Old Coot
05-29-2003, 09:57 AM
Hi! I'm a newbie out of Salem. I'm 55 and have been fishing about 50 years. I like to chuck feathers and fur for trout, hunt chinook, and crab. I'd like to try some bottom fishing in the future. For the last 11 years I've been really involved with Boy Scouts, so my angling has been curtailed; but I will step down as the scoutmaster for 81 boys in September, and return to the river -right after muley season. I've monitored ifish for a few months, like what I have seen and the people who wrote it; so I enlisted. I thought now might be the appropriate time to lay out the traditional "fish story." Unfortunately, I don't have any really good ones, so I'll open with a great personal tragedy that awaits you all.
One day a couple of years ago I was fishing for chinookies with my usual stellar results, when my rig apparently drifted right into the mouth of a yawning fish. Amazingly, I beached the fish, tried to act like this happens all the time, and went back to fishing. Time passes, and a couple of guys about 40 years-old on the bar above me start hollering back and forth about what to use, how slow the bite is, etc. Finally the guy at the top shouts, "Why don't you ask the old coot at the bottom what he's using, he seems to know what he's doing!" I thought, "Cool! I'm going to learn something!" At that point everything sort of went into slow motion. I'm looking upriver at the guys who are doing the yelling, and there's about a half-dozen men between us. In sequence, from the top of the bar down, each guy turns and looks at the angler below him. Finally, the next guy up turns to look at me, I turn to look at the next guy down, and with a terrible sinking feeling realize...there isn't anybody else! I AM, "The Old Coot."
I tell ya, you young whippersnappers on the river these days just don't have any respect..why, when I was your age we had to WALK to the river, and it was uphill, both ways.......now where was I in my story? Ah phooey, lost it again...see ya later, I have to take my Geritol now.
One day a couple of years ago I was fishing for chinookies with my usual stellar results, when my rig apparently drifted right into the mouth of a yawning fish. Amazingly, I beached the fish, tried to act like this happens all the time, and went back to fishing. Time passes, and a couple of guys about 40 years-old on the bar above me start hollering back and forth about what to use, how slow the bite is, etc. Finally the guy at the top shouts, "Why don't you ask the old coot at the bottom what he's using, he seems to know what he's doing!" I thought, "Cool! I'm going to learn something!" At that point everything sort of went into slow motion. I'm looking upriver at the guys who are doing the yelling, and there's about a half-dozen men between us. In sequence, from the top of the bar down, each guy turns and looks at the angler below him. Finally, the next guy up turns to look at me, I turn to look at the next guy down, and with a terrible sinking feeling realize...there isn't anybody else! I AM, "The Old Coot."
I tell ya, you young whippersnappers on the river these days just don't have any respect..why, when I was your age we had to WALK to the river, and it was uphill, both ways.......now where was I in my story? Ah phooey, lost it again...see ya later, I have to take my Geritol now.