Mike nodded at Matt and downed the rest of his beer, and the two went outside after changing quickly to some shorts and wading shoes, stopping to grab the seine and both minnow buckets, a few fishing poles and a small cup of dirt and worms.


    “Lets try and get some Hellgrammites first,” Mike said as they walked down towards the river.


    “Yeah,” Matt said, unrolling the seine andying it out.


    As they shook out the ten foot attached to two poles, Emma and Emily came down the hill then and walked over.


    “You catching or holding, Em?” Mike asked.


    “You know I don’t like those bastards,” she responded. “I’m holding.”


    Emily looked over at her. “What bastards? What exactly are we catching?”


    “Hellgrammites,” she answered simply, as if that answered the question. “Mean little fuckers.”


    Mikeughed. “Ohe on, it bit you that one time and you still won’t grab them?”


    “That shit hurt!”


    “Wait a minute,” Emily said, “there’s stuff in that water that bites?”


    Mattughed. “Oh, they don’t hurt that bad.”


    “What’s a Hellgrammite?” she asked.


    “It’s thervae of a Dobsonfly. It’s got pincers on its face and catfish love to eat ’em.”


    Emily paled.


    Mikeughed then. “Don’t worry. They aren’t aggressive unless you fuck with them and they hide under rocks in the rapids where they can catch prey that swims past. You’ll be fine. You can hold the with Emma. Matt and I will grab ’em.”


    She smiled. “Okay. What do we do?”


    Emma nodded at the other pole that Matt was holding. “Grab that and follow me.”


    Mike gingerly stepped into the water ahead of them, followed by Matt. “Goddamn, this feels good,” he said as he stepped out from the shade into the gentle rapids.


    Emily and Emma both took their time walking out to the boys, ensuring they didn’t fall.


    “Alright, spread out and hold the bottom of the on the bottom of the river, and dig it in a little if you can.”


    The girls did as they were told and soon the flow of the river had the bowed out in the middle. Emma didn’t have any trouble holding it steady, but Emily had to strain a little to hold steady, finally nting her feet and leaning forward slightly.


    “There we go,” she said.


    “Okay, just hold what you got,” Matt called.


    He and Mike began to turn rocks over and brush them off, a minnow bucket tied to each of the guys.


    “Got one,” Matt called, holding up a wriggling tan creature between his fingers. It thrashed back and forth and looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.


    “Ooh, let me see,” Emily called.


    Matt moved over and held it up.


    “Eww, that’s so gross,” she said. “It’s so tiny, too.”


    “Aww, don’t tell me it’s tiny! All the girls are gonna hear!”Exclusive ? content by N(?)ve/l/Drama.Org.


    Emily rolled her eyes.


    Mattughed and tossed it into his bucket, moving back and turning over more rocks. After they’d worked most of the rocks in front of the, both of the guys took the from the girls and strained against the current as they began to lift it out of the water. Muscles cording and bulging, the boys pulled back and the finally cleared the water, arge stone weighing it down in the middle, which Emma quickly moved over to and lifted out, dropping it into the water with arge ssh.


    She moved quickly back to Mike’s side and took over, her brother having done the heavy lifting.


    Mike handed the pole over and moved to the center of the, moving moss and algae-covered nts aside and picking up a fewrge minnows and a single angry crayfish, along with seven Hellgrammites, dropping them all into the minnow bucket.


    “Okay,” he called, at which point Matt and Emma turned the and shook it, clearing the debris.


    “Let’s move over here,” he called.


    Emily took the back from Matt, but as she tried to move, she slipped and pulled hard, sshing down into the water and bringing Emma with her. Both girls came up sputtering, soaked. Mike and Matt wereughing, but Matt whistled when he saw Emily’s light blue shirt sticking to her chest.


    Both girls were clearly not wearing anything underneath their t-shirts.


    “Nice,” he called, helping Emily up who pulled her shirt out to keep it from sticking to her chest.


    Normally she would have given him a scowl or left altogether, but she nonchntly grabbed the from him and moved back to help catch bait. “They’re just boobs, Matt,” she said simply.


    “Ha, maybe to you!” heughed.


    A short whileter, they’d caught enough bait to bait a trot line and hopefully catch some catfish for the next night.


    “Think the others at the cabin want toe swimming, maybe use the rope swing?” Matt asked, turning and ncing at Mike.


    “Probably,” Mike shrugged, wading over to a tree close to the water’s edge to tie off the minnow buckets in order to keep the critters inside alive. As if on cue, Beth, Sarah, Missy and Danni all came out of the house wearing bikinis. Mike tried to ignore them but nced a few hundred times out of the corner of his eye, but Matt didn’t try and hide it at all.