Every weekend on Memorial Day, for the past twenty-plus years, my son-in-law and his friends made pilgrimages on the banks of the Shenandoah River in pursuit of enlightenment, tuned to a completely new sensory level. “A trip”, as it became known, is an escape from their wives, from 9 to 5 years old and, apparently, from sanity.
The ritual begins with preparing the site for maintenance. Weed - cracking over growing banks, making tents for tents and icing up several cases of beer. A huge bonfire is built and maintained consistently over the course of a long weekend, using the same basic primary instincts that their ancestors used who themselves were looking for fire.
I have repeatedly endured the festival for many years, many years ago. On this particular weekend, I planned to visit only in the afternoon, a stupid thing, such as an activity, reduced any possibility that I would go through the whole process of mental purification. The annual campsite is a beautiful woodland on the southern fork of Shenandoah. When I arrived, about six guys had already completed the initial stages of preparation and moved to the second phase. Drinking beer, shooting empty cans with a single submachine gun and occasionally starting a fire. I made my friendly chatter with a gang before starting my real quest, which was supposed to go and do some fishing. This is a great patch of water for a battle with a small small size. I walked across the field along the coast leading to the place where the big rail was laid by a steel bridge. The plan was, fish for an hour or three, and then return back to camp. I quietly entered the cold waters, wearing only my fishing vest, T-shirt, a pair of shorts and waders. I stopped for a moment to “read.” river and develop my plan assult. I caught this area of water many times, so I knew that this was happening, and that was just a question of where to start. Directly under the bridge were deep pockets that always kept good fish, but it was a tough, potentially dangerous swamp. Large rocks and fast water. You could go straight from the shore to catch a very deep hole that developed downstream from the bridge. Below this hole was a wide stretch of draining water, which usually produced a large number of small fish. So I stood there in the water with a high stomach content (back when my stomach was higher), checking the live map of the river. Then something catches the eye from under the clear water to my left. I think I knew what it was, but it made no sense, I just didn’t register in the ole brain. I raised my casting hand to hold my flytrap out of the water (for some stupid reason, since the rod can easily get wet) and leaned face to face with the surface of the river. There, watching me from the bottom of the river, there is nothing but Andrew Jackson. Not an ex-president who died within 170 years. Don't be ridiculous. It was a bill of twenty dollars, quietly resting on the bottom of the river, instantly untouched by the flow of water. I get up, my face, no doubt, twisted into an expression of confusion, my right eyebrow raised my eyes when my lips pressed against the left. This is similar to Curly from The Stooges. I immediately thought, where is Allen Pound and the Candid Camera team? I looked around, looked at the guys sitting at our camp, and then looked back at the sunken treasure. No television team was visible, the guys seemed to be oblivious, and the cash was still there. Then I had to figure out how to achieve my unfair reward without getting too wet. In my fishing vest there was a half-down cigar, a Bic lighter and my fishing license. I certainly didn’t want any of these valuable items to become wet. In addition, it was not quite a warm day in May, as evidenced by the departure from masculinity and the complete loss of desire, completely immersed in water. It is now almost impossible to click a sheet of paper from the bottom of a river, using the tip of a nine-foot-long aircraft held in one hand, and on the other hand to catch the wavy money. I should know, I have tried about fifteen times. Being firm and determined, I was not going to give up until I was rich ... GREAT, I tell you! Several different strategies ran over my head before I finally got the best one. The vest came off, and together with the fishing rod was lifted up with his left hand, when the right hand dropped by twenty. It was mine, all mine!
In the end, a little fishing was completed, but the dizzying excitement itched me to return to the camp and share my story. A non-fisherman watched me all the time and wondered what the hell I was doing. So that evening, the fried hot dogs were scratched from the menu, and the cheap steak was an unexpected dinner. Just as I planned it.
The following year, I had the exclusive privilege of spending the whole weekend with the same Drunken Knights of the Round Bonfire. There was a twenty-one guardian "all manly." that weekend, including the Duke of the Lighters and Sir Drinks-Lot. When beer cans became empty, and the fire of fire became dimmer, someone suggested a “brilliant sound” at that time, the idea of a fishing tournament would begin at dawn the next day (aka in a few hours). The fee for participation in tournaments was collected in a ball cap, and various categories of awards were created. The first fish, most of the fish and, of course, the biggest fish. In fact, the first category of fish was dropped, because the next morning no one wanted to get up early. There were a lot of canoes and boats, so the fishermen’s teams would go to the old hydroelectric power station and the float / fish would return to the camp. I slept that night with my Brow Law in my tent, which sounds like something you regretted before marrying your sister, who originally landed you on the Mauri show. But that's another story. The fact is that Bob woke up too early every morning of his life to get to his work in time. So, after 5 hours of sleep and 50 bees, Bob wakes up, as usual, just as the sun wondered whether to go up for another day. Bob is awake. Who woke me up. Then we woke the best friend of Djug, Bob and the third member of our canoe team.
That morning we were the first boat to the river. The rest of them were still asleep, like ordinary hangover people. We loaded the canoe with our fishing rods, a cooler with a cold breakfast and a plastic bucket to submerge water that had ever seeped through a small crack in the canoe housing. Then the canoe was dragged onto the river bank, a swallow, still a fast moving set of rapids. "What the heck?!?" Twenty feet in the middle of the rapids - a big fat carp stuck between the rocks, half submerged. Bottom-feeding & # 39; in Shenandoah, fish can grow quite widely, and this one seemed to be almost two feet long. Having received the initial surrealistic feeling of stumbling over this big slippery beast, we went to collect our prize. A short passage through the rapids to get fish, and then chants will begin “We are the champions, my friend!”. We have not yet received a canoe hank, and we were pretty much sure of the cash price to win the “Biggest Fish Award” tournament. We tried to put the carp in a plastic bucket for safe storage, but it was too big to fit ("You will need a larger bucket"). Thus, the fish was mounted on a super-heavy stainless steel stringer and hung from the side of the canoe. We dragged this poor whale with fish down the river for the next four hours. When we interviewed other participants of the tournament on the river on the way back to camp, the story of how we really caught the fish began to grow, almost as big and real as the fish itself. The jug hooked on a fish with a simple worm and rig. "Uh ... yes ... that's right ... he used a split throw to weigh down the line" "He bought this fish for ten ... must be twenty minutes" "Yes," So it was ". Later that evening, after dinner and cocktails, when the money was already served, Cook slipped and contradicted his fictional story of fame. After the real & # 39; the history of the drums came out, the tournament managers convened and carried the carp as a winner. The cash prize was returned, but not the memories.
Loose lips, canoe. Full of really great fish tales.
