Of Big Mama, Boxelder Creek and a rainbow trout that got away
by Tom Yelle
ABC outdoors
There are times when you wonder if another option would have produced a better result.
It is something, I suspect, that constantly crosses the minds of anglers, who tangle with big fish. So it was for me the night before the Fourth of July in the Pleasant Valley canyon below a towering wall of rock overlooking the little Black Hills settlement between Rapid City and Deadwood, S.D., known as Nemo.
Light was waning when I trekked down to an area in the vast valley behind Big Mama’s Roadhouse off the Nemo Road to a little bend in a small trout stream known as Boxelder Creek that splashes down from the upper levels of the Black Hills.
It was an area I had fished before, advertised by Big Mama as the “Million Dollar View” that goes along with her “Two dollar beer” special, but not an area I have fished regularly during my previous visits to Nemo.
Actually, I prefer to fish other spots on Boxelder Creek, including a hole on the creek under a back roads bridge, where five days before I hooked into a nice 16-inch brown and caught another half dozen small brookies.
Now before anyone thinks I am one of those Robert Redford-like romantics, who straps on the waders, grabs the weaved basket creel, hand-tied flys and grandpa’s old hand-me-down fly rod, forget it. No, my official business in Nemo was as an American Legion baseball coach, whose team was playing at the base of the Black Hills in another great place to experience, Rapid City’s Floyd Fitzgerald Stadium.
For me, the team and our traveling group, Nemo was a place to rest between games, breath in the mountain air and relax.
Fishing offers considerable relaxation, even when you wear shorts, a T-shirt and beat-up walking shoes in contrast to the Denny Crane outfit of custom-made waders and a cigar for puffing.
All I had this moment was a Ducks Unlimited shoulder bag that contained a few hooks, weights, a hook extractor and some extra line.
And all I carried in my left hand was an ultralight spin-casting outfit, one that I use when I tangle with angry bull sunfish or slab crappies back in Minnesota.
Indeed, it was nothing romantic, but a competitive rig nonetheless — for dealing with stream trout in the Black Hills — when you consider I was using 4-pound test monofilament line.
Or so I thought.
Larry, the local character down at the newly opened Nemo store, had emphatically stated there were some big fish swimming in that section of Boxelder Creek in Big Mama’s backyard (64 acres). But as anyone who fishes often knows, there are big fish swimming anywhere.
You just have to be there when they decide to swim by the offering at the end of your line.
As it is a custom in Nemo, you ask Big Mama for permission to cross her land and unless you have made her mad during a previous encounter, that permission is usually granted. I did so the night before, while taking in the “Million Dollar View.”
Don’t ask Big Mama and step foot on her property without her permission, then get prepared for a tongue-lashing with words that would make even the toughest hockey player blush and cower behind a rock.
Within moments of my arrival at the first bend in the creek, I hooked into a 6-inch brook trout that wriggled its way through the rapids to reach my ice-fishing fly that I had tied to the end of my line. It was a good sign, but not something for which I was seeking (something a little bigger for a Fourth of July breakfast). I let it go.
I walked down and around another bend, looking up at the massive rock wall to the east overlooking the valley and to the Nemo settlement. I looked back to the west where the sun was setting over the Black Hills spruce trees and saw Big Mama sitting on one of her picnic tables — a half mile in the distance — chatting with a few bikers, who had stopped in for chat at the roadhouse.
Around a bend a bend, I located a good looking spot with fast water filling into a deep pool created by a sharp turn in the stream.
I tied on a pink ice fly, one that had produced a bunch of crappies for me in February with hopes of enticing a nice brown or a bigger brookie.
I was not expecting much more.
One cast, nothing. Another cast, nothing, A third cast, nothing.
I looked up, wondered if I were wasting my time and contemplated calling it a night. At that same moment, though, I noticed that Big Mama had risen from her picnic table outside the roadhouse, had jumped on her four-wheeler and was roaring across the field in my direction.
I could tell by the demeanor by which this six-decade-old native of Nemo piloted the ATV, that she was on a mission. I suspected she forgot I had asked permission to fish on her property and she was going to straighten it out in the way she straightens out unruly bikers who come up to Sturgis every August.
She pulled up about 50 feet away, got off her four-wheeler, saw and recognized me, then afforded a friendly wave.
“How ya doing? Catching anything yet?”
Before I could answer there was a tug on my line and the ultra-light rod bent at a 90 degree angle.
“Geez, you got a snag? Sorry about disturbing you,” Big Mama said in a tone of remorse.
I looked up, but before I could say, “don’t worry,” she said:
“That’s no snag, that’s a %#*!@*^# big fish.”
Oh yes, it was a big fish, a big rainbow trout that during the moment of Big Mama’s dialogue had revealed itself by leaping full-body out of the water. It was a very big rainbow in a very small section of water, I judged at more than 22 inches.
I carefully retracted the 4-pound test line into my tiny little ultra-light reel, getting the fish to within three feet of my location on the creek’s bank. Then it took off, burning line off my reel before leaping from the water again.
Big Mama, who had come up close to cheer me on and watch, fired another volley of words in my direction that most pastors would prefer we did not use.
“Get that thing, wow, that’s a big &*@!% fish.”
Over and over for about 10 minutes I did battle with this fish, wishing I had my Denny Crane waders to jump into the water, which was actually very deep below my location on a high, undercut bank of the creek.
Standing where I was, I realized there was no chance of landing this prize fish even with Big Mama looking on and offering assistance:
“Hey, what can I do?”
I responded once, “Do you have a net?”
She said, “Nah, don’t fish, so why would I need a ^$#@$&!&* net?”
Peering upstream to my left, I noticed an area where the water was shallower and the bank was lower. Consequently, I opted to walk down that way, working the big rainbow — which made its fourth and fifth leaps from the creek water — to a spot where I had a chance to land it.
By now, Big Mama was getting anxious and I was getting worried.
How long could this battle last? Could my gear hold out; this was no crappie at the end of my line, but rather a very large and mad fish that was easily 24 inches in length and a significant number of pounds.
The battle ended shortly after; I was only able to move 18 inches from my position before my gear gave out, my line snapped and my prized pink ice-fishing fly was gone with the rainbow.
Devastated, I looked down at the water at the same time Big Mama blurted out a simple, but blunt four-letter word that rattled off the canyon walls in such an echo that it had to chase mountain lions from their lairs and caused an avalanche of rocks down the road.
“Ah, heck, that’s too bad, but come on up to Big Mama’s and I get you a [two dollar] beer,” she responded in a tone of consolation.
And, of course, to take in the “Million Dollar View.”
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