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James Cowie fishes a lot. He catches a lot of fish. But he never, ever hooked a fish like the one he caught recently at Dunbar’s Anderson Lake.
“It was just a brute of a trout,” said Cowie, as he described the big rainbow. “It was, by far, the biggest one I’ve ever landed.”
What makes Cowie’s fish even more remarkable is that he caught it while fishing from a wheelchair.
“I hadn’t intended to fish that day,” said Cowie, who lives in Charleston. “I had to go to Nitro to get my car’s wheelchair lift fixed, and on the way back home I decided to stop by the lake to see if anyone was fishing.” |
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A handful of people were, and they had good news for Cowie.
“They said the stock truck had been there,” he recalled. “The crew had put the fish in near the handicap dock, and the people there made sure I had room to get my wheelchair onto the dock.”
Like many paraplegics, Cowie has to equip himself properly for winter weather so his lower extremities don’t get too cold.
“I hadn’t planned to fish, so I wasn’t dressed for it,” he said. “I was just wearing jeans. There was no way I could stay there all day, like I sometimes do, but I figured I would be OK for a couple of hours.”
The other anglers, who were there when the stocking truck ran, couldn’t stop talking about a “supertrout” the hatchery crew had tossed into the lake. |
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