Well here we go with another story, telling on myself again. I really wish I could get out and get some pictures as that is what I like to do rather than bore you with semi humorous tales of outdoor adventure, but alas this is what happens when I haven't been out much over the last few weeks.
Often the funniest stories from our experiences come from incidents that at the time they are happening do not seem funny at all. In fact they can seem downright frightening, or just plain embarrassing at the time. Only later can we look back and have a good laugh once our adrenal gland has stopped pumping us full of juice or the sting to our pride has worn off. Take for instance a time I was on a solo backpacking trip in the Hells Canyon Wilderness to a little lake 11 miles from the nearest trailhead in, thank goodness, complete solitude.
My mission was to catch some vibrant cutthroat trout in the pristine waters of one of the more off the beaten track lakes in the area. After arriving at the lake, and setting down my backpack the first thing I did was, not set up camp, but grab my fishing rod and head for the nearest log jutting out into the lake to make a few casts.
In these lakes it can seem quite important to the exuberant fisherman to fling his or her lure to the very middle of the lake, even though a majority of the fish probably live somewhere much nearer the shore. In order to accomplish this feat a downed log that juts out in to the water can seem like the perfect casting platform in order to get you just that much closer to the middle of the lake. Of course, the biggest fish in the lake, unquestionably, live in those dark foreboding waters that nary a fisherman before has been able to reach. I found my perfect log near where I planned to camp and made my way out.
As I carefully balanced on the half submerged log out to the point it completely went under the crystal clear water I felt it wobble under my feet and wondered then if maybe this in fact was not the best log to be standing on. It would have to do though as I had one thing on my mind and that was getting my line wet and to turn back now would cost me a whole two minutes of valuable fishing time. I casted as far as my arms could fling the lure (no where near the middle of the lake), let it sink a few seconds, and began the erratic retrieve. Almost instantly I was rewarded with the strike of a nice fish. Everything was going just to plan to this point but things would change in an instant.
It all started with a harmless little bug, ok it was ferocious killer wasp, that decided my leg would be a good place to stop and rest until he felt up to continuing his journey across the lake. Feeling his creepy crawly legs as he shuffled around amongst the hairs on my legs my natural reaction was to lift up the leg, while simultaneously bringing down my hand to swat away the annoyance. This leaves me in the following precarious situation: standing on a semi submerged, and not so steady log, 20 feet from shore, on one leg, fighting a scrappy trout with one hand, swatting a pesky wasp with the other.
Now I am no balance beam gymnast, however I am not exactly uncoordinated either, but everyone has their limits. When I slapped the wasp he only did what comes natural to wasps, just as I had only done what comes natural when one feels something crawling around on your leg. He stung me. Several times. It felt like he just wasn’t going to stop. Well it was all too much and my precious state of balance had been sufficiently compromised and I took a sudden plunge into some very frigid alpine lake water. The water was just deep enough where I fell in that I couldn’t touch. For those wondering, yes, I did still hold on to the fishing rod and yes the fish was still on the other end probably thinking, “Wow, I actually might be winning this tug of war.” I can only imagine the stories he is telling his buddies right now about the time he, a little 12 inch trout, pulled a gigantic 6 foot man into the lake. The incident alone probably became legendary in the lake and he likely became very famous, possibly even gaining instant membership into the very exclusive “Middle of the Lake Lunker Club” usually reserved for the much older, wiser, and bigger trout. The deep dark waters there are a place often feared by small fish like him but he has free reign there now and the larger fish give him a wide swath remembering the legend.
Back to my end of the line, I gasped and sputtered to the surface. These alpine lakes are cold even in the heat of the summer and the surprise of it all added to the shock I was experiencing. I think there was a time where my brain just said “this is too much sensory overload, I am shutting down for a bit” as I really remember very little between this time and when I was safely wringing out my clothes on the shore. I had held on to the pole this whole time but the fish came unpinned somewhere in all my flailing around.
I have always been very glad that the access to this lake was a grueling, rocky 11 mile trail thus assuring me of solitude as I did my version of “Swan Lake” there on that log. Now had there been witnesses present they may have been able to see this as it was, a very funny incident right from the start, but I admit it took me a few sputtering moments to see the humor in what had just happened.
No comments:
Post a Comment