A Fish Tale by John-Paul Pardy

  So Ben and I have fished this stream a few times here and there but it had been a while since I had been back.  We had fished most of the day at this point and got into a couple, but mostly spent our time trying to find new water in the area.  The highlight at this point so far was this big old fat happy yellow lab we ran into.  Slowly making his way down from a front porch we probably should not have parked in front of and greeting us with the biggest smile and heavy wagging tail.

  We began to make our way back and Ben said to me "Hey, I am going to pull off and check this one last hole I moved a big fish in a few months back".  I am always down for more fishing so was like "yea get after it".  Still geared up, we pulled over and grabbed a rod and a net.  Ben stripped a few times and there he was!  Looked like he came up for it but then weirdly nosed down and thrashed a few times.  We were both like "what, that was crazy".  Made a move on it but nothing like I had seen.  Ben threw the streamer back in there and pretty much same reaction.  This time paying a little more attention, that fish was not going after the streamer but again just weirdly thrashing for a few seconds and then disappearing to the bottom.  I was like "that seems like that fish is stuck on something... fish just don’t act like this".  

 There was this hose running into the hole, one that you would hook up to a tank on a truck or something to pump water out with.  Pretty big but wasn’t hooked up to anything, just lying on the bank one end in the water a little.  I said "Ben do that again with the streamer".  Saw the thrash again and this time saw the end of that hose move just a little.  I was like "that fish is stuck on this hose for sure".  Ben said "give me the net and pull the hose out".  We got down in the hole and I started puling the hose out of the water and with it comes this beautiful brown trout with a piece of rope off the end of the hose wrapped around his jaw.  No hesitation Ben nets the fish, pocket knife magically appears out of nowhere and he cuts the rope.  Both of us pretty much blown away by the situation as I untangled the rest of the rope from the fish and we just smiled in disbelief.  Ben grabbed his camera to capture the beauty as we took it all in and then we set him free.  Felt amazing!