairly quickly near the golf course. At that point, I made a u-turn and decided to head home.
“Hey, is that G—? Yep, it is.”
G— and I walked to the hole he caught that brown at, which incidentally, was the bridge I crossed to walk back a quarter of a mile… Doh!
“G— was fishing a baitcaster loaded with a lure that I swear looked like he was fishing for Tuna. That thing was a bright pink rocket. I don’t know what it was trying to resemble, but he cast it out there. On the retrieve, near the bank of the slough, we both went into a frenzy.
“Bro, did you see that? It was a monster.” I shouted in excitement.
We looked at each other with eyes so wide, you’d thought we’d seen bigfoot. The fish literally surfaced at the edge, but never took the lure. We continued with the excitement of two kids at Christmas with what just happened. We were stupefied.
“Your turn, bro,” G— told me.” Maybe you’ll have better luck with that spinner.
First cast… Nada! Second cast… zilch! Third cast… zip! Fourth cast… FISH ON! “Holy crap what just hit the lure?”
“Bro, that thing is a beast.” G— shouted excitedly.
“Damn! it’s putting up a fight,” I exclaimed as we saw the fish twirl on the surface trying to rid itself of the hook. “It’s a monster.”
And just like that, it threw the hook.
“Ahh damn, bro. You had it for sure. That thing was a beast,” G— sighed in dismay over what just happened.
“Ahh, man, that really sucks!” I replied. “I thought I had him for sure.”
G— tied on a different lure and tried a few more times, while I switched out to a Rapala rainbow imitation.
“Your turn, bro” G— said. “I’m going to fish the other side real quick.”
I cast the Rapala a few times with no luck. “Let me cast there and drag the lure back across that area.” FISH ON! Holy smokes, that fish crushed it.”
“Hey, yo, G—. I got one. It’s big.” I shouted to G— who was fishing the other side of the bridge. “Damn! It’s putting up a good fight.”
G— came over just in time to see me net a good size pikeminnow. It wasn’t the brown we were looking for, but at least it was something decent, about a sixteen-inch pikeminnow.
After a few more casts and a bit more conversation, we parted ways. I still had quite a few miles left to drive and G— had things to do.
“Hey, I’ll see you at work tomorrow, amigo,” I said to him.
“Yeah, man, see you tomorrow,” he replied
