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Show , . S F f I Pete "Big Fish" Battiste displays award-winning yarn-spinning form at Ryan's Fish Story Telling Contest. Battiste won, hook, line and sinker. Visitor lands top prize in fish tale festival by Ten Gomes With bait consisting of free beer, free smoked salmon and baked trout, Ryan's bar on Main Street reeled in a big crowd for their first annual Fish Fry and Storytelling Contest. Dana and Evan Williams (affectionately (affec-tionately known as the Trout Brothers, for their obvious love of the fish) recently co-sponsored a series of lectures on fishing with the Park City Recreation Department. The storytelling contest was the culmination of that series. As more than a dozen hopefuls worked up tales about the ones that got away, the gillable (or rather, gullible) audience let themselves get caught up in the spirit of the thing. Some tale-tellers tackled outlandish outland-ish yarns to set the tone. Evan Williams explained that Echo Reservoir had recently been purchased pur-chased by the Ford Motor Company. "They're going to use it as a watering hole for all their Broncos and Pintos and Mustangs," he grinned. Brother Dana told about the time he learned the secret of catching trout. "...and I swear this is true. You just sneak up on them real quiet like when they're up under the banks of a river. Then you gently put your Land under the water and rub their stomachs for about five minutes until they're totally hypnotized. Then you can just lift them out with your hands." The trout tummies story' hooked a few listeners and prepared them for Pete "Big Fish" Battiste, who described himself as a paid vacationer from Harbor Falls, Michigan. (Actually he was in town for sister Anne's wedding held last Saturday at Sundance. ) Pete told about the day he and a buddy fished a lake that was so deep in "trash fish" they had to put a fish plow on the front of the boat to get through the waters and search for "The Big Ones." The fish finder in the boat directed them to the best spot to fish and Pete began to reel in a jack salmon. Just as he was getting the fish out the water it was eaten by a rainbow trout and pulled back down. As Pete reeled in the rainbow it was eaten by a brown trout. Pete reeled in the brown and ("I know you're not going to believe this, but..."( the brown was eaten by a Chinook salmon and... you get the idea. Pete ended up with a 93-pound salmon that was only 48 inches long. When he entered it in a local fishing contest the fish narcs got suspicious. They x-rayed the fish and finding the other fish inside, charged Pete with two counts of using game as bait (a felony). They took away his Michigan fishing license, which forced him to seek lakes and streams elsewhere, like Utah. Pete took home the first-place trophy for his far-fetched tale. Second place went to Randy Booker, a part-time bartender at Ryan's. Hanging around the Trout Brothers has served him well. Booker recounted the time he and his Dad were fishing the Sacramento River in a tiny, tinny boat. In the early morning hours they snagged a sturgeon. "Huge! I mean this thing was somewhere between 250 and say 950 pounds. And real ugly." The fish, after an hour's battle, took a final dive and apparently got caught in the tules and river underbrush. The men saw a diver sunning himself on the river's edge and offered him $50 to go down and free the fish. The diver went down and came back up to report, "I know you're not going to believe this, but the fish is caught inside a '38 Packard. He's curled all over in the front and back seats." But the men were determined. Just once more, they begged, go down and give it a try. Again the diver went down. Twenty, 30, 40 minutes passed. Finally he came up, exhausted, and threw himself on the shore. "It's no use," said the diver. "Each time I got close to either side of the car the fish would just roll up the windows and lock the doors." Third-place honors resulted in a tie between Sticks, the dog from Down Under, and Brian Mudlake. Both stories are of the off-color (or blue fish) variety. Suffice it to say they amused the attentive crowd. Dana Williams deemed the contest a success. So much so he is planning a writing contest in the fall. "That will cater to the Harvard Dartmouth crowd we attract here," he explained. I swear I saw the rattlesnake over the bar wink when he said that. J i I i |