Ah, home from the Christmas trenches. Glad to be back, absorbing vital
nutrients from the cathode ray tube.
I have a story to tell you. As is the case with all my stories, this one
is 100% factual. However, you may wish to temper this information with the
knowledge that I am the grandson of a certifiable Damned Liar.
- * -
This is the story of how Andrew J. Solberg shot the fish.
This holiday period my wife and I went to visit my in-laws at their home
in Gunnison, Colorado. Since the end of the hunting season was fast
approaching, and my father-in-law (Harvey) and I are fanatics in the good
war against the hated ungulants, I brought my rifle along, and we hunted.
Harvey's a great guy, which is surprising since he's my father-in-law.
He also knows where to go to find prey in the Gunnison river valley, which
is very large and well forested. (It's also extrememly cold this time of
year -- averaged about -10F while I was there -- but I digress.) We went
several places in the early morning hours, in a Quixotic quest for meat.
No dice. Until..........
We tried the wide, flat banks of a tributary to the Gunnison River. The
water flowed fast along one of the banks, so it wasn't quite iced over. It
was also somewhat warmer water than that of the surrounding territory, since
it was warmed slightly by nearby springs. This meant that this was a fave
watering hole for deer in the winter seasons. We perched in a pine stand
about fifty yards away from the water's edge and waited.
About six-thirty, a good-sized buck wandered by. It didn't yet seem to have
its full growth on, but its rack was well developed, and we were anxious to
get some venison. We waited until it was fairly well out in the open. Harvey
called the shot.
Harvey aimed and fired -- and missed. I couldn't believe it. The buck was
just standing there, and fifty yards is nothing with any rifle worth its salt.
Anyway, it went high, and the deer jumped and was off like a rocket. Crap.
I took a shot from crouching position, which went low and hit the ice of
the river. Fortunately, my rifle has pretty good bolt action (automatics
are cheating) so I was able to get a second shot off, this time standing.
I hit the buck low in the neck, and it went down. Yay!
The deer was still thrashing around when we approached, so Harvey finished
it off with another round. While he was tagging our prey, I went down to the
river. There I saw where the ice had splintered where my first shot had
gone through, kind of like a bullet hitting plate glass. And I could see what appeared to be a fish bobbing just under the thin part of the ice near the
entry hole. I was flabbergasted -- could I really have shot a fish?
Any of you who ice fish know how unlikely this is. In freezing weather, fish
have only a very narrow window of temperatures where they are active. In the
case of a frozen-over body of water, the comfort zone occurs about twenty feet
down. Admittedly, in a river it is higher, but come one -- shot a fish?!
I got a stick and poked the carcass over to the shore where I was standing.
Sure enough -- dead fish, with a big fucking hole in its back.
At first I was confused, since there did not seem to be an exit wound. However,
we later found that the round had passed out the mouth, scrambling the fish
in the process. Pretty gross, huh?
Anyway, to end this lovely little tale, two mornings later we returned to
the same site, only this time with fishing gear.
Caught five rainbows and three browns -- the limit.
....but if you count the first one, I was poaching.....
