I'm not sure if it was her tone, or smirk, but I quickly sensed this little sass machine had a future in high maintenance everything and had exactly zero interest in being there with her step daddy and her three brothers; let alone some old fly fishing guide. With everyone else happily fishing I took Miss Thang for a walk down the still snow covered bank to a perfect little pedestal for her to pose on. The rock is about six feet from the bank and only ankle deep once you are on it, but it is better than belly button deep if you slip off. It's a good rock to fish from and many a man has stood there, but today it would be a convenient place to stash the least interested part of my trip; the 17 year old diva portion of my responsibilities. She had great chances at a dance, would be dry and warm, look flawless and still be able to tweet; a perfect perch. With not enough room for two I stood waist deep in the freezing spring flow below her like a good boy thinking about how girls like this are going to be turning my young son inside out before I knew it. My goal was to get some line off her reel and get a bug in the drift as quick as possible so I could get someplace safer.
I hooked one on the demonstration cast.
As often happens during the hand off on a hooked fish, one of my little buddies took advantage of the queen.
The way she tipped her head and glared at me over those thousand dollar aviators clearly explained that fish getting away was my fault and one day she was going to eat men alive for fun. I hand her the rod, turn to get the hell out of there for a minute and by some miracle she is hooked up before I can reach the bank. My little Liz Taylor lands this one on her own and with a simple flip of that perfect hair dismissed me to do my job other places. I got to gettin. She got on the phone.
I'm not sure if it was sorcery or my internal guide clock telling me to wander back and face the fear, but just ten minutes later some strange force was drawing me down stream. As I got closer to my thorny rose I realized things were more horrible than I could have imagined and I might have left the dark queen alone too long. There in the snow behind "Ivanka", a good distance from where he really wanted to be, lay a gorgeous Eagle River Rainbow Trout.
I don't speak Trout real well, but I do understand some and this guy was clearly begging to be put back in the water. I scooped him up and slid into the drink next to "Crystal's" rock hoping to perform some resuscitation. I cradled my little buddy in the water and gently began to wave water over his head and gills trying to bring him back from the light. I looked up at "Lil Kardashian" who was towering over me and pretending to not know what was going on and asked "what do you figure happened here?"
"What do you mean?" my nearest witness growled.
"Well...........I just found this nice little fish in the snow behind you and I was wondering what may have happened" I say.
I'll never forget her reaction.
She said "I have no idea what you are talking about" and looked up as if she saw that trout fall from the sky. I looked up too as if I believed her.
Part of a guide's job is to read people and 17 year old girls are one of the trickiest groups to handle for even the most cunning of us. There was no safe way for me to blame her or get to the bottom of things even though the smell of her guilt had replaced my scent of terror. Still, calling this future five time divorcee out spooked the hell out of me.
That fish swam away so I am sure he wasn't out of the water that long and I figured at that point she would admit to chucking that poor fish on to dry land with an over zealous hook set or something; but no.
I never said a word about the incident to anyone that day, neither did "Crystal".I have guided the same lovely family several times since and while I may believe her to be guilty of attempted murder, she has been sweet as pie.
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Spring has sprung! Midgezilla is on site and there are some fat-happy fish waiting around here for you peeps.
1/2 off Private water while it lasts.
Full day Floats for 1/2 day price.
That's nice
Carry on you funny people
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