Back when I worked at the Game and Fish, Chris Madson wrote a column for Wyoming Wildlife magazine that talked about his remedy for the common cold. I can’t do it justice trying to explain it in ten seconds. Please know that it was much better in its entirety than this boiled-down explanation.
Chris said in the fall, when he starts feeling the first signs of an illness, he heads for the duck marsh. The extreme conditions shock the sick right out of him.
But now it’s spring. The bird season is over. But nasty weather hasn’t called it quits, and neither has the cold and flu season.
Not long after I read Chris’ column, I was hacking up a lung every five minutes. I had a sore throat and a killer cough that just wouldn’t go away. As if that weren’t bad enough, I also came down with the flu.
So I decided to give Chris’ remedy a try. The weather was far from the howling blizzard Chris suggested as the conditions best suited to killing a viral or bacterial infection. It was 50 degrees and sunny when I left the house. And I wasn’t hunting birds. I was going fishing. But I thought at least if I didn’t get rid of my ailment, I’d at least get a good day of fishing in.
It’s amazing how quickly the weather in the Rockies can change. One minute I was shielding my eyes from the glare of the sun off the water, and the next I was shaking pounds of snow out of my hair. The temperature plummeted about thirty degrees in as many minutes.
But the fish were still biting, so I stayed out. And it worked. Not only did I have a great day of fishing, the cold snap froze out all the lingering bugs in my system.
I woke up the next day refreshed and cough-free. And I had fish for breakfast.
I tell you, that Chris Madson fella’ knows what he’s talking about.
