Attribution: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Midwest Region, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, is with the keeper this morning as he says “Oh, to hell with it, let’s go fishing!”
The time is many years ago as the keeper and trout fishing companion John Lawton suspend evening fishing plans when John’s car suddenly has two flat tires at the end of a backroad trail. Walking out to get help, the keeper stumbled over a sharpened steel file that had been driven into the tire track to make a very effective tire trap.
It was obviously the work of the nearby farmer who threw rocks at us whenever we wade fished the stream behind his cow yard.
There followed a long night of begging transportation help from another friendlier farmer, a morning of John tire shopping and many subsequent occasions of breaking out the brandy bottle to drink to that GD farmer who ruined what would certainly have been a hot fishing night during the mayfly hatch.
When the keeper tells the story to Phyllis-and he does, perhaps more often than he realizes, she looks up from her book and nods.
It is enough, as the keeper reenacts that part involving a brandy toast to the rock-throwing farmer.
