trout fishing in america
About 1980 I picked up two good old boys hitching into Tyee Grocery, which was Ted and Ellen Snowdens’ back then. Part store, part junkyard, part tow truck outfit, part well drilling, part gas station. Looked like an Ozark shopping mall run by Ma and Pa Kettle. These two gentlemen were hitch-hiking in the middle of nowhere, drunk as purple skunks in the afternoon, so naturally I was curious where they’d come from, them being neighbors and all, so I offered to take them back home after they’d purchased their groceries for supper.
Supper, it turned out, was some crackers and a big can of tomato juice they’d mistook for tomato soup. And a couple quarts of their fortified favorite wine, Thunderbird, their drink of choice. I kindly declined their dinner invitation, but I WAS interested in seeing where they lived, which was back in the boonies I’d never been, a nice little cabin they’d trashed up nicely sitting on a half acre trout pond like you’d see on a picture postcard. Turned out they netted the trout and smoked the fish and sold them down at the Pike Street Market for a small fortune.
Well, finally they got to arguing about the ruined dinner menu, what with the big can of soup being juice, and who was to blame –so I said I got to go now, boys. They said stop by any time and fish all you want and I said thank you kindly, I might just do that.
Course it being the only fishing hole on the entire South End, I was back there, pole in hand, two days later as soon as I knew they’d gone back home to Seattle and Gomorrah. Had three two pounders in no time flat, dinner for Ma and me. For awhile I thought I had a gold mine.
But I kept noticing nasty notes on the door of their cabin from creditors and ex-spouses and aggrieved parties and folks who just plain didn’t like the trout ranchers, folks who’d come all the way to the hollers of the South End looking for money or revenge or Lord knows what from these boys, and one day I noticed somebody had stuffed garbage in the wood smoker and let it rot, not a good sign for making flavorful smoked fish. And that was when the fish were gone, netted up, I figure, on one last drunken weekend.
Every once in awhile I’d go back, hoping the trout might reappear, but of course, like a lot of our fishing around here, it never rebounded. Still, I can say with some pride, I’m the only fisherman you’ll meet who ever caught a trout on the South End.
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