Fishing Friday or how Moby Catfish beat DB

Early afternoon fishing.

Since Mississippi deer season (gun) opens tomorrow morning, Dad and I decided to go fishing earlier this afternoon so that we wouldn't get in the way of any scouting hunters. I'll probably won't be deer hunting this year (as much as I love to hunt) for practical reasons (no place to store a whole deer, and none of us really like eating venison) plus my Dad gave up deer hunting years ago. Both he and my second brother have a living room full of deer heads and assorted mounted antlers and other game trophies! Although, I've shot my share of deers; I've never achieve that "monster" deer trophy like my Dad or brother Herbert. But that's okay, I'm sure someday I'll get my own trophy buck but for now, I can enjoy the view at the restaurant of all the ones already harvested and mounted.

Deer heads and other stuffed game trophies.

So back to my fishing tale of the day; after Dad and I checked on things around the farm, we started our fishing before 3:00pm this afternoon. Almost immediately, on my first or second cast into the pond, I had a small bass strike at my lure! Wasn't able to set the hook on this guy and he/she leaped outta of the water and was gone just like that! About 5 or 10 minutes later, I had an even larger bass hit my lure! I tried to play him and lost him when I gave too much slack! Groan!!! I go another 15 feet along the bank of the pond, casting as I went and boom! Another strike but this one never surfaced, but gave a constant and stubborn pull! I was really surprised at how hard this one was to even budged! Part of the problem was that I was using one of my brother's many rod & reels and wasn't familiar with the setting and found out the hard way that the drag was set pretty high so, the fish (I assumed it was a hefty Channel Catfish) got away! I was pissed! In that first 20 minutes, I already lost three nice fishes in a row!

So I kept fishing (there's a reason why they call it "fishing" and NOT "catching fish") thru the rest of the afternoon, walking around the pond and casting my line as I went. Not a single hit or strike for another 40 - 50 minutes or so. I kept going until I was half way around the south side of the pond opposite from where I started from. On one fateful cast, my line was stuck! But it wasn't a log that my line was stuck on, it was as I would assume again; A REALLY BIG CATFISH! This time I had my drag properly set and the BATTLE of WILL had started! Oh my gosh! It was like I hooked up a German Shepherd in the water! Fishing line kept pulling out with the drag screeching as my fishing rod was bent almost in half (at which point I thought either the rod was gonna snap or the line was going to pop but both had held up well)! I assumed the classic point the rod tip toward the fish and reeled in line as I slacked the rod, using the rod to work the fish. After a couple minutes of this tug of war with Mister Fish, I felt the line go limp and knew immediately that my potential Sports Page headline was gone! I was pissed and on top of that my fishing line got all twisted up and tangle from all the pulling. I had to cut away a good part of it and re-tied my ripped up lure (which I soon replaced). I think I wasted alot of time trying to recover from my fish battle with "Moby Catfish" back around to where Dad was but gave up half way as my equipment was starting to fail me. All I had to take home was stories of all the fishes that I missed today, especially about "Moby Catfish"! So tonight we eat chicken instead of fish. Next time, Mister Fish, next time!

-DB-