First, I'm going to return a favor. A fishing writer named Marshall Cutchin happened to read this blog and did me the courtesy of linking it to his own website, MidCurrent. Go to MidCurrent I visited the site and found a wealth of useful information and some fine writing about fishing. Good stuff, including Marshall's piece about angling luck. Check it out.

His generosity got me thinking about courtesy among anglers, and my memory dredged up two Rapid River memories, one pleasant and one not.

Where the Rapid tumbles into Pond in the River, the waters are parted by a small island. The channels on either side are usually productive. One day, the good spots on both sides of the island's rocky tip were occupied, so I beached my canoe and sat down to watch. The angler occupying the sweet spot for the right-hand channel was catching fish after fish, and after I watched for awhile it was plain that he had his boots nailed to the ground and he was not going to surrender his spot to anyone for any reason -- least of all courtesy. I tried to engage him in a little conversation between fish, and got either no reply or an unintelligible grunt. No hints about what fly to use, and certainly not an invitation to try my luck for a while. Just hostility. The guy on the left-hand channel was not doing as well, but he was friendlier by a degree or two and although he, too, held his ground there was room enough for me below him so I waded in and fished there, with no success. The guy on the right kept hauling them in. I suspected that as long as there was another angler around, he would have stayed there until midnight. Thanks, pal.

Cut to another day on the Rapid, this time below the pond, just upstream of Lower Dam. I was having no success, but that's tolerable. Just being on the Rapid makes me happy. But there was another angler there, and he could not keep fish off his line. He was catching beautiful big brookies everywhere he put his fly, and in water that I had fished without a strike. Finally I could stand it no longer. As he released yet another handsome wild trout, I splashed over to him. "Okay," I said, "you are officially driving me crazy. What the hell are you doing?" He smiled and allowed as how he was having a pretty good day. He showed me a tiny white midge. Then, he gave me the midge. "Try this," he said. I thanked him and tied on the midge. But he wasn't through with me yet. He then pointed to a spot where a big fish had been rising! "Cast above that rock," he said, indicating a large boulder, "and drift that midge over his location." On the second try I got the little fly where I wanted it. It drifted toward the slick water where the fish had been rising. The trout sucked it in, and the battle was on. My new friend then stayed by my side through the fight and long minutes later netted the trout for me. It was a massive Rapid River brookie, beautifully colored, 20-plus inches long. He was grinning as broadly as I was, and complimented me on a job well done. After releasing the trout I offered the man my still-trembling hand and thanked him for a perfect example of streamside courtesy and generosity. What I'm wondering is: can that guy be cloned?