“IT MUST BE nice to be a fishing guide.” If I had a dollar for every time I heard this, there is no way I would waste my time being a wilderness gossip columnist.
In fact, the life of a fishing guide is the best way I know to die broke and alone.
Here in Washington, guides get blamed for everything, like, catching fish.
That can cause a lot of hard feelings among the majority of anglers who don’t catch anything, but guides get skunked, too. We just don’t give up.
Over the years, many young people have asked me how you go about being a fishing guide in Washington, to which I respond, “Go to Alaska.”
The other question I get asked a lot is, “What was your worst trip?”
Here goes.
Fish, like most critters, including humans, are creatures of habit.
If you find them in a certain place at a certain time, they are probably there for a reason, and chances are you’ll find them there again on any given day.
I had a spot like that just above a log jam where, if you weren’t careful, the river would suck you right into the logs and smash your boat like a banana in a blender.
We knew that because, just downstream, the remains of a boat lay strewn upon the beach where it washed up after going through the log jam.
Miraculously, no one died.
The fish were laying just above this deadly log jam.
We hooked a fish. It headed downstream right into the log jam, but just at the last minute, I was able to net it.
By that time, we were being swept into the logs.
I handed the net to the guy in the front and told him to leave the fish in the river.
As long as the fish remains in the water, it will remain calm. But no, the guy had to lift the fish out of the water, which was not only illegal, it caused the fish to thrash like a wild thing.
The guy on the net was jerking the net back and forth, trying to battle the fish into the boat or just lift it up for no apparent reason.
It was a long-handled net, which meant the butt of the handle came back and hit me in the face every time the guy jerked on it.
The first shot hit me right between the eyes. I saw stars, which was bad enough, but he wouldn’t stop saying, “That’s the biggest fish I ever hooked!”
Which is what every guide lives for, but I was rowing my guts out, trying to get us out of the log jam while he’s whacking me in the head with the butt end of the net handle, while I’m hollering at him to stop.
He obviously didn’t hear me.
We narrowly escaped the log jam by ducking into a side channel where we had to drag the boat down what has to be the dirtiest French word I know, “Portage.”
By this time, my face was hamburger with a couple of shiners and a split lip.
That night at the guide’s safety meeting, they wanted to know what happened. I couldn’t admit I got sucker punched by a client. I had to think of something.
I told them I went on a date with Bigfoot. It was, after all, the day after Valentines Day and, as they say out West, the odds are good but the goods are odd.
The guys believed me, but she doesn’t write. She doesn’t call.
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Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here every Wednesday.
He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com.
