Dorchester in a pipe whose maker I can't recall.
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Recently I posted a couple of pictures of the late, much lamented, Sante Giuliani, a notable member of this board. His good friend, JimInks, asked if I had others, and while I've yet to dig any up, I recalled this story Banjo had written and thought some of you might enjoy it. Edited for (relative) brevity, and I absolutely
do not vouch for its veracity in all details. He was a fisherman, after all, and truth is not only not required of us, it's kind of frowned upon:
"...I can recall one fishing trip in particular; we were headed for the big water of the Housatonic in CT and by big it was expansive, there were sections where you had more backcast room than you could provide line for and the same was true for your forecast.
We were staying at one of the local motels near the Housy...I have always been an early riser due to the fact my job called for me to be there at an early hour so finding me awake when the phone in the hotel rang was not a surprise but the conversation that followed when I answered the phone sure was. I picked up the phone and said “hello” and I heard “who is this?” I immediately replied with “it’s 4:00 a.m. and you called me, who is this?” “It’s Andre’ is this banjo” came the response. “Yes, where are you”, “I’m on the way, what’s the name of the place again” I told him the name, and the route, and that we’d be on the lawn having coffee and he’d have a hard time missing us and telling us he was perhaps 15-18 miles away would be here shortly. I hung up the phone and the three of us went out on the lawn to await his arrival.
It was just about 4:30 when we saw headlights approaching and the vehicle was coming at a rapid pace and moments later Andre flew past us doing about Mach 3. Rolf looked at me and said “somebody better get to the phone because he’s going to call in a few minutes” Rolf headed back to the motel room and sure as rain Andre called and said he couldn’t find us and Rolf told him he went by us 5 minutes ago and to turn around and come back and we’d be standing on the lawn with coffee cups raised. Seven minutes later he goes by us again going about Mach II but obviously saw three guys with coffee cups in the air and hit the brakes to turn around.
...As is the case when a few of us get together there are always new rods to share and old friends to revisit and this was no different. Cloozoe decided to have one of his Lucky Strikes and went up to the rise by the motel to watch us cast while he had a smoke. I was unlimbering the 8014 Guide and was casting a very nice long line when Cloozoe said “banjo, while you are ordinarily a rather fine caster that rod you are using makes you look like Jon Tarantino, what are you casting?” “It’s the 8014 Guide” I said “I’m thinking of selling it”, “have you fished it” said Cloozoe. “No, never had water that I could use it on which is why I’m thinking of selling it”, “you will today, the Housy is big water with big fish, why not fish it today” said Cloozoe. “I’ll think about that while we’re having breakfast and waiting for the others to show up” and we broke down the rods and headed up to breakfast.
With breakfast behind us and the rest of our party joining us we packed up, checked out of the hotel and wound our way to where we would be fishing. The Housy is a big river and Streamer gave us some ideas as to where to fish so we broke up and set a time where we would take a break and meet for lunch.
I try to absorb as much of what nature provides while doing anything outdoors and saw some white tail deer and a large flock of wild turkey. The section I was fishing was around 125’ from one side of the bank to the other side and I was out perhaps 35’ from my side of the river when I spotted fish rising outboard of the opposite bank 80’-90’ away so I began casting to them and got one to take which I fumbled immediately and lost. I decided to rest the fish until it began to feed again, changed my fly and did a bit of blind fishing while waiting.
The fish became active again about 25 minutes later and I decided I’d try again to let loose a cast and sent a drift through only to see it rise about 5’ closer to the bank. I watched the rises for the next 15 minutes trying to figure out the fish’s rhythm.
I saw the drift boat up river and figured it has seen me casting to fish since my bright orange line would be pretty hard to miss so I didn’t expect to find it right where I had been casting but that’s what was happening as the guide dropped anchor and pointed his sport toward the bank less than 20’ from where they were anchored.
To say I was fuming would be an understatement and to make
matters worse the damn fish began to rise just outboard of the anchored drift boat with the guide and his sport unaware of them. I decided to go with the old adage of when you have lemons you make lemonade. I laid out what I felt was the right amount of line for a cast and let loose only to find I was about 10’
short of my quarry. I picked up the line, lengthened it in the backcast and shot to where I figured to fish would rise when I heard a distinctive thump as the fly hit the drift boat.
The guide looked up as he must have heard the thump but was not able to ascertain where it had come from and he was pointing toward the bank and encouraging his sport, who was not a very good caster, to cast toward it. I had finished my drift and went through the motions of lifting the line off the water and repeating the thump on the side of the drift boat and was beginning to chuckle to myself as I repeated this over and over until I had shed some of my pent up anger of the guides poor choice of anchoring where I
was fishing. The last thump was followed by another hit on the fish but the hook parted from its mouth while it was airborne and the resounding splash it made when it hit the water got the guides attention and then he saw my fly line near his boat so I waved to him and I think he was probably fuming now and went to the outboard, fired it up, weighed anchor and was off to a new section of the big water of the Housy.
We were having sandwiches and Cloozoe asked if I were still thinking of selling the 8014 Guide, I looked at him and said 'it’s not for sale, we bonded today'. "
