This is in my memory brain pan, I heard, or read or saw this somewhere at some time and it has always stuck with me:
An old bitter man was out fishing one bright September day on his favorite creek and he was not very happy. The water was low, the fishing was poor, and he was generally in a bad mood. It seemed like everything in his life had slowly dribbled away. He had worked very hard all his life and it seemed like he could never quite get his true deserts. He was stomping disappointedly down a steep bank and slipped and fell………DAMN!
He woke in a grassy field, it was sunny and warm and he was lying on his back. For a few moments he was disoriented. Had he stumbled here? Where was his gear?
He got up and started looking around, walking, he tried to get his bearings. In the distance he saw a figure dressed in white slowly approaching him.
He waited and watched, figuring he would speak with this individual and sort his situation out. As this bearded man approached he saw he had fishing gear he was carrying. They greeted each other and spoke some small talk. The man said “here let me guide you for a moment, take this rod and walk over here to the stream bend”.
The old man looked at the rod, it was the finest Leonard split cane rod he had ever seen, it was a thing of beauty, a work of art, it was almost too nice to use. Humbled, he walked over to the bank and peered over. There before his astonished eyes were a pod of five beautiful rainbow trout, they must have run five pounds apiece! Shaking and nervous he made a perfect cast to the lead trout, after a picture book drift it slowly rose and inhaled the fly. He raised the rod almost in slow motion and set the hook. The fight was on! He was so excited; he hadn’t had a stunning sequence of everything going just right for him in eons. At one point he thought he had lost the fish, during a huge jump, the trout threw spray into the sparkling sun. The fight was back and forth and he eventually landed the beautiful fish and after admiring it a moment, released it.
Looking up, the bearded, white clothed benefactor motioned him to continue. He thought to himself that he hadn’t bothered to ask the man’s name. Ironically the almost exact thing happened again with the next fish. He looked around more this time and wondered if this could be the same creek he had been fishing and where he had taken his fall. He made a mental note to ask his new friend about it. He caught the other three fish, all on the first cast, all were the most beautiful he had ever seen. He started to think something here wasn’t right, was this some bizarre joke on him.
He walked up and asked the man where he was. The man said “I think you can figure out where you landed soon enough, let me show you something”. He started walking and the old man felt he had little choice but to follow. The man in white stopped by another beautiful pool, clearly holding in the head were another group of beautiful fish. The same thing ensued. His every cast was perfect, he hooked every fish on the first cast, it was almost too easy, and he was actually getting bored already. After he had caught all the fish he thought to himself, this is too good to be true. Suddenly something started to dawn on him.
He looked at the man in white and said “what the hell kind of heaven is THIS any way”?
The man in white said “what makes you think this is heaven”?
Here is a shot of a dude, Peter Harrison from Port Townsend, with a steelhead out of the Hoh caught Feb. 20, 2009, that was 29.5 lbs, and is supposedly a new world record for that tippet strength ( 8kg).
