Most of you can probably recall the children’s fairytale from which the title of this story comes. I once experienced an actual encounter with the “troll” in the tale. This narrative relates the events of that day, and also those leading up to that day, seen through the eyes of a child.

 When I was about four years old, I remember my Daddy teaching me the ins and outs of stream fishing. Not that there was any water involved, mind you, but it was none the less instructive. I was taught how to tie fishing knots using an old rusty ring which must have come from a hitching post from some long forgotten time, and a heavy cord. These, I’m sure, were deliberately chosen so that my little clumsy hands could handle it, and that I could easily see what I was doing. As an adult, I see so many youngsters who love to fish, but can’t for the life of them put on a hook. It has to be entirely too frustrating to work with something so fine and nearly invisible for a child to learn. Today, I can easily tie the slip knot (which is entirely firm, but can be intentionally undone by a mere swipe with the fingernails) in either the dark, or for purely showoff purposes, blindfolded. Needless to say, by the age of eight, I was already quite proficient and self reliant on that skill.

   As for the fishing, Daddy insisted on learning the knots and sinkers and such since that came first. I only remember just doing something with that on warm Spring days.  Next came the real deal, or so I was told. Actually, this “fishing” occurred in the front yard of my Lebanon, Virginia home. The hook was still the old hitching post ring with the cord for a line. The bushes and trees in the yard were the cover. And the fish? Well, Daddy was of course! He would hide behind a bush, tell me which way the “water” was flowing and how fast and how deep, etc. It was then up to me to sneak up close enough to present the rusty ring to my prey. And noise or wrong cast resulted in his edging into the cover even closer. I remember once that I cast close to him and he started to go out after it, then made a face of pain and covered his eyes with his hand and quickly retreated to his bush.

    “Too bright and sunny for ‘ole Redeye to come out in the sun to eat,” he said. “And the smallmouth don’t mind the sun but can see you because you’re standing right in it.”

   I took that to mean that I must have been ugly enough to ruin that fish’s  appetite.

    During that time of yard fishing, I learned exactly how each fish bites, depending on the time of year, water conditions and so forth. Looking back, I don’t think I was so interested really in learning all this, but just enjoyed the time Daddy took with me. I do remember being intrigued about how redeyes bite. It seems that they are encouraged to take the bait farther down by thinking that some obstruction in the water has somehow prevented it from taking it far into its lair for a meal at its leisure. So, in most cases, what you do is put just the slightest tension on the line until you feel the characteristic “bump, bump-bump” and then let the line go slack. Quite often, you need a couple of cycles of this to ensure that greedy ‘ole Redeye is yours for sure.

   I learned that lesson the hard way, and was told as an adult that my Daddy, unbeknownst to me watched this instance from a distance, and laughed so hard he cried as it unfolded. We had come up to Wytheville, Virginia, about an hours drive east towards civilization to visit his parents. Daddy and I had gone fishing at this small farm pond for bluegills and largemouth, but soon his attention shifted to the overflow of this pond, a small, but sizeable creek with a few spots with water deep enough to support redeyes.

 He had located me at what had to be the choices of spots... a willow tree’s roots had caught some driftwood over a deep spot, with just the right amount of current, cover and shade for a big redeye’s lair. He left me there on the bank with some worms and proceeded downstream in search of the next likely spot.

 So I sat on the bank, put on the one little split shot sinker just where I had always been taught to put it and baited with half a nightcrawler. Now, you can use a whole one, but it’s a waste of bait since a half is enough to attract a redeye, and besides, you have to wait longer for it to be swallowed. Not to mention that the chubs and crawfish are also attracted to such a succulent, savory, scrumptious, wonderful, wiggly wrangle of worm.

 Even though all his teaching me in the yard about the biting habits of each fish should have been enough to insure success in such a prime place, a five year old is pretty short of patience, especially when you’re excited.

 I vaguely remember what happened next, but of course, of my adult years I heard the story many times. Apparently, there sure enough was a big redeye in there, and he was indeed hungry. In my excitement, I set the hook on the first nibble. What first attracted Daddy’s attention up to where I sat was the sound of a big disturbance on the surface of the water. I had gotten this monster to the surface where twisted and splashed and turned...... and got off.

 “Try him again. Redeyes are stupid and will hit again,” I heard from the distance downstream.

 So, I baited up again and let the worm drift right under that log as before. Sure enough, in no time there he was again. “This time,” I remember thinking, “I’m going to get him to take it down. I want Daddy to see this one I caught.” So this time I teased the bait with him, but was afraid of using too much tension and have him give up because something didn’t seem right to him and he would spit it out and go back to bed.  I set the hook and excitedly fought him. Up to the surface, then down again, working him toward me. Finally, he was tired and I lifted him up to me on the bank.

   I guess it took a long time to work the hook out, from all later accounts, and as soon as he was free, all I had to do was secure him on a make-shift stringer made from a willow branch. I had been taught how to lip a fish to hold him without getting stuck from the fins which stick out in distress from a fish as a defensive action. Trouble was, in all the excitement I had forgotten all that and was just simply trying to pick him up. Picking up a wet cake of soap would have been much easier, since soap doesn’t have spines and doesn’t thrash about so. I must have picked up and dropped that fish twenty times, and was getting bloody in the process. Finally, he was flopping all over the ground and for a lack of a better tactic, I threw my body over him like a hero soldier sacrificing himself for his buddies by covering a live hand grenade. I missed. He flopped towards the creek. He didn’t miss. In he went.

  Remembering my Daddy’s words, I thought I would try for him again, or maybe there was another one just as big in there. In either case, there was no other place close to fish anyway, and I was now on a mission of getting even with this thing. This third time, I toyed with this fish when he bit for I don’t know how long. An eternity it seemed, but I reckoned to let him swallow it to Tuesday and figure out what to do from there.

 And so I did and he did. But this time, at his first break to the surface, I drew back with such force that this mammoth came completely out of the water and over my head. Somewhere in his maiden journey into inner space, the line broke from the sheer weight of the thing and it continued sailing, now free, over my head. Over the fence behind me. Over a patch of wild roses on the fence line. Into a patch of 6 inch alfalfa. Somewhere. My Daddy spend the next twenty minutes or so, watching from a distance, as this five year old first looking, then sweeping with his feet, then on his hands and knees grabbing and discarding clumps of crop, looking in vain for this fish. To this very day, I’ve considered going back and looking for archaeological evidence just to bring closure to the incident.

    This of course was not my first experience in other than front yard stream fishing. I have very vivid memories of Cedar Creek near Lebanon. I think most of my time there, I either didn’t carry a pole or didn’t use it. I was in the “Daddy. What’s this?” stage. There were shells there of all sort of snails and fresh water clams; in retrospect, probably several different species of them co-existing. I remember always being told to bring the prettiest shell home to Mother. I think she still has them somewhere.  And Daddy knew what everything was and why it was. Today, I suffer from the same tendency he had - to not only tell a child what something is to satisfy his curiosity, but flood the query with such a volume of information that the poor kid feels like he’s at an Audubon lecture. My stepson today knows to say, “Can I just have the Reader’s Digest version, please.” But I did learn a lot of neat things. Why big chubs have horns on their heads in the Spring (nest building). Why certain minnows have yellow or red pectoral fins (males of the species attracting mates). What a hellgrammite is (larval stage of a dragonfly), the names for all the trees and flowers, etc.

 Which brings us to the visit to Wytheville when I was eight years old. I always wondered why on these trips that either Daddy and I went fishing or it was just he and his Daddy. Mother told me it that it was because they wanted father and son time alone, and I accepted that as reasonable fact. But this time, I overheard Daddy and Frank arguing.

 “I don’t want no loud youngin comin’ long.”

 “But Frank, he’s quiet enough and gets really absorbed in what he’s doing. He won’t be in the way in the least.”

 “Bet we’ll have to bait his hook and take off his fish for him.”

 “No, he’s been doing that himself for years now.”

 “He’ll scare the fish off.”

 “No, he won’t. Look, let’s go down to the swinging bridge by the filtration plant. We won’t even have to wade. That way, he can’t make any commotion in the water.”

“Kids long is bad luck.”

 “Is that why you never took me and Uncle Marion always did.”

 “I took you all the time.”

 “Yeah, after I came back from college.”

 “Oh, alright then. We’ll all go for a little bit. But if he acts up, we’re gonna leave.”

 “OK. I’ll tell him.”

 I often wonder if he let me hear that on purpose. He was always vague on that subject when I brought it up as an adult. He did tell me that those sorts of things hurt him a lot. I always left the subject alone at that point.

 It was a short drive out from town, and we were soon there baiting up. I wanted to cross the bridge. I had been on one before over Cedar, but Reed was bigger and the bridge higher up.

 “Can I go on the bridge, Daddy?”

 “No, son. I don’t think we should disturb the people in the house on the other side.”

 “But, I’ll just..”

 “I said NO. Now come here and I’ll show you where to fish.”

 “I told you so. It’s already starting,” Frank said.

 “We’re OK. Let’s just fish, huh?”

 The nice thing about Daddy is that he was usually compliant to my having any sort of harmless fun. I think I figured that I was irritating my grandfather, and I was pretty sure we were getting ready to have fun, so it was a mixture of not wanting his disapproval and his offering me what typically was good fishing, or at least, a good time. I didn’t mind dropping that issue.

 He put me down in, as usual, the best spot, although I didn’t know that at the time. I just assumed that he was giving me a place where I had a decent chance of catching as much as everyone else.

“A good teacher never patronizes his students. At least up to the point that they don’t realize it,” I was later told as a grown man. Besides, my grandfather would have never known the difference. He was prone to quoting barometric pressure and the planets positions and God’s will, etc. 

We were on a high bank, eroded underneath due to a turn in the creek towards our side that made  the water deep. He explained that it was hollowed out underneath and that there were all kinds of exposed tree roots where there should be a ton of redeyes. No, he said that they were there for sure. Just a matter if I could get them out.

 So I let my half worm drift back underneath me into the roots and deep. Results were immediate. In five minutes, I had as many keeping size ‘eyes. This was fun!! One out of about three was big enough to eat, and I was a-pullin’ and a-shucking back the small ones; downstream, of course, as to not disturb the rest under the bank and in the tree roots, as I was taught to do. Some of them were really big. And black. I learned long ago that redeyes are chameleons. They change color in about a twenty minute time span to match their surroundings. These were black because they were way back in the recesses of the eroded bank. Totally dark. In the bucket, they turned green and then splotched brown and finally light tan, because of the light they were exposed to.

 And then the serenity was broken as, from underneath our side of the swinging bridge, emerged a small, wiry old man. His eyes were light blue but shone with that same light you get when you take a picture of a dog with a flash bulb. He was humped over from age and his face that of a weather worn farmer. He also was carrying a big stick! My initial reaction was that he wanted to take our fish.

 He hadn’t come across the bridge, but somehow underneath it. He had been mumbling something as he came out from under the bridge and came toward us. Now, it had boiled up to full-fledged screaming.

 “Ya Goddammed sons ‘o bitches! Ya sons ‘o bitches! Gotdamyas!”

 Frank leaped into immediate damage control. I guess he figured that it was his job as patriarch or perhaps he knew him.

 “I’m sorry, here. We were just doing a little fishing with the boy.”

 Hmmph! First he doesn’t want me to come along and now he’s playing me as the sympathy card. I’m ignoring the commotion and continuing to pull out eyes. I guess I figured it was an adult thing.

 “Gotdammed sons ‘o bitches. Fishing on a poor ole man’s land. Littering, cussing up a storm in front of my kids, scaring my cattle.” 

“But we’re just being quiet fishin’ here.”

 That was when the first blow was struck. I think it plum dumbfounded my grandfather. Daddy ran towards the fracas to intervene, now  sure convinced that things were past the talking stage. I caught three more keepers before the stick was wrested from the old man.

 I’m not sure what happened next. I think just a hasty retreat to the car and a quick get-away. With the fish, of course.

 “They weren’t bitin’ today, anyhow,” Frank mumbled.

 “Well, Bruce caught a bunch.”

 “Yeah. Dumb luck. I was lucky sometimes as a kid, too. Trouble is, and I told you so, having youngins long is bad luck.”

 As I listened to all that, I looked down at my bucket of fish, I remember one thought occurring to me... one I’ll never forget.

 I knew what I was doing.