Halloween with the Rainbow Trout

Halloween 2006 brought a crisp clear morning to the Smoky Mountains . I was at Little River Outfitters, awaiting my guide, Dave Carson. I had hired Dave not so much to guide me to where the fish were on this trip, as to how to fish for them when I found them. I have fly fished for trout in easier waters, and for black bass all over the south. I have taken excursions to the Smokies waters for years on end with not much success. Today I hoped would be a new beginning for me, and a new relationship with the denizens of the cold, almost mirror-like streams and rivers of the Appalachian mountains.

The trout here are always described with terms like “spooky”, “wary” and “clever”. I am more at home with fish that are careless, dumb, and hungry, so I decided I needed a little help. I had met Dave on a couple of occasions, and he seemed a nice enough fellow. He had the required look of a guide. The wrinkled smile, white beard, and physique that is needed to keep all of us rookies from drowning in the somewhat difficult to maneuver boulders and moss covered rocks. What I didn’t expect was cosmic good fortune. I am always on the lookout for luck, as it seems to preclude any success I have happened on in the past. I had just been reminded that David Carson is the name of one of my cousins on my father’s side of the family, so I took that as a good sign. Then I started to ponder my cousin’s side of the family.

David Carson is my Dad’s first cousin, and about the same age. He and I never did “hang out” as such when I was young, but I do remember him, and I especially remember his father, my great uncle Gene. Although I didn’t get to visit Uncle Gene very often, but he was sort of legendary to me. I learned how to fish from my dad, and he pretty much learned from uncle Gene. So the first time I met uncle Gene, all there was to think about, talk about, and do to my way of thinking was FISH. Now of course, family likes to sit and visit, but that can be done just as easily on a boat as it can in a rocking chair right? So after (not too much) whining on my part, uncle Gene took us fishing. We were at beaver lake in Arkansas, and we were bass fishing. Now I don’t exactly remember how many or how big the fish were that we caught but lets just say it was hundreds, and they were all over 10lbs a piece (at least that is what my 12 yr old brain remembers). The legend of Gene Carson was secured, and the fish mounted on his wall didn’t hurt the legend either. The way I saw it, I was part of the bloodline of fishing greatness. Unfortunately, my prowess as an angler has not totally secured my place in the fishing hall of fame. But hope was on the rise, because as I said fishing and mysticism go hand in hand, and I could connect the name of my fishing guide with a relative that was an angling god!