As I say in the Ragtag Daily Prompt yesterday, I go for a float on the New River near Floyd, Virginia, with my cousin Steve and his wife Dyane. Steve says, “Let’s go for a float on Saturday.” I am picturing myself in an inner tube with a beer, very very relaxed.

On the day of the float, Steve says, “Do you want to fish?”

“Sure”,” I say. He is a pro fishing guide and I was not trying to angle a guided fishing trip. Also, I have not fished for years and have only attempted a fly rod once. And I was informed that I was terrible at it.

On the way to the New River, with Steve driving like a banshee and the boat trailer howling behind us, Steve says, “You have to get a fishing license. Go on line.”

Why do I need a fishing license? I won’t catch anything. I don’t know what I am doing. I struggle with my phone as the truck whips down the two lane roads and I get a three day fishing license for the State of Virginia.

We go to the New River and unload the boat. “This is the second oldest river in the world. The oldest is the Nile. They both flow North.” I am wondering how you “age” a river, but we are unloading the boat and fly fishing gear. No beer, sigh. I can’t drink it anyhow unless it is gluten free.

Steve’s son ferries the truck and trailer to the take out, and we are off in the boat. It’s a beautiful little boat, with a fishing seat in the front and a seat in the back and Steve is in the middle, rowing just enough to keep us 30 feet from the bank. Exactly.

“You remember how to cast, right.” says Steve, handing me a fishing pole. A fly fishing pole. The fly is about three inches long, has deadly looking hooks, and bubbles when you reel it in. “It drives the fish insane, so they hit it,” says Steve.

“Well, um. I pull on the line, right, and there is something you flip to let it loose?”

“Didn’t grandpa teach you to cast?”

“No, never.” My father and paternal grandfather did not get along and we didn’t visit much. I thought that Grandpa just was not interested in teaching girls to fish, but my aunt says, no, he was afraid of my father. They never made up.

Steve gives me a minute of instruction and I start casting. I am in the back of the boat, thank goodness. I am more worried about catching myself or my cousins or the boat or a tree, and can’t imagine catching a fish. The lure is a Whopper Plopper which bubbles pleasantly as I reel it in. I am quite terrible but don’t hook myself. Steve and Dyane take turns rowing and they are really really good. Steve is using a cork bug, a handmade and painted “popper”. He lands it on the water as light as a bit of dandelion fluff.

I am instructed to pull if I get a hit. Much to my surprise I get a hit and I pull, mostly because it startles and scares me. That fish gets off. The second fish hits Dyane’s line and she reels it in. I want a picture of a fish. Steve holds up the little smallmouth bass. Might not want that photograph for advertising, cuz. Back into the water it goes. Dyane catches another. I catch a fairly good sized one and here is the picture. I am just as surprised as I look, surprised that I caught a fish.

Now Dyane rows for a while. Steve fishes off the front, waving his pole and dropping the fly one foot from the bank. He is telling Dyane, “Watch the current and the wind, you want to anticipate so the boat is neither too close nor too far from shore.” I had asked if there were any rapids. No, says Steve. I have my big camera, because we are not going to tip over.

Storm clouds are building up. There is some thunder. It isn’t raining yet.

No fish for a bit. We come to a small side stream. Steve is rowing. He says, “Hey, this is where someone caught a Muskie last time we were out. I’m just going to drop a line in.” I have stopped fishing for the moment because I am tired and getting clumsy and I want to snack and take photographs. Steve picks up the pole with the Whopper Plopper and drops the lure in to the mouth of the stream and WHAM, a fish hits immediately. It is BIG.

“Row into the stream where it’s cooler, Dyane!” yells Steve. I grab the net. “No,” says Steve, “That net is too small.” I put it down and plop back on my seat, Steve is fighting the fish and Dyane climbs into the rowing seat and moves us towards the stream.

The fish is calmer in the cold, I guess. Or tired. Steve climbs out of the boat, picks up the Muskie and gently takes the hooks out. It looks like an alligator without legs. The head is all mouth and teeth and the whole fish is a yard long. (There is more lightning and thunder and closer. I am thinking the F word.) Steve puts it back in the water as soon as I snap pictures. “Gotta make sure it’s ok,” says Steve, watching the legless alligator sit on the stream bed. It looks grumpy. There are two more in the water by the boat.

BLAM! LIGHTNING HITS THE FIELD BEHIND STEVE SIMULTANEOUS WITH THUNDER AND HE JUMPS. “OH!” he says, “I FELT that. I just got hit by lightning!”

“Are you ok?” then I look in the water. “Are the fish floating belly up?” No, they are not. Steve is not burned, just a shock traveling through the earth and the water. “CAN WE GO NOW?” I say, “ROW!” There is now a shit ton of lightning all around us with thunder at the same time and the rain starts. I’ve got my camera in plastic right away, but I am eyeing the metal in the boat. “Is that conductive?” I say, as Steve starts rowing with the current.

“Hell, yeah,” says Steve. I am trying not to touch any of the metal in the boat, holy crap, ROW, get me OUT of here. Shore is no safer and now it’s pouring. Warm, but the LIGHTNING.

Steve is still pretty amazed, “I was hit by lightning!” Dyane and I just mutter “row”. The lightning moves further away with the edge of the storm and now it’s just raining a soaker rain.

The rain starts to let up a little. “Anyone wanna fish again?” says Steve.

“NO! There might be lightning at the back edge of the storm. ROW, please.”

Steve gets a phone call about the guiding the next day. I reach forward and try to keep rowing with one oar (I am DONE with this float) and he gets off the phone reasonably soon and rows again.

We arrive at the take out, with the tail edge of the storm passing over us (the back?) and one of his partner guides is loading their boat back onto the trailer. “Hey!” says Steve, “I got hit by lightning!” He tells them about it and then gets the truck and trailer. We pull the gear out of the boat. BAM! There is another big lightning strike right across the river, but none of us are in the water. Phew. I get in the truck. I’m not cold but very wet. I do have a change of clothes and a towel. We had planned to swim, but the lightning dissuaded Dyane and me.

We drove the truck back to the house and both Dyane and I had a small glass of wine. A friend has been motorcycling around the country and he told me about five different people killed by lightening in a thunderstorm up around Chicago. He had gotten off the bike and gone for shelter. Good decision!

Next morning we are all up making coffee and discussing breakfast, when Steve looks at Dyane. “It was the BANANAS!” he says.

“What?” I say.

“BANANAS!” says Steve.

“Oh!” says Dyane. “I forgot1”

“What?” I say again.

Steve explains. “Bananas are bad luck on boats. It’s a really old superstition. Dyane packed two bananas and you ate one and she ate one. You can’t take bananas on fishing boats.” I look it up. Here: https://www.aquamarinepower.com/bananas-on-a-boat/ . It dates to the 1700s. No bananas on fishing boats.

And that is my bananafish story.

________________

The photograph is my cousin Steve as he casts right before the Muskie hits, with Dyane and with the storm clouds piling up down river.

Here is his fly fishing site: https://newriverflyfish.com/

A day late, but for the Ragtag Daily Prompt: fishing. You will see the Muskie on the RDP site from yesterday. But today’s post also fits today’s prompt: cloudy!