A smelly little encounter on the Androscoggin

So, here's my introduction to a chub.

Smelly. Slimy. Goofy look.

While fishing on the Androscoggin River with Ryan Brod on Monday, where apparently rainbow trout and smallmouth bass were undeterred by all of the rain we've received over the last week, I accidentally hooked into a 14-inch chub. That fish, presumably, was cruising the bottom looking for an easy meal of scraps -- and my Mepps spinner must have fit that bill.

But on a day that produced some three dozen fish between us, a very conservative estimate, the encounter with that chub might provide my most lasting memory.

And not in a good way.

Trying to wrestle the treble hook out of its papery mouth, the chub started to expel some of the other contents that had been in its stomach. Some of it, shall we say, was less than attractive.

And then the smell wafted across my nose, pungently horrific enough to instinctively force me to toss the fish -- hook still entrenched in its lips -- straight back overboard.

Rotting crayfish, it seems, are no match for the smell of, say, rotting vegetables or even the paper mills that are along the Andro.

In the back of the canoe, Ryan laughed at me. He laughed, that is, until he got his own whiff of the stench.

I think he almost fell out of the boat, and for a brief moment I was worried about whether or not I was going to have to paddle back upstream on a rescue mission.

Thankfully, one of us kept our wits about us -- as he steadied the vessel and kept us pointed in the direction of more fish.

Real fish.

Smallies and rainbows.

No more of those chubs.

Funny how the sense of smell is so powerful that our memories become tied to it -- like the smell of Mom's kitchen when the lasagna was in the oven or how fresh-cut grass smells before you run through it as a bare-footed child.

But the sense also weaves itself into the not-so-pleasant memories, too.

Like that chub's three-day-old lunch.

Word to the wise: If you're trying to release a chub from your hook and it starts to vomit up the goods, cut the line and consider the lure a loss on the balance sheet. You'll thank me later.