Downsville 2003

It was yet another great year in Downsville. The trip began in a rather shocking fashion. On past trips, Ed and Ken get up before sunrise. They make the lengthy journey to Downsville arriving for the dawn bite. They fish the entire day … and catch nothing. This year, to everyone’s shock and awe, and with an audience of onlookers, Ed caught a tiny trout late Thursday evening. Ed was in his glory. For a brief period of time from Thursday evening until Friday morning he was high hook and the only man to catch a fish.

Ed’s brief moment of glory was quickly dashed when I caught a giant trout first thing Friday morning. Following an appropriate attitude adjustment at the legendary Dukes bar, which Butler and company were too scared to go into (“It’s a biker bar (insert baby noises here)”), I proceeded to place the final nails into Ed’s coffin by catching two more nice trout in a section of the river that we had never fished before. We fished the new section on Mr. Knoll’s recommendation. Mark again proved how effective fly-fishing could be by catching 0.0 fish.

Later that evening Mr. Knoll continued to get bent over the Pommel Horse. After getting soup canned by the trout, Knoll proceeded to get oil drummed by Mr. Fishman. Fishman relentlessly pounded Knoll refusing to use even the slightest lubrication. Knoll headed home broke and fishless with nightmares of 727 ringing in his head. In typical fashion, Fishman swept into town, grabbed a free dinner, took everybody’s money, contributed nothing to the local economy, and then left.

The card games were again a source of great amusement. After a long hiatus, Mr. Niemiec once again appeared at trout fest. After losing hand after hand of typical cards, Niemiec bitched and moaned when the dealer chose a rousing game of dick your buddy. He cried and whined, “oh this is a girl’s game”, “this isn’t real cards”, etc, etc. Of course, while he was playing he appeared to be enjoying himself and he won a few large pots. If not for dick your buddy he would have returned home in the same shape as Mr. Knoll. However, like the stubborn Pollock that he is, he continued to bitch and moan about the game even though he had fun and won money. I’m glad to see that some things never change.

Clem was also quite helpful at the card table. Clem joined forces with Ralph for a hand or two and, with his best poker face on, he peered at Marra’s cards and practically exclaimed “oh my god he has four sixes.” Thank you Mr. Helper.

Ralph did not catch a 140lb pussy like he did last year. Despite his best efforts he went fishless Thursday and Friday. Of course he was able to come up with three puny trout on Saturday to tie my high hook record.