Geez, that diabolical fiend did it again

Early last week, I received an E-mail from my former friend (and now mortal enemy) Elmer Bull of NDOW's Mason Valley Wildlife Management Area (MVWMA).

In that E-mail, he gave me a hot tip and said it was not to be shared with the rest of the world. Bull told me fishing for Lahontan cutthroat trout at Walker Lake was currently red-hot, and very few people knew about it.

My fishing partners and I had not fished there for quite some time as the decreasing water level and the increasing salinity in Walker Lake's water had brought our fishing success, this year, to a screeching halt.

I called Bull, and had a long conversation with him, in which he solemnly said that several local fishermen were catching and releasing 25-30 fish per person and those Cutts were up to 24 inches in length.

Wow! This was great insider news and worth cashing in on before the rest of the world found out.

I excitedly contacted Norm Budden (AKA Cheater No. 1), Don Hettrick (my permanent fishing partner) and Bob "Slick" McCulloch (AKA Cheater No. 2) with the news.

We quickly put together plans for a fishing trip, last Thursday, and also contacted Mark Day of Carson City and Rich Bachle of Fernley to accompany us. They agreed and Bachle even brought his grandson Joey.

The first moment of discord reared its ugly head when Budden called and told me to bring chocolate doughnuts for his coffee on the drive to Walker Lake. My sarcastic reply could never be printed in a family newspaper, but it roughly translated into "No."

The second discord occurred when I called Slick to tell him that there was a new Walker Lake fishing rule: Cheaters No. 1 and No. 2 were not allowed to fish within 100 yards of Hettrick and I. His reply was also unprintable.

The third was when Hettrick and I arrived at Walker Lake at the pre-determined time of 8 a.m., only to discover Cheaters No. 1 & No. 2, plus the other three had already been in the water in their chest waders for a half-hour to try to win our bet for the first fish. Geez, you can't trust anyone nowadays.

The seven of us fished non-stop until noon and the end result was a great big fat goose egg: Nothing! Nada! Nil! Zip! Zero!

Sigh, we should have wised up when, for the entire morning, we never saw another soul fishing from shore or from a boat.

Then as we were packing up to return home, Budden reminded us Bull was the same diabolical fiend who had sent us on that epic trek on Yerington's Bybee Lane to reach the backwaters of Weber Reservoir last spring, so we could fish for super large Catfish (another one of his hot, private tips).

That was the long, miserable drive on a God-awful road in the middle of nowhere, where we encountered all kinds of washouts in the road, including one that we had to fill in so we could get across it with Slick's 4x4 truck, plus we never caught even one Catfish.

That miserable Bull is still laughing about sending us there. Geez, I can't believe it, but last Thursday, he did it to us again.

I told the others that Hettrick and I would stop in at Bull's MVWMA office, on the way home, for a face-to-face confrontation.

We stopped, knocked, and I knew we had been had, when Bull opened the door, while loudly laughing. His opening remark was: "You dummies never learn do you."

While snarling, I informed him the seven of us were considering a class-action lawsuit against him for what he had put us through, and here is a re-cap of what had happened:

Bachle got his vehicle stuck in the deep sand, way down the beach from us, and Joey had to push him out, after much wear and tear on Bachle's tires.

Day's chest waders sprang a bad leak in the left leg and he looked like some kind of weird creature from outer space when he walked out of the water with his left leg much larger than his right.

Then, while out in the water, waist deep in his chest waders, Budden stepped on a rock that turned under his foot and for about 5 seconds, he looked like a poor imitation of Fred Astaire dancing across the water. The only things missing from that dance were the music, a white cane and a black top hat.

Also, while out in the water, waist deep in his waders, McCulloch took one step forward, too many, the bottom dropped off into a deep hole and while loudly screaming in terror, he looked like a giant crawfish frantically splashing backwards.

Later, Hettrick made a mighty cast, his old fishing line snapped and his lure flew half-way across the lake before dropping into the water to disappear forever.

He told us it was his favorite lure, given to him by his grandfather and that it was impossible to replace. Heck, I know that I've seen lots of them in the discount bin at one of the big box stores, but I didn't say anything.

Then, worse of all, I ended up being the focus of finger-pointing, bad language, sharp criticism and verbal abuse by the others for leading them on a wild goose chase.

So, while standing in Bull's office and looking him right in his beady eyes, I told him that he was in deep trouble and we might sue.

Apparently undaunted, he was still laughing and wiping tearsof laughter from his eyes, when he showed us the door.

Finally, I'm toying with the idea of running for Governor, and if I get lucky and win, my first executive order will be to transfer that hateful Bull from the MVWMA to a remote location near the corner of California, Oregon and Nevada. I'll show him how I get even!

Bet Your Favorite Pigeon

Bet your favorite pigeon that he can't tell you what else happened to Hettrick and I when we left Bull's office to go home.

If he also loudly laughs and says, "Bull told them to go out via a short cut at the north end of the MVWMA, and after driving for many miles on a narrow, windy, dusty, bumpy, dirt road, they came to a locked gate across the road, and had to retrace their route all the way back to Miller Lane and U.S. 95," he could be one of Bull's co-workers.

Hmmm, I wonder if Bull was looking out his office window and laughing as we drove past? Geez, I hope not