The Myth of the Fishing Buddy.
©2006 by Tom Chandler
Fishing Buddies: real friends, or simply Evil Lackeys of Hell?
In the largely fictional universe of fly fishing literature, the "Fishing Buddy" occupies a lofty perch; he possesses the loyalty of an uncommonly stupid Black Lab and the generosity of a drunk lottery winner.
Of course, the reality is radically different. Grim experience suggests a fishing buddy maintains the pretense of friendship, but at the first hint of blood – like any barely domesticated wild animal – you can expect them to turn on you.
I recently spent two weeks in the warm embrace of the death flu, coughing up first one lung and then the other, distracted only by the sensation of individual air molecules bouncing off my skin.
My fishing buddies didn't so much rise to the occasion as they did sink to it, calling repeatedly from the river, the lakes -- even a restaurant where beer was being consumed – to rub my red, chapped nose in the fact that they were having fun while I interacted with my environment primarily via Kleenex. Dave Roberts expertly timed his calls to coincide with hookups on the Upper Rogue's Holy Water, and to cement the effect, he fished his Hardy Princess (my neighbors could hear the fish running).
Dave always said cell phones were yuppie-spawned tools of the devil -- until he and my other friends discovered they could call from the river to taunt sick, deskbound and dying friends. Now they all possess powerful phones and unlimited calling plans.
Bamboo rod builder Chris Raine called several times per week to alert me to a killer vintage rod had that had just arrived, or that a brand-new hollowbuilt was ready to cast, always ending the sentence with "It's one of a kind, too bad you can't make it down to try it." Even my Montana "buddy" Sully couldn't resist the urge, piling on with an e-mailed picture of his friend struggling to land a battleship-sized rainbow with a similar specimen already in the net.
These, by the way, are the same people who call me when they feel they've been portrayed in something less than a Olympian terms in my uppersac.com fishing reports. Loyalty and generosity?! Sociopathic crocodiles have more.
Clearly, I need more female friends.
Still, my flu-driven Brush With Death wasn't entirely without compensation. I spent my downtime compiling a fecal roster of fishing buddies -- buddies who would be receiving “Thank You” cards that I had sneezed on. Perhaps they'll enjoy a few weeks as "special" as mine.
On the off chance it works, I'm charging my cell phone.
