Fishing Trips Gone Bad

Many moons ago two fishermen set off to a secluded high mountain lake to fish for the fabled monster rainbow trout this lake was stocked with. Opening day on the lake was to arrive in two days. So the gear was packed away in the truck in anticipation of what was to come. Sleep was hard to come by that night as my heart was racing and I was jacked up for these trout I heard stories of. So we caught a few hours sleep and we were off a little later then we had hoped to be. We arrived in the parking lot and unpacked the gear from the truck; there were lots of fluids loaded into the backpacks for the long hike ahead.

This was our first time hiking to this tranquil location so we were not quite sure which direction to go. We were lucky to come across another hiker along our journey and she pointed us in the right direction. After another thirty minutes we had finally arrived. We could see the water through the tree line and we almost flew down the steep path to the shoreline. At last we were there, WOW what a place indeed and not another soul fishing the lake. This was it, this is what we had waited weeks for. Before we could tie our lures onto the line, a monster rainbow slowly swam by us. Talk about being revved up! Those fish were getting the best of us for the first hour and then Tom hooked up; a sweet rainbow was landed and released. Then it was my turn not so many minutes later. Yeah baby this is the life.

We fished all day long walking around the lake at least three or four times. Many fish were hooked up with a variety of spinners and buzz bombs. It was starting to get to the point where we needed to leave as it was a forty five minute hike back out and I told Tom, “time to shut it down”. Tom never likes to leave a prime fishing hole even when the fishing is slow. Not a chance was Tom going to budge; he kept saying “just one more fish, one more fish”. I knew the window of sunlight was going to close very soon so I clipped the hook off my line and put it away into the back pack. I made sure everything was secured in the pack and swung it over my shoulders to head out. There was Tom still casting away like we just got there. I yelled again “HEY, let’s go now”. He finally packed it in and we hiked up the hill back towards the path we came in on. By this time the sun was getting ready to set and we picked up the pace to make it back to the truck before dark.

We walked and walked until we hit the cross road in the paths. There was three ways to go and in the day time I am sure we would have taken the right path, but it was almost dark now and we took the wrong path out. We walked and I wanted to turn back but Tom insisted we stay on the path we were on, as he was confident that we were in fact not lost. We finally arrived on a road, what road we had no idea bit it was a welcomed site as it was now pitch black. We watched a car drive past us and I tried to wave it over to ask for directions but it never stopped. This was actually a good thing we saw a car as we now knew which way to walk. We figured the car was not coming into the area, it was leaving. I know fishermen are so smart! We saw another vehicle coming towards us and this time we stood smack dab in the middle of the road, you know so we could ask the driver if in fact we were walking the right way. He said we were going the right way and offered us a ride in the back of his truck box. We gladly accepted and jumped in. He drove us to Tom’s truck a short way down the road. We thanked him for helping us out and grabbed our gear out of his truck. Tom reached into his pocket for his keys and his jaw dropped wide open as he franticly searched for his keys. I knew he was not joking by the look on his face and he said something like “I F$#k’in left my keys on the shoreline”. “You got to be joking” I replied. “No I’m serious; my line clippers are attached to my keys. When I changed lures I clipped my line and I must have left them on the shore”. Now what!!!

I ran over to the truck to ask if we could catch a ride back into Calgary as we were now stranded in Kananaskis country with no ride. He was kind enough to do so and was nice enough to drop Tom and I at my house. “WOW what a day” I said to Tom as we walked through my door. Tom’s reply was “at least we have a reason to go fishing tomorrow” as we laughed at ourselves. Tom was concerned about someone picking his keys up and driving his truck home. We woke up early the next morning and drove back out to Kananaskis country to retrieve the keys to the truck and catch some more trout’s. As we rolled into the parking lot at dusk, we started to unpack the backpacks and fishing rods for another hike. I searched my car for my fishing rod but it was not to be found. I left it leaning on my house! HOLY CRAP what a start to this day.

We made it to the lake and low and behold there were Tom’s keys. Tom was relieved he had found his keys before someone else. I was choked that my rod was back in the driveway as Tom’s lure went outward into the still lake. Tom was kind enough to share his fishing rod and I made a few casts myself. We were so bagged from the hikes and the non-stop fishing; we packed it in after an hour and walked back to our vehicles. That my friend’s is the definition of a fishing trip gone bad! If you have a story of a fishing trip gone bad, I will be happy to post your story on the Blog.