In some senses you have to feel sorry for the seemingly endless mélange of misery which Mollygrubs Messer somehow managed to become involved. A prime example involved an out-of-state trout fishing trip with a buddy and a couple of adult companion. The plan was for the quartet to head down to north Georgia where one of the men had a cozy little cabin in a remote holler. A decent trout stream, regularly stocked by state fisheries folks, ran through the property. Purportedly the creek held not only stockers but a decent population of wild trout as well.
For once Mollygrubs didn’t even have to beg or resort to subterfuge in order to convince his overly protective, social climber of a mother, “Caring Karen” Messer, in order to obtain permission for the outing. After all, the owner of the cabin was an affluent pillar of the community, deacon in the First Baptist Church, and her eyes just the sort of stepping stone that might get her invitations to some of the various social events the man’s wife hosted. His son was one of Mollygrubs’ buddies, and while she knew little of this rapscallion’s pronounced propensity to draw trouble like a dead fish in the summer sun draw flies, even had she been aware of this adolescent miscreant’s propensity for causing problems, knowledge of his parents’ influential position in the community would likely have overridden her concerns. She knew nothing about the other adult. Had she done so there might have been some issues.
Mollygrubs’ father did know, all too well, that the second adult was a womanizer, a serial violator of game and fish regulations, and an unabashed friend of John Barleycorn. When mention of the trip was first made at the supper table, he even attempted to express his reservations. However, once mention of Mollygrubs spending a weekend with a sho’ nuff local big wheel entered the picture, “Caring Karen” shushed her long-suffering spouse in emphatic fashion.
The result was that immediately after school on a lovely spring afternoon in late April, the quartet headed for Georgia in a vehicle loaded with fishing equipment, food, and booze. The two adults soon decided that a tetch of tanglefoot was just what they needed to make travel a pleasure, and in an example of adult idiocy that would have had Mollygrubs’ mother pitching a red-eyed hissy had she known, his teenage friend was offered and accepted some liquid comfort as well. That left Mollygrubs, an inexperienced driver who had only a learner’s permit, to handle the duties of getting the group to camp. Finally, way in the night and after multiple wrong turns, they finally arrived. The two adult had reached a state of obliviousness while the son of one of those two drunkards was busy emptying his innards over the porch railing of the cabin. As a result, Mollygrubs got to unload everything before collapsing, dog-tired and already thinking about what would happen should his parents learned about the shenanigans of his companions, into a bunk.
Morning brought little improvement. With two hungover adults and a teenager in the throes of recovery from his debut in debauchery, it was left to Mollygrubs, who had minimal culinary skills at best, to cobble together what proved a decidedly indifferent breakfast of burnt toast and bacon, scrambled eggs cooked to the point where they might well have bounced had some been dropped, and badly scorched coffee. Still, no one complained and after considerable moaning and groaning, along with consumption of heavy doses of aspirin and, in the case of the adults, a bit of the dog that had bitten them, by late morning it was decided that it was time to take to the stream.
Mollygrubs was partnered with the n’er-do-well friend of his buddy’s father. He fellow actually demonstrated a fair degree of proficiency with his spincasting outfit, but the trout seemed to want nothing to do with the various beetlespins, Mepps Aglias, and a local favorite, a long-shanked Yellowhammer fly attached to a gold Colorado blade, he offered them. Mollygrubs likewise got no action, although “follows” from a number of nice trout left no doubt there were fish aplenty in the creek.
It was at this juncture that the devil jumped up right in front of Mollygrubs, and did so in the persona of his angling companion/guide. “What we need,” the fellow said with a sly grin, “is some fisherman’s Hadacol.” Mollygrubs had some familiarity with Hadacol. It was an over-the-counter patent medicine without enough alcohol in it to be in considerable demand among some of the less reputable members among the old-timers who hung out at a spot on the town square colloquially known as “Dead Pecker Corner.” In a dry county Hadacol, available from nearby drugstores, was a liquid of some note and notoriety.
Mystified, Mollygrubs asked just what “fisherman’s Hadacol” was. His ethically challenged companion, who was rather of the opinion that wildlife regulations existed primarily for the purpose of being broken, readily explained as her eased a Prince Albert tobacco can from an inner pocket in his fishing vest. “It’s night crawlers,” he stated while drawing a long, wiggling specimen of that Goliath of the worm clan from the red tin. “No self-respecting trout of any size can resist one, especially when it is attached to a nice, shiny spinner.” When Mollygrubs ventured to point out that they were fishing in “artificial lures only” water, he just grinned with an expression that perfectly balanced between mischievousness and maliciousness and replied. “That’s the beauty of the whole thing. A night crawler is just tender enough that you can jerk it off the hook with a quick snap or two of your rod should you see a game warden headed your way. Let me show you and then we’ll get you rigged up with a night crawler.”
To Mollygrubs’ amazement, the poacher first cast brought a hefty strike and moments later a lovely 16-inch brown trout was making the transition from creek to creel. “Let me catch one more,” the man said, “and then we’ll get a night crawler on your spinnerbait. We’ll both have a creel full before you can shake a stick.” With that he resorted to the Prince Albert can, attached another night crawler to his rig, and cast it precisely into a likely looking eddy at the opposite edge of the deep pool they were fishing. No sooner had the offering made a soft, satisfying splat under an overhanging limb, just the place for a bruiser of a brown to hang out, than Mollygrubs caught movement out of the corner of his eye and spotted a rather overweight game warden bustling their way with as much haste as his corpulent frame would allow.
Alarmed, he alerted his regulation violating companion. “Don’t you worry,” the man smirked, I’ll jerk this night crawler off and he’ll never know the difference.” Unfortunately that particular night crawler proved to be affixed to the hook all too well or else was of tougher stuff than the norm. Repeated jerks did nothing whatsoever to removed the tell-tale bait, and by that time the game warden had puffed up and caught his breath enough to demand, gasping as he did so, “Reel it in. I can see you are using bait.”
Over the next couple of minutes Mollygrubs had a front –row seat, so to speak, to as extraordinary combination of creativity, seeming incredulity, and craven disregard for the truth. With an abashed look of disbelief, the poacher reeled in and acted as if the discovery of a night crawler attached to the treble hooks of his spinner was something surely destined for Ripley’s Believe It or Not. He shook his head and then declared in a voice suggesting the sort of thing one might encounter at a séance: “Well I’ll be damned! I’ve done a lot fishing in a lot of places and seen some strange things. I’ve caught big old red-gilled horneyheads on a spinner, on more than one occasion I’ve had a catfish strike my lure, and once I even reeled in a hellbender so big and ugly I was almost afraid to get my lure out of its mouth. But that’s the first time I ever had a night crawler strike a spinner!”
Caught somewhere between bewilderment ad bemusement, the game warden shook his head, muttered something about “There’s no liar like a fishing liar, but that tale beats all I ever heard,” and then furrowed his brow in thought. After a period that probably was no more than 30 seconds, although it seemed to Mollygrubs an eternity, the man said: “I’m going to let you off with a warning this time, mainly because you’ve got this young fellow with you. But don’t you even think about giving me such a crock of crap in the future.” Then, turning to Mollygrubs, he added, “About all you need to know is that you’ve got a sorry excuse for a guide or role model here. Hanging around him is just a recipe for disaster.”
Mollygrubs wisely remained mute for the moment, but inwardly he made two immediate decisions. He would never, ever get in this kind of fix again. Moreover, he had every intention of doing whatever was necessary to avoid so much as a hint of his fringe involvement in a drunken carouse, followed perilous proximity to piscatorial poaching, ever reaching the ears of his mother. Not ever the most cherished of her social pretensions would have overridden such “goings on.” Beyond that, years later as an adult looking back to lost youth, Mollygrubs would reckon that this was something well relegated to the category of “lost weekend.”