Free Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs Page B

pitch your tent right next to our RV. After dinner we can go for a long walk around the lake.
    Yeah, right. Truth be told, they were like bored trout watching a couple of fishermen go by in a drift boat. “They had no idea they should be asking for your T-shirt,” Quinn said with a sly grin.
    On we went, hopes dimming. Just when we thought we’d have to crash in the woods somewhere, we found the last untaken campsite. It had a latrine view and a bit of a latrine smell, but otherwise it was perfect. We decided not to bother pitching the tube tent. We’d use it for a ground cloth, throw our sleeping bags on it, and sleep under the stars.
    Quinn got out the bowls and spoons, mixed up some powdered milk, and set out our ration of granola. He said it was excellent, but he was lying. “Let’s play some cards. Bet you brought ’em.”
    â€œYeah, and a flashlight. It’s getting dark.”
    I fetched my backpack and started pulling things out, including my fleece jacket. The night air was suddenly cold. Something fell out of my balled-up jacket and hit the ground with a thud. It was Fred.
    Just then a guy drove by selling firewood out of his truck. Quinn bought a couple armfuls. We were able to start our card game by the light of a toasty campfire. We stayed up late, as late as the last barking dog in the campground.

14
The Worm Grunter
    T HE FIRST RUMBLE CAME about 1:30 in the morning. The thunder sounded far off but ominous. I wondered if Quinn heard it, but I wasn’t going to ask. Ten minutes later, the lightning strobes were making it easy for me to look at my watch and time the thunder. The storm was about eight miles away. I got up on one elbow. “Hear that, Quinn?”
    â€œFuhgeddaboudit, it’ll go away,” he mumbled.
    I tried to fuhgeddaboudit. Five minutes later, here came thunder strong enough to loosen our fillings, and the wind started blowing hard. “Tube tent,” Quinn announced, and we sprang into action.
    I grabbed the parachute cord we’d brought along and fed it through the tubular sheet of flimsy orange plastic we’d thrown down and gone to sleep on. We ran inopposite directions for trees to tie to, just like in the picture that came with the tube tent.
    The so-called tent was shown with a perfectly triangular opening at each end. At the moment, ours looked like a housepainter’s drop cloth flapping on a clothesline. We found a few rocks and threw them inside to try to spread the thing out and make a floor.
    Our shelter without poles and doors was as pitched as we were going to get it. We dove inside with our sleeping bags just as the storm broke. Wouldn’t you know it was a smackdown gullywasher. Thirty seconds was all it took before a stream deep enough to float trout was rushing through our little home in the woods. The rain lashed our faces as we held up the floor at the uphill entrance, trying to keep the flood out.
    â€œGet under the picnic table?” I suggested. My question was answered by the next bolt of lightning, which revealed a pond collecting under the table.
    â€œRun for the outhouse?” wondered Quinn.
    â€œNo sale,” I replied.
    Fifteen minutes, and the cloudburst had swept on through. “That was fairly extreme,” I said.
    â€œInsane,” Quinn agreed.
    We put on our jackets and thrashed around in our wet bags trying to get back to sleep. Quinn’s teeth were chattering, but mine weren’t. He asked if I wasn’t freezing. “Not too bad,” I said. The weird thing was, I wasn’t cold at all.
    Next thing I knew, Quinn was shaking me awake.Morning had come, but the sun hadn’t reached our campsite yet. Quinn hadn’t slept at all and was on fire to go fishing. He’d already fixed our granola by the time I dragged myself to the picnic table.
    Catching a truly big fish had always been one of our major goals in life, and lake trout are big. The Pactola Lake record