It's Funner in the Dark Part II: Attack of the Polish Quicksand

Quick recap for those of you, myself included, who are too lazy to scroll down. We were dressed like hitchhikers – starting from the top with khaki or camouflage hats, awkward sweatshirt/flannel and of course … rubber waders. We were those guys that when you are driving and see them on the side of the highway you always ask yourself, “Why are they dressed like that and who would pick them up?” Well, now you know. They are fishermen and you should be nice to fishermen because they have most likely been sitting outside all night waiting for daybreak to fish – not because they want to, but because they have to. Fishermen’s code. You wouldn’t understand.

Anyways, the fire was roaring. This was due, at least in part, to our greedy wood consumption. I estimate that over the course of 10 hours, we used 12.8 square acres of forest for our fire. If I am charged under some type of deforestation law this week, I will not blink twice. But it was worth it. Plus, how would you know? You weren’t even there.

It should also be noted that the ground was the muddiest place on earth. It had a consistency similar to when you put a little too much wasabi in those little Petri dish things at sushi restaurants and then start pouring soy sauce over it – it turns into that semi-solid paste that clears out your sinuses. Well this was similar, minus the sinus cleaning, and it affected everything we tried to do (as you’ll see later). Very early on in the night, I coined the term “Polish Quicksand” and for some reason it stuck.

Sometime around 2 a.m. Tim the HHR kicked it into another gear that I had not seen before. In a span of what seemed like 10 minutes, but was more likely close to an hour, HHR turned himself into a whirling dervish of amazement. It started with the round steak sandwiches he cooked up in an iron skillet over a bonfire. I am 100% sure that his skin is flame retardant because there is no way a person with normal skin could have their arm basically inside a fire for that amount of time. Amazingly these sandwiches were among the best I have ever had. No lie. They were unbelievable – and somehow they were done just right. There was no blood and no leather taste. Incredible. Shortly thereafter, HHR decided it was time to break the seal. See, Tim got bored waiting for us to leave and passed the time with scotch. Doubles of scotch. Multiple doubles of scotch. So after a few beers around the campfire, it was time to go. This was entertaining because, as outlined in Part I, Tim had chest waders on, which meant he basically had to undress to wet the ground. Completing this task was made all the more problematic by the Polish quicksand surrounding the campsite. However as HHR demonstrated all the steps he had to go through to pee, Diddy and I simultaneously noticed a holster hanging from his hip. Tim had made a passing reference to a gun when we picked him up, but later I confirmed that none of us thought anything of it at the time. Now, however, we were confused. Why take a gun to a fishing hole? This reminded me of Sean Connery from The Untouchables with the classic, “It’s just like a wap to bring a knife to a gunfight,” line. If there was, in fact, a necessity for the gun, why keep it under the chest waders which will take 5 minutes to get it out? These were my internal thoughts. Diddy, on the other hand, came out with his thoughts and thusly triggered (pun intended) the following conversation between himself and Tim:

Diddy: You have a gun!
Tim: Yeah.
Diddy: Is it loaded?
Tim: (Inserting the clip) Nope.
Diddy: Yes it is; you just put a clip in it!
Tim: (Getting irritated) No its not. The safety’s on.
Diddy: But there are still 10 bullets in it.
Tim: (Definitely irritated) Just because there are bullets in a gun, doesn’t mean it’s loaded!
Diddy and Me: ??????????????????????????

Now I’m no rocket scientist, but… This sent us all scurrying through the Polish quicksand. It’s like saying, “Yes, I know I just blew into this balloon, but I promise there is ZERO air in there. None.” Classic. The rest of night consisted of old fishing war stories from Tim and Rick, including one where Tim recounted fishing for salmon with his father in Alaska when a grizzly bear approached. Apparently HHR’s father is a little hard of hearing and the bear was able to get relatively close to him, despite the screams and pleas of HHR himself and a few others. Turning around, Tim’s father allegedly (and I am inclined to believe this) came face to face with the grizzly, preemptively roared at the bear and scared it off. No word on if he then dove into the river and caught the salmon with his teeth, but I wouldn’t bet against it.

And so the time passed, albeit very slowly as I began to get very antsy to fish. The combination of Key Light, campfire smoke inhalation, round steak and Polish quicksand had me unbelievably excited to put my line in the water. It seemed like the minutes were hours and the hours were days and the days were years and the years were actually the birthmark on Mikhail Gorbachev’s head. That escalated quickly. But you get the idea. So you can imagine my excitement as light started to creep over the tree-line. Diddy, however, was fighting off a serious bout with sleep. We did our best to keep him up, and in the end HHR took over with a flurry of stories and unbelievable conversation starters to keep him interested. Rick and I made one last creek crossing to get the rest of the fishing gear. It was around 6:30 a.m. at this point and sleep depravation coupled with Key Light had taken a small toll on my motor skills. I know this because on the way back across the creek, carrying only a tackle-box, a chair, and a few rods, I came stunningly close to going under. It was rough. But now we were close. By the time we got back to the camp-site, it was close to 7. And then we waited. And waited. Laughed at Tim, and then waited some more. Finally it was … 7:39. Still 20 minutes before we could do anything. We did, however, decide it was time to take our places on the bank so that when the time came, we could have lines in the water within seconds. It was like we were preparing for simultaneous nuclear first strikes. We were at defcon 2. We tied our hooks, baited them and made our way to the bank. Then it happened.

From my vantage point, Tim the HHR being swallowed by Polish quicksand near the shoreline was caught out of the corner of my left eye. I was about 6 feet from the fire, towards the chairs, set up on the right if you had your back to the fire and were facing the creek. Diddy was, “approximately four feet from the fire and ten feet from the creek.” And Rick, having recently used a walking stick to make his way into the water, was about four feet off shore.

The incident started innocently enough. Tim, excited by the prospect of fishing, picked out his spot on the bank. He was to fish directly in front of the fire, which would be 20 feet behind him while he was on the bank. There was a muddy knoll about 10 feet from the fire, with a downward plane on the bank-side. Tim started on the knoll itself and, apparently forgetting an entire night filled with Polish quicksand, lunged aggressively towards the creek.




Later on, Diddy recalled this part vividly. “The thing I remember most,” Diddy remembered, “is the fact that no baby steps were involved. It was almost as if he had no idea there would be mud involved.”

And there was A LOT of mud involved. Bounding from the knoll, Tim’s first big-foot like step sunk his boot to his calf. Possibly under the influence and undaunted by the potential catastrophe, he continued aggressively with his other foot, which sunk immediately to the knee. He was stuck. And sinking quickly. The mud was now close to his waist, and finally, panic had set in. The rod went first; tossed to the side as his arms flailed wildly. His torso, the only exposed part of his body, lurched backwards causing mud damage to the back and arms of his sweatshirt. We were too stunned to realize what was going on. Animal sounds, a staple of the HHR diet, pierced the peaceful morning air. Fishermen up and down the creek were now fixated on the man stuck in the Polish quicksand. It was a truly dire situation.

“He was trapped and would have died had people not been there to pull him out,” Diddy lamented after the fact.

Finally, we sprung into action. Rick worked his way out of the water and, using the walking stick, pulled him from the quicksand. Thinking the worst was over, Rick started back towards the water, but Tim for some unknown reason, lurched to his left into MORE quicksand. The stick and fallen from his hands and it took all of us to remove him. However, we were shocked at his relatively calm demeanor. Firing up a Marlboro Light, Tim the mud covered HHR was doing just fine. Disaster averted. It should be noted that about ten minutes after this event, a similar happening took place about 100 yards downstream from us. A man, not noticing the wasabi like Polish quicksand below, leapt from the raised tree-line and sunk himself IMMEDIATELY to the waist. This fellow was not so lucky as he struggled and died. No wait, that didn’t happen. But when his friends pulled him out of the mud, his hip-waders stayed put. Muddy socks and all, he was ready to fish.

And now, the countdown began in earnest. We all took our spots on the bank of the creek. Candace Sturgeon was baited with a split shot and a meal worm – prime trout food. 7:58 … 7:59 … and then … A series of plops as if a giant rabbit was defecating in the stream. Except for mine. Candace Sturgeon misfired. The hook, still baited, and wrapped itself around end of the rod. Rick screamed out, “I got one,” followed by similar cries from almost every single person on the bank around me. I had yet to even cast. Candace Sturgeon had let me down. And it wouldn’t be the last time. Ten minutes went by before I got another cast off. Meanwhile, all around me, fish were lining up to leave the stream like school kids in a cafeteria at lunch time. I made the executive decision, after watching everyone else reel in trout, to ditch Candace Sturgeon. It was like drafting the exact pitcher you wanted to your baseball team, waiting 6 months to see him in a game, and then being the manager that had to pull him after 2/3 of an inning and 8 runs for the other team. Disappointing was an understatement. Thankfully, there were plenty of extra rods for my use, but try as I might, four hours of fishing yielded exactly three bites and no caught fish. The rest of the gang had marginally better luck – Rick caught 8, Diddy caught 3, and Tim caught a number of fish, although the sound he used to describe the number sounded like a cow mating with a cat-fish.

You would think, after being awake for 35 straight hours and catching 0 fish, I would be bitter. Wrong. I was tired. But I was ready to fish again the next day. And I will be fishing tomorrow, in case you were wondering. This, my friends, is a hobby that will stick. It has really caught on with me – unlike the fish I am after. The fishing was a little anticlimactic, but I had a great time. So thank you to Diddy, Tim the HHR, and especially Rick for a great opening day of trout. I managed to escape shark attack. And really, when you think about it that is all you can ask for.

Trout Fishing: It’s Funner In the Dark, Part I

The Scene: Deer Creek (pronounced “Crick”) in Indianola, Pa. Population: 300 (give or take a few thousand). Trout population: 13 (statistics based on my own observation from Saturday, April 14).

The Main Characters: Myself, Diddy, Rick, and Rick’s step-father Tim. It should be noted that for myself and Diddy, this was our virgin opening day experience.

The Mission: To sit in the woods for 12 hours with a case each of Keystone’s finest amber brew and Rolling Rock in 40 degree weather AND still be able to fish in the morning.

The Prestige: A movie.

The outcome, Part I: Opening day of trout season in Pennsylvania fell on Saturday April 14th this year. However, for myself and three other brave souls, it started in earnest Friday night sometime just after Barry Bonds flipped Pittsburgh fans proverbial double birds by blasting 2 homers in a blowout win. The departure time was set for just after midnight from a secret location (Ricky’s house). This in itself, however, left for a few dilemmas. One – should I try to sleep? Two – How much Red Bull should I take if I don’t sleep? Three – Why, if we can’t fish until 8 a.m., do we need to be there at 1 a.m. when it is 40 degrees outside? The answers came quickly: no, 2, and Man Up. So I started packing my car around 11:20 with Candace Sturgeon (rod’n’reel), a change of clothes, and multiple hats. Multiple hats are important for … well … no apparent reason. I also started to get excited, so I called Diddy to see if I could pick him up a bit early. No answer. Called again. No answer. And again. Still nothing. This was becoming worrisome to me because Diddy is a man who got his first cell phone at 23 and hasn’t checked his voicemail since (3 years worth). Nine text messages later, still nothing. Obviously he was sleeping. Now, we had discussed this at some length throughout the day leading up to the trip, and it was generally decided that we would just stay up. However, Diddy crumbled under the pressure and snored through our estimated time of departure. This was just Diddy doing what Diddy does (for sports fans who don’t know Diddy personally, think Manny being Manny, but Polish).

Finally, as I sat in his driveway, I was able to contact him and we were on our way shortly thereafter. We got to Rick’s house not too long after we intended to, picked up his step-dad Tim and were on our way to Indianola (Rated # 17 on Pittsburgh’s weirdest town name Top 20 list) just after 12:30. As a quick side-bar, if there was a scale to measure each individual’s value to others in terms of entertainment, and this scale ran from 1 through 10, with 1 as the lowest and 10 the highest, Tim would check in somewhere around 804. I have been around this man exactly twice in my life and twice out of those two times I have been more entertained than I can even describe. Seriously. I just sat here and thought about potentially entertaining situations involving being locked in a room with a person or group of people of my choice, and could not come up with anything that matches the shear “wow” factor that Tim creates. Anyways, back to the trip. We stopped at a local Exxon to pickup some ice and other necessities and just minutes later, we parked not 100 yards from Deer Creek. We had just over 2,300 lbs. of gear to get to the camp site, which was across the creek and through the woods, make a left near the Blair Witch house and you’re there.

Approximately 10 minutes, three failed, and one successful attempt at tying my hip waders later this Fellowship of the Trout was ready to embark across a swift moving creek (which, in your head should make you picture the Amazon moving like rapids, but in reality was nothing more than a creek with a current – for entertainment purposes go with the Amazon thought). Going with us across the creek was some just under a ton of firewood, chairs, coolers, two cases of beer, food, and a life sized cardboard cut-out of Pat Sajak. We made our way down towards the creek with the intention of crossing. Just to recap, it is approximately 1 a.m. at this point and very dark. The creek is probably about 40 feet across and we are carrying our bodyweight in gear. I, at this point, have ZERO idea how deep the creek is. So Tim, who I just decided will be known now as the Human Highlight Reel, or HHR, went first into the water. Tim seemed to be none too concerned when his second step took him chest deep in water, apparently happy that he had chest waders on. However, Rick, Diddy and I all had hip waders that really only made it about mid-thigh so HHR’s route was not going to work for us. Rick set across next and then it was my turn. I gingerly walked into the creek – which I’d done before, just never with this much on the line. I had important camping goods in my arms, a 12-15 hour period of time in freezing temperatures ahead of me, and potential eternal ridicule should I have fallen. The creek bed was really soft if you don’t count the bricks, boulders, and various other bottom dwelling materials. I slipped a few times, but kept the water below the top of my waders and made it across safely.

Another side note: this should clearly be a new sport – Creek Crossing. Give contestants similar length waders, a cache of items to carry, and a pre-set creek condition. The person who makes it across the fastest with the smallest amount of dampened or dropped goods and/or clothing is the winner. Contestants would be segmented by height so you could never have a 6’5” contestant squaring off against a guy who is 5’7”. I smell an ESPN special event and Teva sponsorship. But I digress.

After fording the quick moving creek, the Fellowship of the Trout regrouped along the banks in preparation of moving off to the camp-site. It was at this time when HHR quipped that creek crossing, and fishing in general, is, “… always funner at night.” Truer words have never been grunted. Next came gathering time, because though we had lugged a large amount of firewood to our camp-site, we needed the fire to stay going for 15 hours. So off we went flashlights in hand, through the forest ripping dry wood from anywhere we could find it. With the fire crackling, we were able to relax and have a few drinks. This brings me to my next observation. Anytime a group of people have been drinking, and a camp-fire is involved, 65% of the conversation is centered on the fire itself. You get a lot of the “Wow, what a fire,” comments and the, “Seriously… this fire is just. Wow. It’s incredible. And I would tell you that anytime, not just because I’ve been drinking.” Not to mention the inevitable period of time when there is a lull in the action and you find yourself completely mesmerized by the fire – watching the embers fire off sky-ward mumbling incoherent nothings to yourself about the fire until you spill the Keystone Light you’ve been nursing onto your crotch and then jump up and run over to the fire to dry off, but get just a little bit too close only for your delayed reactions to cause a 5 second lapse between singe and jump back which causes you to stand there in amazement, again, at exactly how hot the fire is. Seriously. It always happens EXACTLY like that. But anyways, the fire is up and approaching out of control…..and now……………….we break. Tune in for It’s Funner in the Dark: Part II tomorrow. And try to guess what Tim the HHR has been hiding in his waders. Go.