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Let me say this about that.

Anybody who knows me knows that I love to go fishing.  There is something intrinsically magnificent about a sport in which one can participate while drinking a beer.  After all, I am a guy and I am an American.  However, it has only been recently that I have taken up ‘fly fishing’.  Fly fishing, I have learned, is a lot like golf.  In other words, it requires very expensive equipment, it requires that you get up at the crack of dawn, it’s nearly impossible to master, and requires that you learn an entirely new repertoire of four-letter expletives.

Recently, my cousin invited me to go fly fishing for rainbow trout in a cold mountain river near a cabin he has in western North Carolina.  I was very excited to learn the intricacies of this new sport from a professional guide my cousin had arranged.

We arrived at the river at ’0-dark-thirty’ where we met the guide.  The guide immediately suggested that we…    “dress-out” and handed me a pair of rubber pants.  Rubber pants.  Now, I have not worn rubber pants since I was a toddler – unless you count that time at the sorority houseparty during my college days when the girls served some of their “special” brownies.  You can hardly count this time since I would have never even recalled the incident – save for the pictures.  But, I digress.

So, I put on the rubber pants and wade out into the river.  The guide informs me that I will be fishing with a special lure called a “Black Woolly-Booger.”

Shambo:  “Whoa there now,  Ranger Rick.  The mental image of a Black Woolly Booger is almost more that I can stomach.  I mean, watching a fish eat a booger is bad enough without feeding them one with hair on it.”

Guide:  “No problem.  Would you rather have a green one?”

Shambo:  “A GREEN Woolly Booger?  I’m gonna hurl!”

So, I’m fishing away and not catching diddly-squat, while my cousin, 100 yards upstream, is catching fish like he is the Pied Piper of Trout .  I call the guide over and ask for help.

Guide:  “Don’t look like the trout find the Woolly Boogers too appetizing this morning.”

Shambo:  “Ya think?”

Guide:  “Your cousin seems to be doing OK, but he has a ‘dry fly’. “

Shambo:  “Ain’t gonna be dry too much longer if he keeps drinking beer like that.”

Guide:  “Let’s try another lure.  This is a new fly I just tied this morning.  It’s called a ‘Horse Hair Scrotum Scratcher’.  Go ahead and try it.”

Shambo:  ” I will do no such thing!  There’s a Boy Scout camp a mile upstream.  What if one of those guys comes floating down the river and catches me using that thing?”

Guide:  “OK, OK, forget it.  I have another lure I developed myself.  I call it the ‘Bangkok Night Crawler’.”

Shambo:  “Whoa, been there – done that.  But I had a bad experience and swore I’d never try it again.”

Guide:  “Perhaps you should take up bowling.”

True, I may never become a great fly fisherman, but I have become fascinated with tying my own flies.  My lastest creation is a masterpiece.  I call this lure the ‘Cracker Whacker Snapper Slapper’.

And, that’s all I have to say about that.

Shambo