For a period of time I was a youth leader for young men in our local church congregation. One of our favorite activities was camping and getting into the outdoors. So, as often as was possible, we would pack up kids and cars and head up into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

On one particular trip we had 4 adult leaders and several kids crammed into 2 Suburbans and we were headed up the mountains to do a little spelunking. Like on most trips, a few of the kids, and one particular leader, had brought their fishing rods in the hopes of catching that nights dinner.

I was driving the trailing vehicle as we wound up a narrow, dirt, mountain road that had a cascading creek running beside it. After driving on this road for about 45 minutes, the truck in front suddenly came to a stop on the side of the road, our adult angler jumped out, grabbed is rod from the back and hopped down the bank to the creek.

Confused, I stopped the car, and went to talk to the driver of the first vehicle. As it turns out, for the previous hour our fishing buddy had been talking up his fishing skills with outlandish claims. No one in the car was buying his stories and were giving him a hard time. Finally, in frustration, our friend told the driver to “stop right now, and I will catch a brook trout in that stream running along the road in 5 casts or less.” So, without any hesitation, they stopped.

We looked down into the creek in time to see him make his first cast. To our amazement, he reeled in what was probably about an 8″ brooky. Thankfully, as he lifted it out of the water, it fell off the line. We insisted that it didn’t count and he had 4 casts left. On his fifth cast he brought in a slightly smaller, but good looking brook trout. He let it go, threw his rod in the truck, and continued to boast all the way to the campsite without anyone else saying another word.

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When I was about 8 years old some family friends offered to take my father and I on a fishing trip to Mirror Lake. They talked a lot about this renown lake and for several years, I thought it was the ONLY Mirror Lake (I’ve since come to learn that there are thousands of “Mirror Lake”).

Mirror Lake was a mountain lake in the High Uintas of Utah. After what seemed like a couple of days of drive (probably no more than an couple of hours), we arrived at the location. Mirror Lake was a relatively small lake surrounded by pines and quaking aspen. There was evidence of beaver activity.

Fairly early on, I cast out and apparently hooked the big one. It was fighting. Another member of our party on the opposite side of this small lake cast out and also hooked something.

While we were both fighting, the “big one” surfaced. The beaver. I had hooked it’s tail, and the other guy had hooked something on it’s head. He wasn’t very happy. He thrashed around a bit and the lines broke.

But Mr. Beaver got even. That day we had caught several fish and left them on a line in the cold lake. We walked to another near by lake planning to come back and clean the fish before heading home. By the time we got there, the fish and line were gone. Since there weren’t any other people up there, we’re pretty sure Mr. Beaver had himself a nice fish dinner of rainbow trout.

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My first fishing experience didn’t happen until I was 11. I was introduced on my first overnight camping trip as a boy scout. We went camping near a mountain lake in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver.

We got up early, got to the lakes edge around sunrise and were fishing away. Being young scouts, most of us didn’t have any of our own gear so our scout leader broke open is tackle box and identified the lures we could use (obviously they were the “its’ okay if I never see them again” lures). A quick instruction about knots and casting and we were off.

Me and another scout, now a Major in the Air Force, had to share one of our leaders old rods. I began. After several casts with nothing to show for it, my leader informed me that one of the reasons he let us use that lure is because it was the one lure in the box he had never caught anything with.

I almost immediately gave up and handed the rod to my buddy, Ty, who was eager to prove to the leader that it’s the fisherman, not the lure that makes the difference. He is so naive, I thought.

Not expecting much, we all turned our attention to other people. But shortly after his first cast, he is jumping around trying to get help with the fish on his line. Unbelievable. One cast and he caught something with a useless lure. Turns our, the lure truly was useless. He had in fact caught a nice lake trout by hooking the gill. Dumb luck.

He was so excited about his success that he quickly got the fish off the hook and onto the stringer and was ready for another cast. He apparently didn’t hear me when I told him to wait. I was standing right behind him.

At first, I just thought some large insect had bounced off my cheek. It wasn’t until Ty started wildly waving the rod around to try and see his line in the water that I realized that it was his lure, still covered with fish guts, and it was connected to my face about 1/2″ below my right eye.

At first it didn’t hurt much, but before long it was throbbing. I don’t know if it was the velocity of the cast, or the waving of the rod, but 2 of the tri-hook prongs were deeply set in my cheek and we were hours away from professional medical help.

My leader and I decided that the best course of action was to have him take the hooks out there at camp and then I could get to a doctor later that evening when the trip was over. No big deal, he thought.

With the barbs and how deep the hooks were implanted, he couldn’t quite figure out a good way to pull the hooks out backwards so he decided to clip the individual hooks off with wire cutters and push the hooks through. I knew I was in trouble when the pain from him just trying to cut the hooks ripped through my face.

Well, after many tears, screaming and some blood, I had 4 nice holes in my face. For about a year and a half afterwords, those four holes served as a reminder every time I looked into the mirror, don’t stand behind the guy with the rod.

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