Caddis Chronicles

So, this kid at the FF show this weekend comes up to me and starts talking to me about how he "fly fishes" for trout all the time in New Jersey. Seems like a nice kid, clowning around a little, laughing at his own jokes, and a little more friendly than most kids that age. After a few minutes though, I began to get one of those internal pauses you get when someone just seems a few sardines short of a can.

Sure enough he starts telling me about how he likes to go to the Pequest and fish the hatchery outflow for those BIG FRIGGIN' TROUT that hang there. He boasts about how adept he is at hooking them, although he doesn't always land them because they swim so hard. He says he breaks them off a lot.

I say, "Oh, yeah, I hear that pool gets pounded. What do you use to take them?"

He says, "I use woolley-buggers that have lead eyes. They are killer."

"Lead-eyed buggers, huh? I figured those fish have seen every bugger known to man." I said to him in more of a question than a statement.

He says in kind of guilty whisper, "It doesn't matter. All you have to do is cast it past them and wait until one swims over it and then lift it fast and you hook them."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, my dad says it's okay because you are using a fly and everybody does it because those fish won't take a fly. He does it all the time." He says confidently.

"You think that's sporting?"

"Why not. They can swim much better when you hook them in the tail and they are hard to land." The kid is serious.

I told him that wasn't fishing and if I saw him doing that I would report him. "You must know that's not legal, come on." I say with not an ounce of sympathy and a dose of venom.

He walks away, but before he does, he tells me his dad says people like me should be shot.

Great......I guess the clown doesn't fall far from the tree.

So, if you see a 15-ish Y.O. kid, 5' 9" with black punk hair, a uni-brow, and XXL, with his dad at the hatchery outflow, keep and eye on them and nail them if you see them practicing their clown act.

Before we work on artificial intelligence why don't we do something about natural stupidity? ~S. Polyak

.......and BAD parenting.