Can You Smell That Smell?

If your dog roles in poo or roadkill it doesn’t mean that he’s an idiot. Quite the opposite, actually. It means he’s a team player and a good storyteller. In ancient times, when packs of wild dogs roamed the landscape, a scout dog who returned to camp covered in fecal matter and/or decomposing viscera was the equivalent of an American Indian scout returning to camp with stories of a herd of buffalo. It was wonderful news, meant to enrich, educate, and entertain pack/tribemates.

Rather than force some modern day analogy (a newspaper boy, maybe, bringing his family an inky-smelling circular detailing bone-in ham bargains for $.49 a pound), I will simply say that there’s no apples to apples modern human equivalent to the pungent pooch.

Having said that, I would argue that a fisherman comes closest.

Now I know many of you are thinking: “Hey, wait a minute . . .,” mildly offended at being compared to a coprophilic dog (from the Greek “kopros,” meaning “dung,” and the suffix “-phile,” meaning “loving;” kids take this one back to school and impress your English teacher). On the other hand, people married to fishermen are probably remembering their husbands barging in late to dinner, covered with ticks, reeking of cigars, BO, and fish slime, lengthy stories tumbling out of their scruffy mouths, and thinking to themselves: “Yup Mance, you hit that one on the head.” 

Every person who has ever caught a fish has subsequently held court, recounting, in excruciating detail, how the fish was caught while conveying absolute authority apropos of the angling technique used to catch the fish. This could be the gospel of the Hendrickson fly over a finger of single malt, or the assertion that grape bubble-gum is far superior to blue raspberry over milk in the elementary school lunchroom. The kids may be different ages, but the gist is the same.

Fish speak is a 50/50 mixture of knowledge and BS expressed with conviction, which isn’t to say that fishermen, myself included, are necessarily aware of this when we’re holding court. If someone asks me: “where should I fish?” I will furrow my brow and give the question every ounce of my mental energy, more energy, truth be told, than I give most things in my daily life. I will run moon phases and water levels and months worth of meteorological data against 30 years of experiences (all in seconds mind you), cross-reference this with the writings of Izaak Walton and countless hook-and-bullet advice columns, account for the personality of the questioner, lick my finger and hold it into the air, query the fish gods, project data onto mathematical templates dusted off from high school classes I failed anyway, and so forth. By now you get the idea; I’m thinking so hard I’m actually drooling. The questioner’s looking at me with saucer eyes thinking either “oh my I’ve really lost him.” or “I’m sorry I asked,” until: ‘ding,’ the sound of a dinner bell and an answer.

An answer I’ll deliver with 100 percent certainty.

Now of course the advice I’ll give will probably be bunk. In reality I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not even a very good fisherman. But I’ll think I know what I’m talking about. And if you want proof, I’ll be happy to provide you with a complete resume of my fishing accomplishments (embellished, naturally).

The point of this blog, I suppose, is that you – spouse, domestic partner, kid, co-worker, acquaintance, whatever – should humor the fisherman in your life. He may come home stinky. He may prattle on and on. But his heart’s in the right place. If there’s ever a nuclear holocaust and we all go back to living like Indians, you’ll be glad he knows where the trout live. Short of that, scratch his ears and he may calm down enough so that you can get him in the bath.