Damn Tourists

I had looked forward to my fourteenth birthday the entire year because it fell on the first day of trout fishing season. Marc, my best friend, and I had made big plans; I was all set to spend the night at his house, which was closer to the creek, so we could wake up before dawn and go to out to our favorite place. "The rock" was a huge rock that jutted out into the creek creating a type of pier perfect for fishing. Each afternoon through the spring we would meet at the rock after school and feed the trout with bread crumbs. We'd toss the crumbs and watch the water boil with fish as we dreamt of catching the big ones.

Local laws said we could only fly fish in the public waters, so we also spent a lot of time tying some special flies. Where most fishermen will tie the flies to look like the small flying bugs that would fall into the water, we had a different plan. Since all the big fish swimming around the rock he gotten used to a steady diet of bread, we tied a handful of ties so they would look like pieces of bread floating on the water.

Now we had never tied flies before, so just in case our flies didn't work, I had asked my mother for some tied by some experts at Lim's Sporting Goods store. The store was run by the son of a local doctor and sold the special flies tied by the doctor in his spare time. He had an assortment of flies which, when they hit the water, they looked just like the many insects we always saw floating on the current.

Anyway, the day before my birthday, I packed up some clothes, my fishing gear, my homemade special flies and the flies my mom had given me for my birthday and I headed over to Marc's house. Well after a nice dinner and a taste of surprise birthday cake we went to be early and set the alarm for four-thirty A.M. Excited about the next day and hyped up on the sugar from the cake, we then proceeded to talk and chatter until well past eleven P.M.

Well, at four-thirty the alarm went off and we stumbled and moan, getting ready to head out. Finally dressed and loaded down with fishing gear, Marc and I walked into the darkness heading for our spot. When we got near the creek we were shocked! The dirt road was lined bumper to bumper with cars of people waiting for sunrise so they could fish. Looking at all the license plates it looked like all the people were from out of town.

"Marc, they stole our spot. They took 'the rock'," I complained, looking at the scores of fishermen preparing to run down to the creek.

"Damn tourist," he muttered, "they just sneaked in here and stole our spot."

"Hell, they're all over the place, we're not even going to find a spot here."

Dejectedly, we walked upstream into the woods following the familiar paths we often played on in our younger years. They were still there, fishermen standing in the water, looking at their watches, waiting for sunrise. Finally, after walking into the trees we found an open area several miles away from where we started.

We adjusted our hip boots, latching them tightly around our belts and pulled out our gear. We knew these fish would not be interested in our flies that looked like bread, so we took the special ties off and tore into the ones my mom had given me. We tied them on our rods and waded out into the water. With the long walk and the time it took us to replace the flies, the sun had already risen and people had been fishing for about thirty minutes before we made our first cast.

Even though we missed "the rock", our new "spot" wasn't too bad. There were some low tree branches that made casting difficult, but after a while we got the hang of swinging rods side to side. We had to get our timing down between us so we didn't tangle our lines together, but after a while we looked like pros. Throughout, the day, we found that Lim's flies worked very well. Marc caught two fish and I caught three. Although disappointed, we didn't catch our limit of six trout, we were happy we at least caught a few.

"You know, in spite of those tourists stealing our spot, we're gonna be eating trout tonight," I said, swaying my rod from side to side.

"They better not have taken any of the big ones... there were some there that could win the contest this year," he said, reeling in his line for the last time that day.

We headed out a little early, wanting to find out how good the people did at our spot. Instead of carrying our trout in a bucket, we both hooked our fingers through the gills and carried them so everyone could see. They were our trophies for the day.

Walking back we passed several of the fishermen who had "stolen" our spot. They were walking back to their cars empty handed. Passing them, we made sure they saw our fish.

One of the men said to us, "Nice catch, where did you get them."

"Oh back in the woods a few miles. That's where all the good fish are," he said, kicking my leg as he spoke. He continued, "Didn't you catch anything?"

"Nah," they complained "someone's been feeding these fish. They wouldn't take the flies."

"Now that's a damn shame," I said, as Marc nearly choked trying not to laugh. "A damn shame," I repeated.

As we walked away, Marc whispered just loud enough for the fishermen to hear us, "Serves them right, damn tourists."

"Yeah, damn tourists" I replied.