A man and his teenage son
decide to spend a glorious
spring day fly fishing at the
waters below the local dam.
Unfortunately, every other man,
woman and child in town know
it is the season opener for fly
fishing on the river and people
line up three deep below the dam
casting over, under and around
each other to get their flies in
the water. The man’s son can’t
ever get in a cast and he loses
his prized baseball cap to others’
casts snagging it and lifting it
off his head and slamming it against
the dam. The man, feeling sorry
for his son, says that he has a
pun to lift his son’s spirits:
Two fish swim into a concrete wall.
One turns to the other and says
“Dam!” The teenager just drops
his rod, turns and walks back
to the car. The man thinks to
himself, I thought that was
pretty funny.
Although I wouldn’t have dropped my rod, I too would have walked back to the car, even before getting into the water. Nothing about combat fishing ever appealed to me. Fly-fishing is all about solitude, becoming one with a fine rod, the water, wind, the great outdoors – and maybe, once in a while…a nice trout.