(Continued from previous page.)
Michael fishing Brown Pool.
The one fishing experience I can still remember came early one morning. All the Weenie Men gathered at Brown Pool - a beautiful, deep, slow stretch of water a short distance from our camp. There, Rob, using his bass-fishing, polarized sunglasses, pointed out several huge trout. They were each at least two feet long. Michael could not wait to try his luck on these "submarines". He had to hike downstream to reach a safe spot at which to enter the stream, then wade a great distance upstream to the limits of his waders. Once there, he had to skillfully play out well over forty feet of line to reach the trout. The rest of the Weenie Men stood on the bank, high over the stream, and relayed hand signals to Michael, informing him of where to place his fly. Even with all five Weenie Men aiding in the attempt, none of the submarines were caught.
Gary wets a line.
That morning had begun with a frantic search for Gary's bag of tea. Gary is pitiful enough in the morning even with caffeine, but is nearly intolerable without it. Even after repeated admonishments for his sloppy food handling practices, he had forgotten to hang his tea in our food cache the previous night. Sometime during the night, a raccoon had come along and absconded with it. Luckily, we found some surviving tea bags a short distance from camp.
There's one other thing I can remember all too vividly. Some son of a bitch had stolen "the bucket"!
Rob fishing a pool.
For our trip back to civilization, the guys at Fontana Dock sent a sightseeing boat to pick us up. The boat was full of German tourists who, I'm sure, were quite frightened by the sight of the unwashed Weenie Men emerging from the woods. As we sat waiting for Gary to show up, the tourists eventually relaxed, offered us refreshments, and had plenty of questions for us. One asked Michael where his fish were. He responded by asking the tourists if they'd like to see a real, live, Smoky Mountains rainbow trout. With that, he hopped off the boat, headed upstream, and, as luck would have it, returned in a very few minutes with a beautiful, fat, 18-inch trout. The tourist traded comments in German as they examined, in awe, Michael's beautiful catch.
To this day, I'm sure tales of these sights are being circulated far and wide all over Europe. Who knows, the Berlin Wall may well have been brought down by the oppressed, yearning to be Weenie Men.
Direct comments, questions, compliments, and death threats to fred@DumbSoutherner.com.
Copyright © 1996-2004 Fred D. Bean
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