A whopper of a story

I wish I had been more of a sportsman growing up. My Dad didn’t fish, hunt, or camp as he grew up in Brooklyn and knew little of the outdoors. He never dissuaded any of his brood from doing whatever we wanted, but when you are not exposed to it, you don’t know it. So I don’t know much about fishing. But having skied out West and seeing people fly fish, I always wanted to stand in a river on a cool fall day with the mountains aglow from brilliant aspen yellow. If I caught a fish that would be a bonus.

The destination was the Sun Valley Lodge, epic in its beauty, history, and elegance. I knew that I’d do well there, as Sun Valley, Idaho, is famous for fly fishing. My fishing partner and I hired a guide, Suzanne, who was magnificent. Our destination was that gorgeous river I had seen in my dreams, called the Lost River, because a few hundred yards from where we were fishing, it just disappears. I had enough success catching (and releasing) that the trip would forever be etched in my mind, but then we extended the trip by one day just to do the Lost River again.

Here’s where my whopper of a fish story begins. Suzanne showed me a spot to fish where I was to throw the cast upstream across the river, let it float downstream 50 feet, and repeat. I could see these ginormous fish in the crystal-clear water, but she opined that they were humongous because they were too smart to lunge for my cast. She went upriver to show my partner a place to fish where he wouldn’t be embarrassed by my casting prowess, as I fished those fifty feet over and over, but no bites in the swift current.

My casting was getting pretty good, so I figured I’d go for the great granddads under the limbs. My first cast was spectacularly placed and instantly I had a bite. The fast-moving water pushed the creature into the open 50 feet I had been trolling, and I laid eyes on the beast! He was 36 inches—possibly more! The mammoth fish expressed his displeasure by thrashing about, trying to escape what he perceived as certain death. My rod was bent, and I was giddy as I battled to pull him in. Suzanne had given me instructions to yell out if I caught anything, but at that moment, I concluded that a self-caught monster would be most impressive, so I deigned not to scream like a five-year-old and instead handle it like a man.

The lunker was wise and swam downstream over some shoals in his bid for freedom. I literally could have picked him up if only I were closer, but the width of the river separated us. I kept pressure on the hook and did my best to reel the monster in as he made his way to deeper water. Whenever he jumped out of the water in his bid for freedom, I wondered, “Where is my videographer!”

Wearing chest-high waders, I went downriver with the leviathan as the river coursed to a sharp turn away from me. The deep part of the river was now on my side, and I was chest deep in the surging water. There was a fallen tree in the bend, and I knew he sought refuge there, as he knew the river, and I did not. Yet I kept the reel tip high, as Suzanne had told me to never dip the end of the rod.

I valiantly tried to reel him in as we approached the fallen tree limbs in the bend. Alas, the wise old hawg made it under the first fallen limb when I had reeled in most of the line. Suzanne never told me the cost of the fishing rig she had loaned me but she said something about involuntary servitude for a year if it were lost or damaged. I was at the river’s limit, the cold water was an inch from pouring into my waders and it was as far as I dared venture as I was about to fall into the swift current. Yet I still had that whiskered fish on the hook.

I had pulled the line taut, holding on for dear life. Moby Dick’s great-grandson was now 12 inches from my right hand, but the limb at the water’s surface separated us. He was staring at me, and I at him. Pulling him under that limb wasn’t going to be easy, but it was impossible while holding onto that fly rod. With the riverbank 10 feet away, I doubted my ability to toss the rod that distance with one hand. What if it fell into the current and was washed up under the tree?

I looked at the distance to the riverbank once, twice, thrice. It was just too far to risk throwing the rig. My freedom was too high a price to pay for a fish. Then I did what I was told to never do. Never, ever, dip your rod. I tried to pull the prize under the limb with the rod. Turns out there is a reason for sage advice. We can learn a lot from our elders, or in this case, a professional guide with years of experience,

I was determined to say nothing of Graybeard. Best keep my mouth shut; but for all my life, that’s been hard for me. When Suzanne and my partner came back, she bragged about his having caught a couple of measly river trout. When she asked me why I had struck out, I should have said bad luck got me. I gave in as my pride surged and told her of the one that got away. I was looking for superlatives, instead, the excited lecture that followed about everything that could have gone wrong was devasting. When she insisted I show her where I ended up in the river, I thought she was going to faint; instead, it was the blood rushing to her brain as she blessed me out, in her native German mixed with English, for almost getting killed. She told me of others who had died in similar circumstances.

“Yeah, yeah. You should have seen ol’ Graybeard though. Because I’ll never forget him.”

Kelly Burke, attorney, former district attorney and magistrate judge, writes about the law, rock’n’roll, and politics or anything that strikes him. Contact Kelly at dakellyburke@gmail.com to comment on this article or suggest articles that you’d like to see, and visit his website at www.kellyrburke.com to view prior columns.

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