Fish Story
Here I am, blogging on my lunch break, trying to figure out how to filter all the happenings into one, sufficient post. I can’t do it. Some things I can’t talk about yet. So, instead, I will share a fish story.
While my wife was sick with a horrid cold, I went fishing. It wasn’t planned that way, but it just happened. For me fishing is equated to “sticking your line in and wait until you are tired of waiting”. I don’t even have a pole of my own.
Anyway, two guys at church just happen to have cabins around the same little lake in Minnesota. They didn’t even know it until they ran into each other up there one weekend, years ago. After that, they started a tradition — in the early fall, they invite men from the church to come up and stay for the weekend. One day is dedicated to fishing, card playing, and, well, some beer drinking. The next day, Sunday, we go to church we pick one guy’s dock, the other guy’s dock, and a third guy’s dock. And the drag in the boat lifts. It’s back-breaking work (although my back is fine today — it’s my shoulders that are stiff). Yet they feed us amazing amounts of food and we fish until we can’t fish anymore.
I hadn’t been able to go for a few years, but Gina and I have scheduled things around this weekend once it was finally set in stone. And, what do you know? I caught a walleye after about 15 minutes in trolling the lake. It wasn’t a big one, but as our “guide” (i.e. a cabin owner) put it, “Hey, we’ll eat ‘em!”
Later that day, when we were set in some rocks, our guide was telling us about the catfish in the lake. He looked straight at me and said, “If you get one on your line, believe me, you will s#$t your pants.” I nodded, thinking that I had already got my last fish for the next fifteen years.
That afternoon, we started drifting on the lake, to increase our chances. Because, for some reason, I was really the only one that caught anything! As we are drifting, I caught another fish. A smaller one this time, and no one was sure what kind it was. But it wasn’t a bullhead, which no one on this trip seems to count as a catch. Nor was it a carp, either. I only mention it because, well, it was perhaps the second fish I have ever caught and if that isn’t true, it surely is the first time I caught two fish withing 24 hours.
That night, me and another guy put some lines out on the dock. I remembered how much luck I had trolling and drifting, so I set my borrowed pole up similarly– not much weight and I didn’t cast it. I put a minnow on and let it drop straight down.
About an hour later, a bunch of us are sitting around the fire. Suddenly, we heard a big splash in the water and the sound of a reeling spinning! My friend and I looked at other. “Did a pole fall in?” That was our first and really only thought.
We ran down to the end of the dock. My buddy (who is a very experienced fisherman) said, “Ah, your pole is really bent over.” So I grabbed the pole, he grabbed the net, and someone else ran down with a flashlight because it was pitch black by the water. As I hauled that guy up, my buddy was giggling with glee. When we got it in the net, we ascertained what we caught – a catfish, probably around eight pounds. I didn’t s$#t my pants, but I was definitely in awe.
Three fish in less than twenty-four hours.
I am putting a rod and reel on my Christmas list, because I am officially hooked.
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