No Danged Luck

 

Uncle Norten and I were fishing in February for whatever we can catch

       When I am fishing in February and March, I like water just a little bit above normal, with not so much mud in it, or floating debris.  I like it green colored and gently flowing, enough so that the boat doesn’t drag on the shoals and I want it to stay right where it is until all the walleye and bass and crappie have brought forth a good spawn. This time of year I would rather be somewhere listening to spring peepers, intent on seeing my topwater lure slurped under and my rod bent to the breaking point by a white bass or hybrid.

 

       That being said, nothing ever works the way I want it too.  I feel like I was born on Friday the 13^th.   I could dig up a safe in my back yard and it would be filled with confederate money.  I could get stung by a bee or bit by a copperhead just looking for a four-leaf clover.   I ain’t never had no danged luck!!

 

 Last week, the fish were so hard to find I don’t know if I remember enough about what one looks like to write about it.  Honest to goodness, I fished hard for two hours and never got a strike.  I was using a new five dollar lure which a company representative had given me, and finally, when I was just going through the motions of casting without much hope of hooking anything more than underwater snags, a huge fish of some kind came up beside my boat and savagely slashed at my lure, missing the hooks and somehow breaking the bill off of it.  I don’t know what it was, I never saw it. I suspect it was a walleye or maybe a hybrid. But it swirled the water and nearly jerked the rod from my hand, so it wasn’t something insignificant.  And yet, what I got from it was nothing more than a ruint fishing lure!

 

I don’t want to give the appearance of someone who is ungrateful however for a nice day spent outdoors, all alone with no other fishermen anywhere in sight.  I know that on such days many of you readers are at work somewhere and would like to have been with me.  But you should rethink that.  As unlucky as I am, you might be in danger of getting a hook in your ear or having a dead limb fall on the boat, or having your best lure broken.  If you worked all day that day I was out fishing, you had something to show for it in the result of a paycheck.  I have never had a paycheck!  And if this weather doesn’t change I may have to start writing about mushroom hunting or bird-watching or politics.  My freezer doesn’t have any ducks in it now, and I haven’t had fresh fish in two weeks.

 

Don’t forget that on Friday evening, March 4 we will be meeting in Houston Mo to talk about the idea of a museum concerning the old days of the Big Piney river and people who lived in it’s watershed.

I need everyone who has any interest at all to be there.  We will begin at 6 p.m. at the Savor restaurant across from the Hospital, and I will have Fred Hoppe along with me.  Fred and I will be eating there about 5 p.m.  He is a world-renowned sculptor who owns 4 different museums.  See his website, just his name on the Internet will get you there.

 

I think what I am planning will surprise you. For more information, call me at 417-777-5227