MY FISHING FRIEND

openminded · Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 11:58 am Post subject: MY FISHING FRIEND

One day while fishing with my late mother at Redfield Lake in eastern South Dakota in 1952 I met a man who would change my life. He used a long willowy rod and a heavy line and cast out what looked like real flies onto the water. While I watched a quite large bass took the fly and the battle was on. After he caught he offered to let me use the fly outfit and a friendship was born. We, d planned to go fishing in the Black Hills as that was the only area to catch trout in South Dakota in the late 1950s and a fly rod is really for trout fishing. Then the terrible news-friend Louis had terminal bowel cancer and only had a few months to live. I couldn,t bear to see him in such pain and they kept him mostly on very strong pain-killers, but on the last day I saw him alive he was very lucid. "You know we Will have our days fly fishing for trout in the Black Hills-I promise you." But of course it didn,t happen and three days later Louis mercifully passed on in 1960. My good friend Craig Zeitler, also an avid fly fisherman started on at me about going out to the Black Hills to fish for trout. "Okay we have a weekend coming up in August before Labour Day. We,ll go then and camp out." we decided. We packed our tent, sleeping bags, food and fishing gear and set off in Craig,s 1957 Ford that summer of 1961 and headed west. We arrived just at the sun going down and glanced at the mirror like lake to see not much activity with the fish so made a fire, ate our supper, rolled into our sleeping bags and scared ourselves with ghost stories, eventually drifting to sleep about midnight. The morning dawned sunny and cool with trout rising everywhere so we had a quick cold breakfast, cup of coffee and headed for the lake. Almost first cast I was into a nice fish and we had our bag limit within a few hours and a great two days fishing. Packing up Sunday night to head back I glanced at the front of the car and there sat a smiling Louis in the passenger seat who threw me an okay sign. I thought at first I was the only one who,d seen Louis as he faded away as I watched him , but Craig who,d been to the toilet asked me:"Did you see Louis in the car?" "Yes. " I smiled. "He said he,d go fishing for trout with me and I think it,s him that brought us all our luck!" RIP Louis R. Davies, 1900-1960. I,m still a keen fly fisherman!

flossy · Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2012 8:07 am Post subject:

what a lovely story, what makes it better is that you both saw him.

openminded · Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2012 1:35 pm Post subject:

Yes-I,m sure he,s been with me to bring me luck over the years since as I still smell the horrible cigarettes he smoked quite often and I never knew anyone else in that part of america that smoked Stuyvesant tobacco or rolled their own then as most of us used filter tips. He liked to use a holder,too.

flossy · Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 5:54 am Post subject:

it could well be, theres no harm in thinking he's looking out for you Wink