By
Dave Dyer
I have heard all the stories of the mythical trout pimp, but thought the legendary man could not exist. For years fellow anglers have been telling me stories of a giant man, toting a fly rod, wearing a flaming purple wide brim hat. A sighting of the mythical man was akin to a sighing of Sasquatch. Anglers claimed to have run into the pimp from the Roaring Fork in Colorado to the Pennsylvania spring creeks. Midwestern trout bums have claimed sightings in the Driftless area of Wisconsin and Iowa to the fabled Ausable in Northern Michigan.
The trout pimp was a trout bum in every sense. He certainly was not the type you would see on the cover of the latest Orvis catalog. He wore a patched up old pair of rubber hip boots, faded blue jeans, and a tattered red flannel shirt. If it rained he did not have the latest Patagonia rain wear, but opted for a black trash bag with arm holes cut into the sides. On top of his balding head was always the purple hat with a sheep skin band for drying flies. He did not wear an expensive fly fisher’s vest or chest pack. The flies he needed were kept in an old pipe tobacco tin, nestled in the breast pocket of his weathered shirt. The trout pimp did not cast a high tech 7 hundred dollar Sage rod, but preferred modest rods of his own build. He built most of them on blemish blanks that cost less than 10 bucks.
The pimp drove an old faded yellow 1967 VW Bus. The weathered van carried the pimp, all his camping gear,..and his 3 lovely camp cooks…wink, wink. The camp cooks had beauty possessed by few women and they were as loyal to the trout pimp as a Labrador retriever is to its master. The pimp and his cooks drove from trout stream to trout stream in the yellow VW bus. They would fish by day and do business by night. The lovely camp cooks had the voices of angles and sang as they cooked mouth-watering meals over an open fire. The angelic songs of the cooks and wonderful smell of their cooking, wafting along the stream, would draw in anglers for miles.
Curious anglers, tired, and hungry, from a long day of fishing would be drawn into the trout pimp’s tidy camp by the dozens. The scantily clad cooks would offer them a seat by the fire and a warm meal. Mesmerized by the flames of the fire and the beauty of the cooks the men would be lead, one by one, back to the roomy wall tents. After an hour or two in a tent with one of the cooks, the men would leave with a smiles on there faces and empty pocket books.
I did not believe the stories until I ran into the man last weekend. I was walking along the banks of one of my favorite streams. There was a light rain falling and I saw a man in a garbage bag, wearing flaming purple hat. He was playing what had to have been the largest stream brown I have ever seen. The fish was at least 34 inches long. His fly rod was bent well into the handle and the tip was dancing with the massive head shakes of the great fish. Suddenly his rod straightened and the fish had broken his line. He turned to me and said, "Have you got any flies? I have just lost every fly in my tin to that big son of a beeaach!" I said, "Sure I have plenty of flies; how many do you want?" He said, "I'll need at least a few dozen to get me through the weekend, but have no way to pay you for them, right now." He was an older gent with a dark tanned leathery face and hands, from years of fishing in the elements. He had the playful eyes of a boy and a devilish smile as he told me this story of how he had three beautiful, scantily clad, camp cooks, wink, wink, fishing just a little ways down stream. At that point I knew he had to be the famous trout pimp.
The pimp told me his cooks would gladly pay me for the flies and they were just around the next bend. I decided I had to go and check those hotties out. It was late summer and the waist high grass along the gin clear stream was alive with grasshoppers. The hoppers fled ahead of me as I walked down stream, but something was strangely amiss. I swear I could smell spring in the air. The air was fragrant as if lilacs were in bloom. As I drew closer to the bend the rain let up and I could hear the sweet siren song of the beauties. My pulse quickened with anticipation as I rounded the bend. I was in shock as a gazed upon the three maidens. They had the voices of angles, but their bodies were built for sin.
There they stood in the shallow water. Three beautiful blondes lightly bronzed by the sun. They wore green rubber hip boots rolled down just below the knee and nearly transparent white thong bikinis that left nothing to the imagination. They were busy fly fishing, but as they cast, their lines seemed to be carried more by the tune of their musical voices, rather than by their waving rods. They turned and said hello to me in unison. I opened my mouth to return their greeting, but instead words a flood slimy of drool rolled out over my lower lip, down my chin, and onto my shirt. My cheeks felt hot as I flushed with embarrassment. I was nearly blinded by their perfect pearl white teeth as they smiled and giggled at me. I tried to say something again, but whatever came out of my mouth was unintelligible.
I finally gathered my senses and called out, “I gave the guy upstream some of my flies and he said you ladies could pay me for them?” The cooks gazed upon me with their azure eyes and sang out, “We will have to take you back to our camp for proper payment.” The girls came at me running out of the stream with their ample breasts swaying and silky blond hair blowing in the wind. Their long athletic legs carried them toward me quickly. It was like watching an episode of “Bay Watch”, as Pamela Anderson came running up out of the surf, but in triplicate. Each of them giggled and kissed me on the cheek with their luscious lips as we met.
The cooks sang a joyous song as we walked along the streamside trail toward the trout pimp’s camp. I could see the yellow VW Bus and white wall tents through the trees as we neared the camp. The girls sat me it a cozy chair by the fire pit and they started to build a fire. The luscious cooks had a camp fire built and roaring to life so quickly that it would have made any hardened woodsman jealous. In no time at all they had a camp stew and blueberry Dutch oven pie whipped up for me. The sun sank low on the horizon as I ate the delicious meal. With my belly full I gazed into the mesmerizing flames of the camp fire. Tiny white ashes drifted up towards the heavens. The ashes brought back memories of the prolific hatch of light Cahills I had witnessed the night before. I imagined fat trout leaping from the flames, gorging themselves on the white mayflies. Then it hit me like a cold slap in the face. I WAS MISSING THE EVENING HATCH!!!!!!.
Frantically, I leapt up out of the chair and grabbed my fly rod. I quickly thanked the cooks for the fine meal. Their faces were contorted with the ugliness of disbelief as I ran off towards the trout stream. I arrived breathless at the stream and could see a few Caddis Flies just starting to come off and the dimples of trout starting to rise. Then came the Light Cahills and the hatch was tremendous. It looked as if it were snowing up. I quickly fastened my best replica of a #16 Light Cahill to the end of my tippet. The trout began to boil at the surface with the spinner fall. I watched the trout rise carefully and picked out the best trout in the pool. My fly line carried the quasi Light Cahill effortlessly to the target trout. The fat trout pounced on my offering as it touched down lightly on the streams mirror surface. As my line came tight and my rod buckled with the weight of the fish, I thought to myself, “Ahhh better than sex.”
