The other night proved me to that perhaps people aren’t so bad after all. Shane and I were headed out to fish the Lower Madison after I got off work, even though it was a somewhat chilly, rainy night. Of course, in my haste to leave the house that morning I had forgotten my rain jacket.
It didn’t start raining until we pulled up to the Warm Springs parking lot. We debated back and forth about fishing or not and figured what the hell, we drove all this way. I didn’t mind getting wet.
As we started gearing up, the only other party at the takeout recognized Shane. It was Kris and some of the gang from Montana Troutfitters. After a bit of chatting, Shane asked if anyone had an extra rain jacket for me.
I was aghast. I’m stubborn as hell about stuff like that and normally don’t ask for help that much. But, much to my surprise, one of the guys who I didn’t even know walked over, handed me a jacket and said just to run it by the shop the next day.
This blew my mind. Here was some guy who didn’t know me from Adam letting me borrow an expensive Gore-Tex jacket. For all he knew, I was going to rip it up, steal it, whatever. But it seems in some circles, the trust among fishermen is still there.
Most fishermen, crotchety as we might be, are generally decent people. We’ll tell folks where to go if they ask, point out some good flies, pick up a hitchhiker in waders trying to shuttle a boat trailer
The next morning when I returned the jacket that guy wasn’t working, but if he happens to read this, I owe you a beer, dude.
I’ve been a little down on people in general lately, working retail you see a lot of the worse side of folks. But sometimes just the simple generosity of a stranger is enough to restore faith in the human race.
That’s one of the many reasons why I fish.
