So There I Was...

Absolutely true stories from the river.

Are there such things as true tales from the river? You know, stories that aren’t embellishments, exaggerations, lies, or fish stories? It’s unlikely, because anglers and lies go hand in hand. At least that’s been my experience. Fishing writer John Gierach even titled one of his books, All Fishermen Are Liars. It’s an accepted thing. We even expect it.

It’s not even our fault. It begins with the friends, family members, work associates, and neighbors who ask, “How many fish did ya catch?” or, “Catch any big ones?” As if the number or the size of the fish we catch is the important thing. When we tell them that we didn’t keep track, they give us the rolling eyes. “Yeah. Uh-huh. Right.” They just don’t seem to understand that there’s more to fishing than catching fish. If we tell them, “Yes, we caught a few,” they ask if we filled the freezer. “Nope. Let ’em all go.”

I’ll tell them that a grizzly bear jumped into the river, flexing its claws and gnashing its teeth, and swam after us.

“What?” Bug-eyed. “Yer kiddin’, right?” They just can’t believe it. They’re stunned. In fact, they now assume that we got skunked. No fish in hand must mean that we didn’t catch anything. I used to try to explain all the things that I enjoy about fly fishing: the landscape, the river, the sky, wildlife. But, while real to me, it just began to seem kind of corny in the re-telling. And I always got the rolling eyes and the, “yeah, uh-huh” response. So, I stopped doing that. Now I tease them a little. I make stuff up. I tell outlandish stories. Embellishments. That’s what they really want to hear anyway, right?

“So, there we were, floating down the river, when suddenly...” I’ll insert something wild here. I’ll tell them that a grizzly bear jumped into the river, flexing its claws and gnashing its teeth, and swam after us. I might claim, just for fun, that I saw a cougar hiding in the brush, low to the ground in full predatory ambush posture, tail twitching, as though it were preparing to spring out over the water and right into our boat as we drifted by. That’s when I get one of those looks. You know, like a little kid might give his dad when his dad suddenly looks up from the dinner table and glances wide-eyed out the back window. “What was that? Did you see that?” The kid is not sure if the dad is joking or not. One guy asked me if I had ever caught a bird while casting through the air. “Oh, yeah,” I told him. “One time I snagged a bald eagle in mid-flight. It yanked me right out of the boat as it tried to fly away.” He gave me one of those looks.

Then he said, “No. Really?”

I told a woman I used to work with that I saw Frodo Baggins. Frodo! You know, Hobbits, the Fellowship, Gandalf, Gollum, the Ring and all. That Frodo. She thought I meant that I had seen Elijah Wood, the actor who played Frodo in the Lord of the Rings movies. “Cool,” she said. Then she asked me if I had gotten his autograph.

People want to hear fantastic stories. They want to hear about mountain lions stalking you and wolverines and packs of wolves. They want to hear that Galadriel herself, dressed in a white gown, long hair flowing, appeared out of the mist.

One time I told a guy that I saw Scarlett Johansson sunbathing at the edge of the river. Scarlett Johansson! Yeah, her. I told him that she looked up as we drifted by, waved and called out, “How’s the fishing?” The guy’s mouth fell open.

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “She waved at you? Really?” I think he really believed me. I mean, it could happen, right?

People don’t want to hear about the sound of the river in the morning or the colors of the water. They don’t want to hear about the perfect cast and the way the line lays out and how the fly settles softly onto the water. They don’t want to hear about the trout rising and the setting of the hook and the fish jumping and the water sparkling in the sunlight. No, they don’t want to hear about any of that. They want to hear fantastic stories. They want to hear about mountain lions stalking you and wolverines and packs of wolves. They want to hear that Galadriel herself, dressed in a white gown, long hair flowing, appeared out of the mist. They want to hear about Scarlett Johansson. They want to hear that you caught a three-headed brown trout. What they really want to hear is that you now have a bunch of fish, gutted and wrapped. They want you to invite them over for the big fish fry. They want to hear you say, “Yeah, I was pretty much hooked up all day.” So, that’s what I tell them.

One guy asked me if I had ever seen Bigfoot.

I sidled in close to him like I was about to divulge a big secret. “Well, actually,” I responded, whispering. I looked around again, furtively, to make sure no one else could overhear the mystery I was about to reveal. “Bigfoot saw me, but when he told his friends about it, they didn’t believe him.”

“Really?”