Drive - A Memoir 87th Installment
things,
rolled them up in our bed roll and headed into the mountains. Tommy
had told us about a mountain meadow that was several miles up into
the mountains, and had described landmarks to follow to avoid getting
lost. He told us that the Head of West Camas was a few miles above
the meadow. When he mentioned the word ‘lost’ we worried a bit,
but he advised us that going up was away from home and going down was
toward home. The adults in our world didn’t worry about us much,
and for that we were grateful.
We
took off hiking early one frosty morning. We hiked up into the
mountains and were at the tree line by noon where we ate the apples
we’d carried with us. Late in the day we figured we’d covered
about fifteen miles and should have reached the meadow by that time,
unless, of course, we’d taken the wrong mountain ridge. This led to
an agonizing discussion on which way we should go. Ultimately, we
decided that ‘freaking out’ in the direction we were going was
superior to ‘freaking out’ in the direction where we’d been. To
our great relief, a few miles later, we broke through the trees into
the prettiest meadow anyone could imagine. We knew it was the right
place because of the small lake nestled near the middle. Here, we
agreed, would be a perfect place to set up camp.
It
would be dark in an hour or two so we decided to catch a fish to
cook. We had brought a small fishing reel and a couple of hooks but
no pole because nobody wanted to carry a fishing pole. We snelled the
hook to the line and then realized we didn’t have sinkers to add
weight, so we couldn’t fling the line out very far. After tossing
it only a few feet several times, we knew we wouldn’t catch
anything in the six inches of water by the bank. If we waded out, we
wouldn’t catch anything either; the fish would scatter mainly
because fish are not that stupid, or they’d be extinct. “I have a
great idea,” Russ finally announced. “One of us will walk the
hook and bait around the small lake while someone else holds tension
on the reel.”
“All
right, I’ll give you that one,” I reluctantly agreed. It was hard
to give Russ credit for anything. Amazingly, there was enough line in
the reel, and Russell walked around and dropped the hook, line and no
sinker in the water. I started to reel it in slowly. First try – we
caught nothing. Neil took the hike around the second time. Second try
– we lost the hook to a snag reeling it back. Don took the baited
hook around. Third try – we lost it to a snag plus most of our
line. No fish fry tonight. Sarcasm about catching stupid fish was the
500 more words tomorrow
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