For those of you who don't follow baseball, the Pirates have been the worst team in all of professional sports for the last twenty years. All that's changed this year & they are in line to go to the playoffs & maybe even win their division for the first time in two decades. For a fan like me that had to endure all those years of lousy baseball, this year is awesome.
So why the heck am I talking about baseball here on a fly fishing website? Well, I was talking to a fishing buddy the other day about the Pirates & it recalled a funny fishing story that involves the Pirates:
I was out on the trout stream one spring afternoon several years ago, enjoying a peaceful day. I had seen only a few other anglers & had the creek mostly to myself. I was working my way downstream through a very long stretch of stream that flowed through a wooded area & that dumped out into a very large pool along an opening in the woods.
I heard them before I saw them......two guys talking rather loudly & what sounded like a baseball game on a radio. As I approached the clearing, sure enough, there were two gentlemen sitting in lawn chairs with a cooler of beer & a radio between them. They were "trout fishing" & carrying on a conversation while drinking beer & listening to a Pirates game on the radio. As I approached, they never heard or saw me because they were talking & staring intently at their bobbers floating in the water.
Not wanting to appear like a creepy guy who just walked out of the woods, I announced my presence by saying hello to them. The one gentleman replies to me in a booming voice, "What ya say?", to which the other guy tells him (in just as loud a voice) "He's saying hello to us, ya deaf idiot". They then both greeted me back & we began to have a short conversation which was actually the three of us yelling at each other over the stream (we must have been heard for miles away). It dawned on me that both of these guys were actually hard of hearing & with the game turned up loud enough for them to hear it, talking to them would involve a lot of yelling. So in an attempt to wind our conversation down, I pointed to their bobbers & asked them, "doing any good?" to which the first gentleman replied, "nah, their loosing 8 to 2 in the bottom of the 8th"!!!!
Now I listen to as many games as I can on the radio, but not when I'm along a trout stream. Don't get me wrong, I'm not above listening to a ball game while fishing - as long as it's late at night with the ballgame on quietly, usually while I'm trying to catch catfish by lantern light on a muggy summer evening. I've never associated trout fishing with listening to the radio. But who am I to judge? As long as we can enjoy the sport without interrupting anyone else's enjoyment, I say to each their own - even if it involves more beer & baseball than fish!!