Friday, March 15, 2013

Separating the Men From the Boys

What’s with some people?   

The other day I received an email from a young man who lives in Pennsylvania that I've had the pleasure of talking with at a couple of the fly fishing shows. He had a few questions for me, and also related an experience he had with another angler while fishing one of the Lehigh Valley limestone creeks. At the time he was teaching his buddy how to fly fish.

He and his friend were fishing fairly close together, which is what you do when you are helping someone learn the finer points of fly fishing. They had the entire run to themselves, as it was very early in the morning, and few anglers were about. Shortly after they started fishing, his friend hooked and landed a nice trout, on a flashback fly that our friend had tied. Awesome right?

It was not till three minutes later that a man walked in-between us (we were ten feet apart) and started fishing with the whole rest of the stream empty. His encroachment resulted in my buddy getting a nasty tangle because he had no room to cast. To their credit, the boys minded their manners, and left after their lines were freed. Soon they were fishing another section of creek.

Ever the persistent one, the man eventually found the boys:  About an hour later we ran into him again, this time about 40 feet ahead of me. He drifted his flies down to around my feet and as he attempted to recast, almost put a hole in my waders. Eventually he crossed lines with me and as I nicely attempted to disentangle the lines, he yanked them out of my hand resulting in a birds nest.

The boys had had enough, and so they had mom take them to fish another stretch well upstream from where the adult model of good behavior was fishing. And fortunately, after a short while, our friend was successful. He took a trout on a fly he tied himself.  It was a good end to a day he said had been aggravating. 

That’s all.  I hope the guy reads this and sees how silly he was acting.  And kudos to the boys for acting more his age, than he did.

It's just fishing.

6 comments:

Brk Trt said...

Idiots are everywhere.
Hats of to the boys.

Mr. Q said...

Nice to hear about young patient and respectful people...not so nice to hear about older not so respectful people....What a bugger....

Jaybird said...

Ewwwww lots of weirdos in that Hellertown area and Easton . I'm a grown man and I don't like going solo out there , but olives make you do strange things .

Unknown said...

I have had a couple of similar instances in that same area. I think some of the folks up there ( who would give the characters in Deliverance a run for their money )are very territorial and will purposely be a PITA to get you to leave. Glad there are plenty of good fly fishing here in Jersey so I don't have to make that trip very often !

Jaybird said...

Not that we don't have some very weird people in jersey , but I've seen guys walking around the upper Lackawanna with rifles like Rambo , saw a lady aimlessly walking around the broad heads with a single balloon , and same day another guy doin his laundry under a bridge . I thought I might have been in some artful and deeply meaningful movie but no it's was just a normal day on the outskirts of Stroudsberg

Mr. Q said...

Well Jay, my washing machine was broken and I wanted to go fishing..The wife said only if I did the laundry...don't judge :)