I was fishing with a bunch of buddies at a local reservoir one day when my friend Jim caught a fish. It swam around a little as he was reeling it in, and Jim "played" it for our amusement, pretending it was a real lunker. Since he was notorious for catching inchlings, this was particularly funny. But when the fish apparently swam under a submerged log and got stuck, it became a complete laugh riot since Jim kept pulling and pulling until his pole was bent practically double. I remember we were all screaming with laughter as Jim yelled, "I got a marlin! I got a mar-" when the fish suddenly unanchored itself and came flying out of the water like a missile, straight at Jim's head. He ducked. We all looked behind him to see where it had landed but we couldn't find it. Jim started cussing then - and I mean an ear-blistering, make-a-sailor-blush stream of profanity here. He had the awe and attention of everyone within earshot. As it happened, he hadn't quite ducked in time, and as the fish grazed by the side of his head, the barbs of the fishhook that protruded from the side of its mouth had speared Jim in the earlobe, where the fish now hung incongruously, like a big, silver, wiggling earring.

It was a Rainbow trout. Jim had finally caught a decently sized keeper. It had been hooked with a rather small treble hook with barbed tips, two of which went all the way through the cartilage about halfway up the ear. Between the trout's efforts to free itself, its subsequent death throes which lasted forever, and Jim's total inability to hold still, we all decided that professional help was in order. We piled into someone's car and headed for the ER.

We hit every red light on the way and every time there seemed to be a car full of kids next to us. You didn't even have to be able to read lips to know they were saying "LOOK AT THAT MAN, MOMMY! HE'S GOT A FISH HANGING FROM HIS EAR!" as they plucked at her clothes and pointed toward us. It must have been quite an unforgettable vision too, as one of us had decided to try and cut the fish's body off just below the head, to lessen the weight. After butchering a basic fillet job - made worse by Jim's continuing to be a most uncooperative patient - what was left was a fish head with a bunch of bloody ganglia hanging down to Jim's shoulder.

It didn't get any better when we got to the hospital either. It's like those people have seen it all and nothing impresses them anymore. We had to wait our turn. Looking back on it, I'm sure that Jim was glad he could help take people's minds off their own troubles that day, as he sat in the waiting room for over an hour, occasionally letting fly a colorful epithet or charming expletive, and with his increasingly aromatic catch decorating his head and shirt.

The season came to a close shortly after, and sadly, that was Jim's biggest fish that summer. He did have the head mounted though, and it hangs today over his mantle.