By Daren Schuettpelz
“I’m going to hit that jenky piece of…” Darryl hollers in delight, but his glee quickly changes to a yelp of pain, with a hint of impetuous regret, as the hook lodges firmly in his lip.
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They call me Eritque Arcus and Darryl is my cousin. Darryl, like most trout, obsesses about his first piercing; it’s our own right of passage.
Those lunkers downriver teased Darryl mercilessly because of his pierceless lip, so I’m not surprised when a noob rockets a made-in-a-factory barbless hook – poorly disguised as a larva – into our pool – that Darryl hits it like the fist of an angry god.
Proper trout etiquette dictates we take a more selective approach to help avoid what happens next. The novice angler fish-gasms and launches Darryl into a tree where he dangles painfully. I swear that tree gets bigger and bigger each time Darryl tells the story.
Daren Schuettpelz lives in Germany, where he teaches high school English to military-connected students. His work is forthcoming in Beyond Words and The Evening Street Review.
The Birdseed 