Old Times....

Its been awhile since I posted, laziness the biggest factor for that, sue me. The Warrior Baits tournament did not go as planned although my lil' bro and I was on some really solid fish. The story of my season so far, lost fish killed the opportunity to throw down a big bag of fish on the scale. It wasnt meant to be. My brother, once again put a nice fish in the box, just like he did at Mosquito Lake last summer. We had a fun time, I always have a blast when I get to fish with my family, whether its my dad or one of my brothers or both. We got to talking out on the boat about some of the crazy times we had as kids while fishing and I thought it might be remotely interesting to share a few stories from my childhood.

Im not going to go all in depth on some of these stories, for all I know, these stories might only be funny to me, so I am sorry in advanced if you feel like you "had to be there". Im also probably going to make this a 2 or 3 part deal as I recall new stories.

 The Bullet - There was a pond near one of the handful of houses my dad lived in while we were growing up. For whatever reason, we were only alowed to fish that pond for one summer. I think maybe someone bought the land or something, hell, maybe the landowners just didnt want some douchey kids raping their pond, cant really recall. Anyway, my step-brother and I (Heath) was fishing for whatever was biting. I was usually throwing some variety of plastic worm when I was that age. Heath was a little less evolved and was throwing some sort of rig that required a 1oz bell sinker. As you know, most anything with a 1oz bell sinker will get away from you in a hurry if youre not careful.  Well thats what happened to Heath, he heaved that rig out and it went about 30 yards up and into a tree. I have no idea what kind of line he was using but it was probably the most generic, heaviest mono you can imagine. Im guessing 25lb or more Eagle Claw economy spool. This snag is in there good, so Heath starts tugging and tugging and tugging. He is really leaning on this thing. It looked like a giant banjo string. When it finally let go, it sounded like a major league fastball. Im watching this whole deal unfold, I didnt know what was going to happen but I was pretty sure something was gonna go down. So the line breaks, but it breaks between the hook and the sinker and that sinker was making a B-line towards Heath at a speed that could only be measured with a high speed camera from Mythbusters. Can you imagine the sound it made when it hit him? You would be disapointed if you actually heard it because it wasnt as exciting as you would think but it still makes me laugh when I replay that sound. It hit him right in the bare chest and sounded something like movie punch. Left a welt on him that looked like a paintball wound and is burned into my memory as to what happens when you pull a little to hard on a snag in a tree.

The Lantern -  We spent alot of time catfishing as kids. I couldnt get enough of it. We always went at night, all summer long, seemed like every night of the week. My dad had a vintage Coleman lantern that we used for, of all things, lighting. It was old school, from the early 70s, but it worked awesome. I think he still has that old lantern somewhere. Anyway, one night, we were doing our usual thing, this time at Lake Alma in Vinton county. We were fishing off the only dock in the entire lake at the time, hell it might still be the only dock in the lake, and it was prob midnight. It was kind of spitting rain, kind of chilly, crazy windy, and we werent catching many fish. We decided to pack things up and head back to the car. Heath got up from his lawn chair and started to gather some things when a gust of wind kicked up and blew the lawn chair into the water and with it, the still lit lantern. It stayed lit, believe it or not, for about a tenth of a second. Panic ensued, mainly in part due to the fact that my dad was a hard ass and was likely to be ultra pissed about his lantern being dropped into an average at best catfishing lake. The water wasnt that deep so after gathering our witts, we shined a flashlight on the subject at hand and realized that we could hook the lantern and raise it from the depths. The next day, a 13 year old (yours truly) while dad was at work, completely disassembled the lantern, changed the fuel, put a new mantle on, lubed moving parts and re-glazed the sub-routine without anyone in a position of authority being the wiser. The thing worked like a champ, you would never know it had been drowned the night before.

I got more,  and considering how bad Ive sucked this season, these lame old stories are prob far more interesting then hearing about me losing another tournament because I cant drag a fish out of anything other then open water.

Later

S.T.P.