Jean was nice enough to let me repost this here. I hope you guys enjoy it!
Liar's Corner
As I was growing up, my father told me the best way to catch a man was learn to fish.
I
never gave that piece of advice much thought until after I was married
and realized how much of a part it played in my dates. I was
tricked into more than one date with a sly boy by a seemingly innocent offer to take me fishing.
I’m not really gullible, but I have a tendency to be unobservant.
Since
getting married and having children, my urge to fish and camp has
dwindled and my husband likes to poke fun at me by calling me a fair
weather fisherman.
To many, this is a horrible slight, but
I endure his slander because I am a true believer in my fishing
convictions. Fishing should be an enjoyable entertainment unless one
intends to try to feed a family with the skill. I stand by that
statement with firmly planted feet.
My husband would fish
any time of day, anywhere in the world there is water and in any
weather. I suspect it might be just to avoid the fair weather fisherman
label.
He does have preferences on what he fishes for,
though. He prefers any fish other than trout. Of course this is a
problem because most of the creeks and lakes around here have nothing
but trout with one large exception.
Sixty miles from our home is a damn dam that is home to walleye, pike and tiger musky.
Yes,
I did say damn dam because this is the most awful place for humans to
visit other than Hell itself. At least it is on most days.
I
haven’t mentioned that I truly do love my husband, even though he
sometimes indulges in assassination of my character and is predisposed
to pouting when he doesn’t get his way.
For love and to avoid the maddening vision of a pouting man I give in to go to this particular lake more often than I’d like to.
This
man made lake isn’t just home to several different species of fish it
is also host to almost every biting insect our bountiful earth has to
offer. Also, these biting beasties seem to be immune to bug spray.
Not
only have the insects sold their souls but the weather is almost always
bad. High winds, torrential downpours and sweltering heat have all
been known to manifest on the shores of this watering hole, all at the
same time.
So, with a heavy heart full of stupid love, I gave in once more to my husband’s wishes.
I
was prepared to have a miserable day full of bad weather, itchy bug
bites and sunburn. All to avoid the pouting face of the person who was
supposed to be my
man and the scurrilous title my husband has so lovingly bestowed upon me of fair weather fisherman.
This
day was out of the ordinary, however. As we set up our poles along the
shore, I noticed the swarms of bugs near the water's edge were not the
biting kind, the wind was only a breeze and the ground was dry. I
wondered how long this was going to last.
Something that had never bothered me before spending an entire summer driving back and forth to this lake was getting
skunked.
I was just happy to sit on shore or walk a creek and fish. It never
used to matter that I might not catch anything. Not until I spent so
much time at this dam being eaten alive, pelted with heavy rain and hail
and being blown half across the state.
Yes, I will admit,
I was looking for something wrong and had been surly for most of the
drive to the reservoir. But, I’m not evil, I got past my irritation
when I realized the plague that was this lake had changed its tune.
Even the annoyance of getting skunked was pushed down.
My
seven-year-old daughter can’t resist the water so as soon as our lines
were in, so was she. The poor thing was restricted from splashing
because the main objective was to catch fish, not scare them.
We
sat around for an hour or so before we saw any movement of the poles
then we were hit with a wave of bites. None of us were near our poles
when this wave passed so, needless to say, none of us set our hooks and
caught a fish. Then the passing school did just that and passed. I began
to get frustrated until I glanced at my daughter's pole in time to see
her get another bite.
"Hey!" My husband barked to alert us to the situation, but I was already on the move.
My
sweet daughter owns a small, four-foot, Zebco fishing pole with
ten-pound-test fishing line. For those of you who are not fishermen,
it's a child's pole not meant for catching the big one.
I made my way to her pole with high hopes. Maybe we wouldn’t get skunked.
As
I set the hook, I could tell the fish on the other end was worth the
effort and by the time I made three or four revolutions with the fishing
reel, my daughter was there to do her duty. I handed over the pole and
began to instruct her when my husband arrived. Though I’m just as
capable of giving her instruction as he is, this is one task that is
Dad’s job and I willingly stepped aside.
“Let her do it,” I
said, not really thinking he’d take her position away from her, but
knowing how the excitement of having a fish on the line makes one want
nothing but to get that fish into shore.
She struggled,
grunted and whined for a few minutes before my husband hollered once
again. This time it was to tell me to reel in our lines because the fish
was crossing them. This could cause a major mess and the loss of the
fish. So, I ran to my rod and had it almost reeled in before he stopped
his instruction and made his way to his own pole. I don't think he
turned the crank more than five times before her line snapped.
The sound I heard was something like
pssss
and the three of us watched as the gossamer line flew across the sky
and down into the water. We were all crestfallen but I wasn’t ready to
give up just yet. Her line had fallen very near if not on top of my
husband’s line.
Without thinking or hesitation I ran out
into the water. I had about twenty feet to cover before I reached the
broken line. No thought entered my mind as my eyes bore into the water
where the almost invisible line dropped. There was no sound but the
lapping of the water against the shore and my splashing. Neither my
daughter or my husband cautioned me against the dangers of wading out so
far.
As I reached the spot where I saw it land, I
realized it was only my husbands line nicely curled up on top of the
water. Already up to my butt in the ice-cold water and not wanting to
admit I’d done something completely unnecessary I started to pull up his
line, just in case.
I was rewarded with the end of my daughter's ten-pound-test fishing line and grabbed it.
Seeing I had indeed found the prize, my husband started calling for his rightful duty.
"Bring it here! Bring it here!"
Once
again, my well-being was not an issue for any of us. Not only could I
have drowned, but as I pulled the line back with me toward shore, I was
lucky it didn't cut into my hands.
As I waded out of the
water, my hubby took the prize from me. I didn't object and gladly
handed the job off to him. Rational thought had returned as I had
trudged back to shore.
He successfully pulled in the fish and her line snapped once more.
Luckily
he had it on dry ground and the fish fell to flapping around in the
dirt. It was a mean looking tiger musky with a bad attitude.
If
you don’t know what a tiger musky is, just let me tell you that it’s
not a fish you want to go messing around with. They have slimy, snake
like bodies with a mouth full of large, pointy teeth. They have been
known to attack people in the water. Of course, this does not happen
often, but it does happen.
I once heard a news story on
the radio about a man who had been dangling his feet off a boat and had
been attacked by a tiger musky. The fish didn’t let go until after he’d
pulled his leg back into the boat and it left a wound requiring sixty
stitches. The poor man, having not yet purchased his fishing license,
was not permitted to keep the animal that had injured him.
Around here, a Tiger Musky must be a minimum of forty inches and wouldn't you know it, we forgot our measuring tape.
A
nice angler near us sent his boy running with his measuring tool. It
was a rigid fish-cleaning block that went as high as ten inches. So,
after some difficulty, we agreed our monster was only thirty-one inches
long.
We took the required pictures and released our fish for another time.
A
man in a boat actually drove as near to shore as he could to tell me
"Hey, Lady. If I knew your name, I'd enter you into the fisherman's hall
of fame." I laughed but wondered if there was such a thing.
I later asked my husband about it and he replied, "Yes, there is. It's called Liars Corner."
About the Author: J.C. Phelps is one of the moderators for Breakout Books on facebook, and also the author of the Alexis Stanton chronicles. You can find more of her work
here.
