Fishing Stories and Tall Tales

[Gavin H]

I grew up around Port Dalhousie and was pretty much raised by an eclectic group of fisherman including Ted Rooker, the last commercial fisherman in those parts. It was a great way to grow up and memories such as this, and dozens more, have enriched my life tremendously. Hope you enjoy reading it. If so, let me know and I'll send part 2. Cheers, Gavin

An excerpt

STANLEY by Gavin Houston

As with many of the important events that happen in the course of one’s life, I remember the moment I met Stanley as if it were yesterday. I was walking towards the bait shop to have a cup of coffee and listen to a few yarns from my collection of retired cronies, as per my usual routine. It was a gray day but warm, the spring melt well underway with only a few dirty drifts still lingering where the wind and plows had pushed it up. As I got closer to the shop I could see that no one was there yet, based on the absence of cars and trucks, but I did observe a lone fisherman on the opposite side of the harbour. As I had been enjoying my walk, and the clouds were not threatening, I decided to cross the bridge and pay a visit to the fellow standing near his car and watching his rod.
The first thing that caught my attention, as I got closer, was the car. It was a faded, red Duster, circa 1970ish, and appeared to be held together with duct tape that had been spray painted a faded red to match the car. I noticed that the back tires were old snow tires two sizes too big and the front tires were smaller and nearly absent of tread. The windows were dirty and pitted and looked almost opaque. The rear bumper was secured with wire as was the driver’s side mirror, along with more tape. As I came up from behind, the driver’s door suddenly opened with a screech of metal on metal, and from the gloomy interior emerged one of the most extraordinary looking people I had ever seen. He had been watching his rod from the warmth of his car and was getting out to check on his line, and, as he was unaware of my presence, I had a moment to observe him unabashedly.
A pair of rubber Wellington boots stuck out first, and when the owner hoisted himself upright, it was as if a garden gnome had come to life. He was short and round, built along the lines of a snowman. He wore a dirty, hand-made toque from which wisps of white hair stuck out in an un-orderly manner. His faded blue-jeans came halfway to his chest, stopping at his widest point, held in place with a pair of wide, rainbow-colored suspenders. Next was a knitted cardigan that wrapped tightly around his circular form with only one stretched button holding it together as pretence of a good fit. Over this ensemble was a well-worn navy parka that had duct tape over several tears with whitish fluff bulging out from a torn patch on one sleeve. The parka was un-zipped as it would have been impossible to do up around his girth. His face was extraordinary. It was like looking at a Christmas ornament, a caricature of Santa, with a round, red nose and two red apples for cheeks, framed in by a white, short, scruffy beard. He had pale blue eyes that looked kind of sad, or lonely, and were sunken in the fleshy pink around the sockets. Then our eyes met, and as he registered my smile, his eyes lit up, as did his entire face, and he greeted me with a loud “Hello there young man.” His voice was almost theatrical and his English accent was crisp. I was completely captivated by him. I just knew he was going to be an excellent addition to my current collection of characters, oddballs and misfits at the bait shop. The guys were going to love him. And they did.
As it turned out, and much to our delight, our short, fat gnome was a retired circus performer, an animal trainer who specialized in chimpanzees, lions and dancing horses and bears. He was a fantastic story teller, forever regaling us about some fascinating incident, big fish that got away, or some new lure he had discovered. With arms waving and voice booming he would perform a pantomime for his captivated crowd. The thing was, try as he might, Stanley was a terrible fisherman. One memorable day we convinced him to join us on a short ice-fishing excursion to the frozen surface of a marina off the Niagara River. As most of us were catching perch in fairly large numbers, Stanley couldn’t catch a thing. He was surrounded by the rest of us and using the same bait but, for whatever reason, the fish avoided his offerings. Every once in a while someone would hook a large rainbow trout that had moved in from the main river and it added a sense of excitement. But Stanley sat there on his inverted pail and cursed his luck. Then, during a lull in the action, Stanley suddenly jumped up with a yell, his rod doubled over with the weight of his catch. As was the usual practice, I knelt and stuck my hand down the hole to grab the trout under the gill and slide it on the ice, but when I grabbed Stanley’s fish, it felt strange, almost mushy, and I sat back quickly on my haunches just as a diving duck, an Oldsquaw, flew out of the hole and flapped around at the end of Stanley’s rod. This was Stanley’s luck. If something odd were to happen, it always happened to him. The rest of us could barely stand up we were so overcome with mirth watching the round elf subdue his prize. Afterwards it took us some considerable time to get him to let the frightened duck go. His trainer instincts had kicked in and he was determined, at first, to keep it as a pet. We soon headed home dragging with us a miserable Stanley, fishless and duckless.
This was life with Stanley. He was a happy elf that oozed character and we all loved him dearly as we waited to see what would happen next. Then, one day, he performed a miracle.

It was August- hot, humid and stifling as only Southern Ontarians can appreciate. Most of us were hanging around at the harbour to catch faint wisps of breeze off the water and avoid any physical activity. There were a few of us sitting at a picnic table under a shade tree near the water when we heard the distant rumble of Stanley’s car and saw the blue smoke that followed it everywhere. He pulled up nearby and was already bellowing to us as he struggled from behind the wheel. He popped his trunk and removed his rod and, waving it like a magic wand, proclaimed:

“Gentlemen, you are not going to believe your eyes” he said using his performers’ voice, obviously in fine form and enjoying himself immensely. “I have before you the greatest fishing invention there ever was. As you will see, this is one of man’s greatest achievements that will revolutionize fishing as you know it”.
It was as if he were trying to sell us some magical cure from a horse drawn carriage in the latter part of the eighteen hundreds. His voice carried and with a flourish of arms and waddling gait, he sailed passed us to the edge of the wharf at a point between two tied up boats.
“Gather around gentlemen and feast your eyes on this little beauty, the likes of which you have never seen before”. As instructed, we eagerly gathered around him. Once his audience was in place and he knew he had our undivided attention, he said “I give you, the Mister Twister!”

At this point he released the lure he had hidden in his hand and it swung out to dangle six feet below his rod on the black Dacron fishing line he was so fond of. It dangled a few inches above the surface of the water, a three inch rubber grub on a yellow jig head, its classic curved tail vibrating seductively. There wasn’t a person in the group who didn’t have a minimum of fifty of these things in his fishing gear in a multitude of colors and sizes. We had fished with them for years, but to Stanley, they were a new discovery. He described how he had found them and tested them in the tub at home and that it was just like having a real minnow on the line. He then lowered his rod so that the lure was a few inches under the surface so we could “see the action.”
If Stanley had lowered the lure any further it would have disappeared from site as the water was thick with silt. It was a dirty brown, the color of coffee with a little cream added. The water was also warm, in the mid 70’s range, both conditions ideal for catfish, carp and drum. A rainbow trout should have been dead in that turbid, warm water, therefore, if we hadn’t seen it with our own eyes; we would never have believed it. The trout came out of the gloom like a rocket and detonated on Stanley’s yellow lure. It hooked itself and tried to continue on its way as we all stood in complete disbelief. No one was more surprised than Stanley and when he felt the pull on his rod, his immediate reaction was to pull back. With his stiff rod and only a few feet of black line out, there was very little give, and with the fish only inches under the surface, it was yanked clear. The hapless fish sailed over our heads in a twelve foot arc and landed in the grass behind us. The surprised fish lay still for a moment but then began to leap about and dislodged the hook. It was at this point that our stupefied trance was broken and I pounced on the fish before it flipped back in. The excited Stanley nearly knocked me flat in an effort to hold his fish and, once I handed it to him, he clutched it in his hands like it was The Holy Grail. His eyes were bulging and his breathing was loud and erratic. As if in slow motion, he straightened himself up and turned, wide eyed, to show his catch to the others. It was a beautiful trout. It weighed about two pounds and looked clean and healthy, like it belonged on the cover of a fly-fishing magazine. It was one of the most beautiful rainbow trout I had ever seen. We all looked at that lovely fish in pure disbelief, not one person making a sound. We looked at each other, as we stood there open mouthed, then back at Stanley. And there he stood, our short, round, elf. Eyes bulging, lips parted, fish clutched tightly in his gnarled old hands, white hair sticking out in all directions, his rainbow suspenders holding up his faded jeans tucked inside his rubber boots, and looking very much like he was in shock. We all erupted in simultaneous cheer.
Stanley, finally, caught a fish!
Now this story is true to a word, you can’t make this stuff up. So unbelievable was the event of Stanley’s miracle fish that the guys and I decided to mark the occasion with a special memento for our famous fisherman, which nearly led to his death.
But… that’s for another rainy day