by Gord Follett
“Remember that May 24th weekend back in the early ‘80s, Gord, when the fox ate all the fish you caught?” my old friend Terry asked.
“Ahh… it’s vaguely familiar,” I replied. “Was that up around Placentia Junction?”
“No b’y, Witless Bay Line,” he answered, “not far from where your Follett grandparents had their cabin. Four of us pitched a couple tents just down the pond a bit on somebody’s property because they weren’t around.”
“Oh yes, yes, right on,” I said, laughing. “Now I remember. Eighteen nice Mud trout for the whole weekend – including a couple around two pounds or better – and we never even got a taste of one.”
I hadn’t seen Terry much since that long weekend so many years ago, but we did manage 15 minutes of catch up chatter at the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre last November as we waited for the opening curtain of the Christmas play, “Scrooge,” in which both our granddaughters had parts.
After quickly introducing our wives, we continued to talk about some of our outdoor adventures over the years, while the ladies discussed the upcoming concert.
Terry and I talked about moose and duck hunting for a few minutes before the conversation switched back to that Victoria Day weekend so many moons ago.
With only one vehicle between us – my two-door Ford pickup with the long bench seat that we managed to squeeze onto – we didn’t get to Witless Bay Line until mid-day Saturday, but had our campsite set up in record time.
As those long weekends go in Newfoundland, nothing much out of the ordinary happened; we drank a lot, ate a little, laughed continuously, drank some more, and nearly froze to death our first night there.
As hard as it may be to believe from a townie in his mid-20s, catching trout was my main goal that weekend. No, really. It was! To this day, pan-fried Mud/Brook trout – with a slice of heavily buttered, fresh homemade bread wrapped around it – is one of my favourite meals.
When I picked the boys up Saturday morning, I assumed they all had their fishing gear thrown in the back of the truck, but I was about to discover that only Wayne had brought a rod and reel. And he didn’t give a rat’s ass about fishing!
“B’ys,” I said, in a pissed-off tone, “I can’t believe none of you took any fishing gear. Ya can’t drink all bloody weekend!”
“No? Watch us,” said Wayne, causing the other two to spit out beer in fits of laughter. Even I couldn’t hold back on that one.
I managed to catch five trout that cool evening, which I kept in my old wicker basket with a bit of damp moss on top to keep them relatively fresh.
“I’ll never forget how Wayne cooked our steaks that night,” Terry offered with a chuckle. “Black as tar, like da boot, they were.”
The cooled butter and pieces of onion left in the frying pan outside overnight appeared to have attracted a fox, which left its claw, teeth, and tongue prints in the remaining grease.
“Damn fox won’t be gettin’ another free meal around here,” I mumbled while putting the dishes and dishpan in the back of my truck under a 2X2 piece of plywood and a four-pound rock.
“He thinks he’s smart, coming in at night… Ha! We’ll see.”
Little did I know at the time that my buddies had been feeding scraps to this wild animal while I was fishing.
The next morning, while my three buddies were still snoring away, I was back into my hip waders and casting for more trout in the flat-calm waters of Gull Pond. By noon, I had 11 more fish in the basket, then went back to my comfy lawn chair and waited for Terry and Al to cook lunch, after which I climbed back in my sleeping bag and ever-so-peacefully dozed off to the sounds of popping beer stoppers.
Now, before some of you readers start thinking I’m trying to portray myself as an innocent young man who thought only of fishing and the beauty of nature, I can assure you, such is definitely not the case here.
Winds picked up considerably that afternoon, so instead of fishing, I engaged in exactly the same activities as my buddies – eating precious little while consuming considerably more beer than I should have, stopping only long enough to make it to the pond and hook two more fish, immediately after which I had another couple beers and crawled back into the tent for a long nap,
or “passed out,” as Terry referred to it.
Much to my surprise, my buddies were up and sharing breakfast duties when I poked my head outside the tent around 8:30 Monday morning.
“Ah, perfect,” I said. “Good ol’ greasy breakfast to straighten me out… I’ll take those trout down to the pond now and clean them while I’m waiting. You fellas can have a few each to take home.”
The problem was, there were no trout to clean or share.
I had the full basket of fish laid against the back of the tent, but our furry, four-legged friend got the best of me, hauling the basket into the bushes 30 feet away during the night and making off with every single one.
“If only phone cameras had been around back then,” Terry whispered as the lights dimmed at the arts centre, “a picture of that completely shocked expression on your face would have been worth a million bucks.”
