Fishing with Fat Jack - #2

After the buzzing of startled old ladies died down Fat Jack came out from his hiding place and was met right in the middle of the café by Connie (Mrs. Jack). She put a stop to everything and demanded to know what was going on.

John stepped forward and introduced us as “Sven, Ollie and Otto” complete with Scandinavian accent. He continued to tell her that we were contracted to install the new door as payment in kind for Fat Jack to take us fishing. This didn’t set well with Mrs. Jack and, of course, Fat Jack was sheepishly just letting it all happen. Connie and Jack made their way back into the kitchen where there was some discussion that we were not privy to.

Soon Jack emerged with a smile and some lipstick on his cheek. To this day we do not know what Jack said to Connie but we certainly are thankful!

John and I found some old weather beaten wood in the passage way between the two buildings that served as a “garage” of sorts. We took and ripped them I the old saw to make some trim pieces for fancying up the hole we had just cut.

After about 40 minutes John, err Sven, and I had the door hung. Ollie (Loren) just stood back and gave directions to which Sven and I paid no attention.

Just as we finished cleaning up Fat Jack came back. “All ready to go?” he asked. “Ready” we all exclaimed. And off we went.

Fat Jack took us up into the Wind River Range of mountains. We traveled for about 2 hours up this bumpy, rutted and weather warn dirt road.

We stop at a stream on the way up to fish and Fat Jack handed us some flies to use. They were #10’s or #8’s! Some of the biggest damn flies I have ever tied on my line. We kind of laughed at him and he seemed puzzled at first then he figured out why we were laughing. We were used to fishing with those “little dinks” from California as he called them.

We did catch fish on those huge flies.

There was snow on the ground and the air temperature was in the upper 20’s. Ice was forming in the guides of our rods almost as soon as we cast out. We were constantly dunking our equipment in the water to release the ice.

All I heard was “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH SHIT! And then a big SPLASH!

Loren had slipped on an iced over rock and had gone in over his head in this really cold, freezing water. When I got to him he was really hurting and COLD!

We found a hunters camp that was not being used and stated a fire in the stove. Loren had to get out of his wet clothing fast and get warmed up. Both John and I shed some clothing and gave it to Loren to wear.

We decided it was time to continue our adventure and piled back into the Suburban. After a little more bumping and being tossed back and forth we arrived at what we thought was our destination. Jack said for us to hole up here for a few minutes and he would be back. Sure enough, in about 20 minutes here he came with 5 horses in tow!