The Miracle Rod

Many years ago, I was browsing through the junk at State Surplus. Near the door, there was a garbage can full of confiscated rods and reels. Gary Bagley and I were looking through these poles and I noticed a G Loomis rod with a Daiwa reel. I didn't know too much about fishing equipment, but I knew G Loomis was a very good brand. I bought the pair for $15.00 and took them home. Richie was fascinated with the rod and reel and was bound and determined to find what they were worth. He searched catalogue after catalogue. Finally he came in the room smiling and told me the rod was worth $150.00 and the reel was worth $100.00. Needless to say, I was amazed. Several years later,I took Greg fishing at a small reservoir on Cove Mountain above Annabella known as Anabella Reservoir. We were in a small raft and it was a windy day. We weren't catching anything and the raft was filling with water so we decided to leave. Greg was using the G Loomis rod with a cheap reel on that particular day. We we got to shore, to our horror, we noticed that the rod had fallen out of the raft. We went back out to see if we could find it on the bottom (it is a fairly shallow lake) to no avail. The very next year, I again took Greg fishing on Annabella Reservoir (the reservoir has a large population of freshwater shrimp which makes the flesh of the fish bright orange and as the water lake gets lower in the fall, the fish are fairly large and easy to catch). This time, we had Lou Brown with us and a decent boat. I was using a fly and a bubble and Greg was using a spinner. We had been fishing for an hour or so when Greg hooked into what we thought was a fairly good fish. As he reeled it in, it became apparent that it wasn't a fish, it was the G Loomis. That was a good fishing trip.