Photo by Tina Huffman

To Kill or Not to Kill

By

Bamboo Bill

My mother sat me down one day and told me in no uncertain terms, “You are not poor” she said, “You will always have a roof over your head, clothes to wear and food to eat”. Somehow at 8 years of age it kind of made sense. But I still did not have a Red Rider BB gun. Our priorities change as we get older.

There was a time in my life that I was living strictly off the frog green dollars poring in from some franchises I owned and making a bamboo rod now and then. All was fine in paradise. Living the single life with some romance along the way and a lot of camping and fishing to be had seemed Idyllic. Then franchise owners realized that they could stop paying me and I could not afford to hire a lawyer to force them too. The kind of thing that can happen when you place fishing at the top of your list of things to do. So now and then I found myself out on the limb living day by day hoping for the best. I admit in a left handed kind of way it seemed normal.

I was up in the high country camping out waiting for a customer to show up and pay me the final down payment on a rod. Like a fool I had actually sent the rod to him believing he would pay me the final installment and he said meeting him at one of our favorite high country lakes would be the perfect place for him to deliver me the green backs. It seemed like a good idea. Getting paid and fly fishing up in the high country was just alright by me. The type of poetry that a fisherman finds inviting.

I had left Denver with a tank of gas in my truck and $20 in my pocket and no other funds. I drove the six hours to the lake and had to buy more gas leaving me ten bucks to my name. I had already traded some radio gear to a guy I was renting a room from down in Denver. One of the three franchisees had recently closed up in the middle of the night. I never saw that last payment. Such is life…after all I had two others that were solvent, so I wasn’t all that worried. But I should have been.

I had pretty much eaten all my rations that I kept in my camper the past couple of weeks and was down to half a loaf of bread and part of a jar of peanut butter and one can of Dinty More stew.

I arrived at the lake on time with a couple of hours left before night fall so I headed out to the lake for the evening rise. I caught a fair number of cutthroats and released them all. I kept listening for the guy I was suppose to meet…he drove and old GMC four wheel drive pickup that had a bad muffler that you could hear a half a mile off.

The sun dipped below the ridgeline with the typical summer night chill in the air so I headed back to the camper and made a pot of coffee. That night I ate the entire can of dint more stew. The next morning I ate a peanut butter sandwich and hung around the camper a little longer than I wanted. I was waiting for my friend who owed me money. He did not show so I thought I might as well fish some more. I managed to catch half dozen meaty cutthroats that were cruising the shore line. I released them all. I kept an ear out for the old GMC however I was the only one at the lake and it was deadening silent.

That night I finished off the last peanut butter and bread and still felt a little hungry. I still had coffee so not all was lost. Surely his old pickup broke down and he would drag in late in the night. He had always shown up for these outings before.

The next day I woke up and made coffee but the coffee did not fix that gut hungry feeling I had. I fished again but grew weak and headed back to the camper and slept most of the afternoon. I wondered what I was going to do if he did not show…I did not have enough money for gas to get back to Denver. It was not looking good. It is at these times in life you wished you had the companionship of a good old dog.

Late that evening he showed up looking like death worn over. He was one sad looking dude. I was one sad looking guy not to mention a hungry one when he handed me the rod I had made him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ten dollar bill and sheepishly handed it to me. I said, “You got any food?” With a stoic expression on his face he said nope and mentioned he had fed what he had to his dog Charlie. He told me about his girl friend taking the $500 dollars he had saved to pay me with. Seemed she had left with a good friend of his. I made a pot of coffee and we talked late into the night and played cribbage.

The next morning he took off, we shook hands and I wished him luck and told him to blow off the girl friend and not to go looking for the both of them. My friend is the type of mild mannered guy that might just pull out his 44 and blow the both of them away. Anyhow he left and I finished my cup of coffee while listening to the rumble of his truck as he disappeared down the dirt road that led up to the truck. I wondered who was in the worst predicament he or I.

I grabbed up my fly rod, headed to the lake and hooked into another nice cutthroat. Out of reflex I released him and watched him sink into the deep water out of sight. About that time I got one of those hunger pains that bend you right over. When I straightened back up I saw a nice rise about thirty feet off shore so I cast my fly out to the spot. I was into a heavy fish and he fought very hard. It was during that fight that I realized I wanted to catch this fish because I was hungry. In fact I even felt a bit guilty when I broke his neck and carried him back to the camper. It had been a long time sense I had killed an animal for food.

I cooked him in some butter and sure was glad that I had been able to catch him. This served as a reality check. After all catching and releasing trout one hundred percent of the time had removed a portion of the truth, the truth being that fishing is a blood sport. In some way catching and releasing a trout is a bit perverted but becomes a necessary behavior if you want to conserve the trout population especially in a small stream. I admit it actually feels good to watch a trout wiggle away into the dark water….odds are he will live another day. It becomes all most a religion to many fly fishermen to practice catch and release. They often look down upon the fisherman who keeps a trout. Most of them are snobs that probably have never been hungry.

However, I remember that time in my life when I was truly hungry and almost without the means to survive. I never will forget those trout that I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Today when I see another fisherman with a few trout on a stringer it pains me for a second then I think to myself, he might be broke, just lost his job, living out of his truck and the best thing that God has to offer him at that point in his life is a few fish that will keep alive for another day with hope that things will improve over time. Without hope what else is there?