It’s a fact that only chance collocates decent fishing with anything resembling cuisine.

At best there’s the local flavor of greasy spoon, a fast food franchise or two, and a local pizza parlor – at worst, there’s whatever you left in the motel refrigerator supplemented deftly by the minimart.

The evening hatch dooms us to whatever is open after 9PM, so choice isn’t always an option that first evening … all that changes the second night as celibacy becomes a viable alternate.

As us fishermen are sensitive to impoverished local economies we’ll gun it past the national chain (which closes too early anyways) and opt instead for the indigenous chow …

Common to all watersheds and exotic venues is the plasticine menu, featuring ruby red tomato slices with dew bursting from every pore, crisp green lettuce plucked by the Green Giant hisself, anatomically correct chicken pieces with hints of gold and russet in its greaseless crust, everything is plumb, buff, nutritious, and warm.

Even the liver looks good, and you know you hate that.

Then that sodden, gelatinous ocher mound is slammed between your fork and knife – and just before you insist it isn’t what you ordered, something vaguely recognizable (usually a beak or foot) bobs to the surface where it stares at you menacingly…

It’ll do likewise around 2AM no matter how well it’s chewed, nor will it alter shape or form during its entire journey through your gastrointestinal tract and beyond.

For the first time we get to peer behind the menu and see the sinister SOB’s and their sickening craft.

Tags: fishing cuisine, food shoot, cheese pull, greasy spoon, evening hatch, fly fishing humor, fly fishing exotic venues,