A Tale of Two Fishes
How I Was Suckered by a Sucker
Or How a Cop Was Shot and I Ended Up In The Emergency Room
“No one expects the rug to be yanked out beneath them; life changing events usually don’t announce themselves.” – Slash
It was a bright and beautiful Friday August morning. I picked up my co-worker, Bob, at 6:30 in Albany and together we headed out to the golf tournament in Springfield. Since the tournament was sponsored by one of our vendors, this was clearly a work day. It’s important to build positive relationships with members of the industry and Bob and I felt compelled to volunteer to represent OSU in this important public relations effort. Instead of driving the freeway we took the back roads through Halsey and Brownsville. Roads I had never driven. Beautiful Oregon country back roads. Within an hour we reached the Springfield Golf and Country Club, grabbed our clubs out of the back of the pick-up, signed into the tournament, received a golf cart assignment, a snack pack, a cup of coffee, and a donut. At 8 am my foursome teed off and we had a great time at this best ball tournament. Fortunately, my 3 partners actually were pretty good and we had a good round of golf ending up at par for the 18 holes or maybe it was par + two. It doesn’t really matter. My memory improves the game with the passing of time. I recall that I had a smashing game and some of the best golf shots of my life.
After lunch Bob and I packed up our gear and headed toward home. Shortly after we passed the Corvallis, Highway 34 turnoff, on our way to Albany to take Bob home, the traffic on I-5 stopped. It didn’t just slow; it stopped. Dead still. I remarked to Bob that I had promised Linda I would be home by 3:00 in order to leave for our fly-fishing trip on the Crooked River. It was now 1:30pm. Bob said that the stalled traffic wasn’t a good omen. We had four miles to go until the first Albany exit.
Linda’s sister Sandy and her husband Paul were coming to our house the next Tuesday and Linda wasn’t crazy about going camping just before their arrival. She wanted the house to be all neat and clean and everything just right for her sister’s visit. I might have been just a touch more relaxed about the whole thing and suggested that a little fly fishing prior to their arrival might be just the perfect thing to get her mind off things. Although Linda didn’t say that she wanted to get her mind off things I thought my comment was very unselfish and most helpful. Linda wanted to know where we were going and what the campground was like. She tends to like State Parks and campgrounds with running water, showers, and all that sort of thing. I tend to think those types of campgrounds are filled with giant RV’s with satellite TV’s and generators constantly running all night. I’m more of a let’s go where the fish are biting, we can set up a tent anywhere kind of guy. I described Devil’s Postpile Campground to Linda as a bit rustic. She asked if it had running water. I said it was on the Crooked River; of course there is water. She stubbornly persisted and asked if the water was drinkable. I replied that it was drinkable if you boiled it long enough and maybe filtered some of the mud out. (I don’t think that she felt that was very encouraging.) Linda asked about a bathroom and I happily assured her that there was a very high quality toilet nearby. Despite all these assurances Linda wasn’t that keen on heading out for the weekend to go fishing and camping.
It was in that spirit, knowing that I would seriously disappoint Linda if I was late, that Bob and I sat in the middle of the freeway stopped dead still. After about 15 minutes, cars started crossing over the grassy median to merge onto the southbound lanes. Bob suggested that we might try that. I replied that I didn’t want to start the weekend with a big ol’ ticket and that with my luck as soon as I pulled out on the median a State Patrol officer would pull up and turn on his party lights. So we waited. The traffic started to move. We inched forward and stopped. Bob said that if we made a U-turn across the median and headed south toward the Corvallis exit that I might make it home by 3:00. I suggested that there must be an accident up ahead and that since we had already waited a half hour that it would probably be cleared up pretty soon and traffic would start moving.
At 5:00 Bob suggested that if we were only to cross the median and head back toward Corvallis we could take Hiway 20 to Albany and I’d maybe be home by 6:00. I assured Bob that the traffic was almost ready to move forward. When I arrived home at 6:30 I burst through the front door and asked Linda if she was ready to go. She greeted me with, “I don’t think we’re going”. I said, “Gee, I’m sorry I’m late but the traffic was all tied up and it took a little longer to get Bob back to Albany.” She said, “That’s not it. I took our house key over to Debbie and asked her to water the plants and she said to be careful with all the forest fires over there.” Linda said sweetly, “I’m not going camping in the middle of a forest fire.” In our 33 years of marriage I have occasionally missed subtle hints like the one Linda had just made, and I energetically responded that it wouldn’t take very long to pull up the US Forest Service website or the Department of Transportation website to see what was happening and to see where any little fire might be and if any roads were closed. Linda stared at me like I was an imbecile.
I quickly checked both websites and their webcams for any sign of smoke. The Department of Transportation said the nearest fire was at least five miles away from Black Butte (through which we’d pass on Highway 20). The webcam showed no sign of smoke; only clear blue skies. I offered to show Linda who didn’t appear to be interested in seeing the clear blue skies. I quickly helped her finish packing the food, loaded the truck and off we went. Silently. I assumed Linda was in a peaceful, contemplative mood and didn’t want to spoil the moment with small talk.
Three hours later we arrived at the Crooked River, found Devil’s Postpile Campground and drove to the end of the campground where the last campsite was available. As I was backing the pickup into the campsite in the dark, I couldn’t see out the back window and was using the side mirrors to slowly back into the site. I’d ease off the clutch and slowly slide the truck back; stop; check the mirrors and then ease back again. I decided to back up just a couple more feet when, “SMACK!” I backed right into a tree. I got out, looked at my fender which had a big old dent in it, and began to feel that maybe Bob was right about bad omens.
We quickly set up camp and went to bed. About 5:30 I woke up, got dressed and got my fishing stuff together. I had a #5 weight forward fly line and tapered 9 foot leader. I tied a tan #14 elk hair caddis fly to the leader and then a #20 caddis nymph to a 2 foot drop line and headed to the river. I thought about crimping the barb on the hooks but I was anxious to get to the river and start fishing. The water was high, even in August because of the greater than average snowpack and was a little muddy but much better than when I had fished it earlier this spring. I cast out into a riff and watched the fly float downstream. I pulled in the line and cast again this time a little further upstream just behind a big boulder. A fish flashed but didn’t take the fly. I walked upstream a few yards and cast the fly about 10 feet in front of the rock and watched as the current pulled the fly toward the boulder. This time the fish took the fly and I reeled him in. He was just a little feller and I slipped the hook out of his lip and released him back to the stream. In the next couple of hours I had caught a few fish; some on the nymph and some on the dry fly. The combination seemed to be working well. I took a break and fixed breakfast as my bride was slowly (ever so slowly) coming awake. It was a gorgeous morning in the canyon and the early morning sun made the surrounding rock cliffs glow in the reddish dawn. It was going to be a beautiful August day in Central Oregon.
After breakfast I walked back to the river and walked up the stream and began fishing again. Linda read for a while then joined me at the river. The fish weren’t biting and I tried a variety of different fly patterns. I caught a couple of fish during the day and released them. Linda wasn’t having quite as much luck and after a while we broke for lunch and then went up to the dam and drove around the reservoir to the boat launching area to see if it might be a good swimming location. The boat launching area was really primitive and swimming didn’t seem to be a good idea. We went back to camp and I fished awhile in the afternoon losing more flies to brush than fish. We had a nice dinner and went to bed.
Sunday, I woke early and began fishing. The fish were biting and I caught a couple of really nice sized red-banded rainbows. I walked downstream and began fishing off of a rock slide. The water was deep and clear. I was standing on a large boulder. Next to where I was standing was another boulder and in between was a triangular patch of shallow water. My back cast was limited due to the steep bank behind me but I was still able to cast about 30 feet out to the middle of the river. As I watched my fly drift downstream with the current a large rainbow grabbed the fly and took off down-stream. I reeled in the fish which was about 12” and beautifully marked and carefully released it back into the river. This was a big hole and I figured there were a lot of trout in it. Since we didn’t need to leave for another couple of hours, I thought I would catch and release a few trout and then take a couple home to eat.
Linda was fishing upstream about 200 yards and she yelled that she had a fish on. I grabbed the net and ran up to help her land the fish. It was a beaut and I released it and walked back to my rock. As soon as I got back to the rock Linda yelled that she had a fish on and again I grabbed the net and went back to assist feeling really good that she was getting some fish. She was fishing in an area with lots of river grass which provided good cover for the fish and I was impressed that she wasn’t constantly getting her line caught up in the weeds. I had passed that area by because I thought I’d be constantly tangled in the grass. But not Linda; she fished it like a pro.
I went back to my rock and cast again. I watched as the fly drifted downstream. Just as the line was about to go taut a large trout hit the dry fly and it looked like a great fish. I kept seeing another fish jumping just behind it and when I reeled in the fish, I discovered that one fish had taken the dry fly and one had taken the nymph and that I had two 10 to 11 inch redbands on at once. The Crooked River probably has never seen such hootin’ and hollerin’. Since it was getting close to the time we would need to leave, I decided to keep these two. I reached behind me for my creel and then realized I had left it back at camp since both Linda and I had been practicing catch and release. So, I grabbed the net, released the first fish from the dry fly and placed the fish in the net and twisted the net around the fish and placed it in the little triangular patch of water between the boulders. I was worried that the fish that had taken the nymph would spit out the fly and swim away while I was messing with the first fish but as I turned to remove the second fish I saw he was still on. I removed the fish from the hook and picked up the net and was about to put the second fish in with the first when son-of-a-gun the first fish found a tear in the net and escaped and swam away. No problem. I put the second fish in the net, wrapped the net around him and placed him in the triangular patch of water between the boulders. I considered going back for the creel but I thought I would catch one more fish and then take them both back to camp and pack up and head home.
I launched a beautiful cast and watched as the fly softly landed about 35 feet out in the river. As the current carried the fly down stream a silver streak exploded out of the water, grabbed the fly and took off down stream. My line screamed from the reel. This was the best fish of the day. I was so excited I failed to notice that the fish which was wrapped up in the net started to get active. As I was concentrating on the fish on my line, I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of the fish in the net pushing my net out of the little shallow triangle of space between the boulders and out into the river. With the fish on the line I began to try to stab at the net with the tip of my rod hoping to hook the net around the tip and push it back to shore. No such luck. The little fish’s tail was whipping back and forth and was powering the net out into the current. I futilely watched as the fish stole my net. Back and forth went its tail. Further and further away went the net. Damn! You can’t even trust fish these days.
But…I still had a fish on and I turned my anger back to getting this fish landed. The fish had taken the dry fly leaving the tiny nymph trailing behind it a couple of feet. I lifted the fish out of the water and it went crazy. I grabbed it with both hands to keep it still and I noticed that the fish was completely silver-white. I had never seen a fish quite like this and was trying to decide if I should keep it or release it. The rules are different for different areas and I didn’t want to take a fish that I shouldn’t, yet this might be the last fish caught and I wanted to take at least one fish home. The dorsal fin was fairly large so I knew it wasn’t a trout. I looked at its mouth and decided it was probably some kind of sucker so I decided to release it. (As it turns out it was a Whitefish which are legal and great fighters)
I held the fish with my right hand and used my left hand to remove the hook from its mouth. Just as I tugged on the hook, it flipped its tail and the trailing nymph hook flipped and caught on my right finger right in the second joint on the palm side of my right hand. I decided to remove the hook from its mouth before trying to remove the hook from my finger. The idea was that I would let the fish off the fly and gently release it back to the river and then I would remove the hook from my finger which was just barely imbedded in the skin.
And although the idea itself was brilliant; the actual result was not. As I removed the hook from the fish’s mouth it went crazy, wrapped its tail around the leader which then pulled the hook all the way into my finger as I released the evil spirit back into the river. Since I hadn’t bothered to crimp the barb, there was no way to pull it out. Since the body of the fly was wrapped with wire there was no way I could push it through. I cut the leader and headed back to camp sans net, sans fish. Linda was talking with another fisherman who apparently was a local guy. I told her what happened and the other fisherman was very helpful. When he got through laughing, he commented that he only wished he had a camera to show his buddies back home. Then he offered some medical advice although I suspected that he most likely didn’t have a license to actually practice medicine. His advice was to let it fester since the river is so full of bacteria, the wound would get infected, the skin would all puff up and in a few days I’d just be able to pull the fly right through the pus. Although that might save the fly from getting destroyed, I thought there might be other options available.
I walked back to camp, took the needle-nose pliers out of my tackle box and noticed that they were pretty rusty. I took some hand sanitizer and squirted some on the pliers and wiped them sort of clean with a paper towel. Then I used the wire cutter on the pliers to try to cut the fly just below the wire windings thinking that I might then be able to push the fly on through. No such luck. Any pressure on the fly at all hurt a whole bunch and the closest I could get with the pliers was about halfway down the body of the fly. So, I cut it as close as I could hoping that by cutting through the windings that I might be able to unwrap the hook and push it on through. Again, no such luck. The windings around the hook were very well glued to the hook. I put a band-aid around the hook to keep it from catching on stuff as we rolled up the sleeping bags, took down the tent and packed up the truck.
There’s a regional hospital in Bend about an hour away and I thought we could head over there, get the fly removed and head on home. When we got to Prineville Linda suggested that Prineville probably had an emergency care center. Prineville is a rather rural little town and I wasn’t convinced that the quality of medical care in Prineville would be what I needed to remove this hook which had now been in my finger for an hour or more. But since it also hurt a considerable amount, I figured the sooner it was out of my finger the better. So, we stopped at a convenience store which had a phone booth outside and I found that, son-of-a-gun, Prineville had a hospital; Prineville Memorial Hospital. I thought is was probably a Memorial Hospital because there were memorial services for everyone that went there. But I agreed to at least drive by it and see what it looked like. If it was rustic and unkempt, I was heading for Bend; pain or no pain. But…it turned out to be a very modern, clean looking brick building and I thought it was worth taking a chance.
So, Linda and I entered and were greeted by a very pleasant receptionist. She took my insurance card and had me fill out a medical questionnaire and then said she had to fill in a box on the questionnaire that describes how the accident happened. I told her I was fish wrestling and the fish won. And although she looked at me as if I was quite insane, she wrote something on the form and told me to go into the next room and wait for the doctor. The doctor was there in about 30 seconds and she said I was in luck since I was the only patient in the hospital. My mind wondered if I was the only live patient in the hospital because all the other patients had mysteriously died, but I decided to follow the good doctor anyway.
Along with the doctor there was a gentleman in a blue-gray hospital gown named Delbert. Delbert had a few teeth missing and his eyes didn’t track normally and I couldn’t help but wonder what the doctor was doing hanging out with the janitor. But Delbert and the good doctor ushered me into a room and had me sit on the examining table. The doctor looked and looked at the remains of the tiny little fly and then she grabbed it with her fingers and started to move it around. I calmly screamed that it might be better if she injected me with some sort of pain deadener before she started surgery. Although I’m sure she appreciated my suggestion she only commented that she was trying to see just how we were going to get it out of there.
Then she got a syringe and stabbed my finger a couple of times and said that it would take a couple of minutes for the novocaine (or whatever it was) to work. In the meantime, she suggested that Delbert go and get a pair of wire cutters. Delbert was gone a few minutes and returned with…wait for it…a pair of needle-nose pliers. I didn’t want to seem bossy but I did mention to Delbert that I had actually used needle-nose pliers to make the initial cut on the fly and I didn’t think that was probably the right tool to use. I think I suggested maybe something with a little finer cutting edge. Delbert left to get another tool. Now this is the honest to God truth, Delbert returned with a pair of wire cutters just like the big old clunky ones I’ve got out in my tool box in the garage. I had a couple of thoughts. What kind of hospital buys all of its surgical tools at the local Ace Hardware Store? And I’ll bet this is one way of helping keep medical expenses down. Maybe if all the hospitals in the country swapped out all their high-tech machines and shopped at Ace Hardware or Home Depot maybe medical costs in this country wouldn’t be so out of control.
So, Delbert approaches me with the wire cutters. I’m thinking that the doctor would actually make the cut and as Delbert gets closer and closer to my finger, I realize that the doctor is just going to watch as the janitor cuts off my finger. I start to panic. Delbert is coming at the remains of the fly from the side and I realize that there is no way he can keep from cutting my finger from that angle. So, I calmly suggest that maybe if he came over the top, he would have a better angle. He thought that might be true and came at it from the angle I suggested. I’m looking at the doctor thinking that maybe she would step in and assist but she wasn’t paying any attention. As Delbert brought the Ace Hardware wire cutters closer, I realized that he was holding them backwards and wouldn’t be able to see what he was doing so with my other hand I reached up to stop him and suggested that if he turned the tool around, he could actually see to make the cut. I suggested that he try to make the cut right where the feather came out of the wire windings because that would leave a little bit of wire with which the doctor could push the shaft of the hook on through. Delbert made the cut right next to the skin leaving no shaft left with which the doctor could do as I suggested.
The doctor then took a look at Delbert’s handiwork and said, “There’s nothing left of the shank. Now what are we going to do?” I suggested that she was probably going to have to make a small incision and pull it out. She thought that was a good idea and asked Delbert to go get a scalpel. Delbert left and came back with an exacto knife just like you would use for crafts. No kidding. This “scalpel” could have been purchased at the local crafts shop for $5.00. It looked fairly clean and I figured I was going to get some antibiotics and the razor blade looked new and sharp so I thought what the hell, let’s get this hook out of my finger. A couple of small cuts with the razor knife and out came the hook.
The doctor commented that this wasn’t nearly as bad as the guy who came in the week before with a fishing lure with a treble hook stuck through his lip. I couldn’t help but wonder what was left of the poor guy’s face after Delbert had taken the pliers to it. The good doctor gave me some antibiotics and off Linda and I went to have a beer and burger before heading for home. On the way home, we learned the reason the freeway was backed up on Friday was not because of an accident but because a policeman had stopped someone and after he asked the fellow for his license and was walking back to the squad car, the guy stepped out of the car and shot the officer in the back. The policeman wasn’t seriously hurt but the policeman’s partner fired back and the guy who had been pulled over died. The freeway was closed for seven hours while the crime scene was investigated.
That’s the end of my fishing story. The moral of the story is never try to save a sucker. There are probably a few other lessons that could be learned but I’m getting older and I can’t remember.
Husbandry 