James McKew

I was filling up the truck at the Gas and Grunt when a fella pulled up next to me.

Peckerwood, was my first thought, like, I need this guy right now.

“Say there, buddy,” Sunglasses said, pushing the frames farther up his nose. “Any good fishing in these here parts. I got a couple hours to kill.”

Traffic noise was loud. “Say again?” I asked.

“Fishing? Any good fishing around here? Not looking for a honey hole.”

Balls. He’s got nerve asking a stranger about good fishing.

My fingertips twitched on the gas nozzle trigger. This thing could easily be turned into a flamethrower.

I dislike the name ‘Honey Hole.’ Even worse, I dislike it when someone says, “Not asking for anyone’s Honey Hole,” when what he really means is he’s flying under the radar and looking precisely for your favorite slice of unmolested river. A more accurate translation would read: Fair notice! I’m gonna trample your woods while searching for your private riffles, snag all your big fish, scatter my cigarette butts all over the shore, leave a toilet paper teepee on your path, and drop the Styrofoam cup I use to carry nightcrawlers in an eddy where it will spin for all eternity.

Here’s a short history lesson: In 1915, the phrase ‘Honey Hole’ first appeared in a boy’s adventure book describing how to search for beehives located inside hollowed-out tree trunks. Years later, in 2003, a fella named Baxter T. Subterphuge, a professor of American-Lit at Duke, went on the very first internet fishing message board and typed in: Howdy, folks! New here and hoping to take my sickly father for one more fishing trip before I stuff him in an old folks’ home. Anyone know a spot up around Mayberry where we could go? Not looking for a honey hole, just a place to cast some bait. 

**SPECIAL NOTE**

Dear Reader of this post,

This is where I begin what is known as the Old-Man-Rant. Feel free to skip over this next paragraph if you are in a hurry to leave the restroom stall and get back to work.

Sincerely, James McKew

I’m old as dirt. I remember a time when Facebook groups didn’t exist, the ‘not asking for anybody’s Honey Hole’ question wasn’t even whispered. It was a time when legends of untouched waters were scattered across the western states in places like the deserts of the Great Basin and the granite canyons of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Rumors persisted of tiny streams with even tinier brook trout, places so remote that the U.S.G.S. hadn’t drawn a blue line on a map. Back then, it was the RESPONSIBILITY OF THE OUTDOORSMAN to explore these lost streams, sink the truck to the axles, get bitten by a million mosquitoes, spend the entire weekend dragging the young pups along, and if he was truly lucky, maybe go home with a six-inch rainbow. 

Back at the gas station, Charlie Sunglasses leaned against my truck fender, the sun glinting off his chiseled features, smugness radiating out of his pores.

“Want to know where my Honey Hole is?” I asked, giving him a jack-o-lantern grin. “It’s right between the cave where I buried the pirate chest of Aztec gold and the summer grazing pasture for my pet unicorn.”

NO. WAIT. STOP. I try not to be that much of a jerk. Let me rephrase. What I said was:

“Sure, I got a spot for you.” I looked around to make sure no one else was eavesdropping, then lowered my tone into a horror movie last-stop-before-death accent. “You go down this here road to the Pick-N-Puke and turn left. Keep going until you cross the third hump in the road. There’s a dead skunk in the ditch. You’ll smell it, that’s how you know you’ve arrived. Drive another hundred yards or so and swerve the car in the bushes (where it consequently won’t be found for ten years) and climb down a steep cliff to the river below. Go past the abandoned farmhouse with the shadow staring out the window, go another two or three hundred feet until you come to two logs crisscrossed over the creek. Fish there, under those logs, and maybe, if you hold your tongue just right, YOU’LL CATCH A COLD.”