Fishin with my cuz....
A fishin tale from yesteryear
One last fish story......
Cuz Larry is a serious bass fisherman, probably got 100+ rods and reels, enough tackle bags to fill a Chevy van.
Heck. He had 21 rod and reel combos in his rod lockers on the boat!
He told me he was taking me down a rocky shoreline that was a known habitat for big smallies (smallmouth bass to the un fishing persons reading this tome).
Since I had brought light action equipment, I axed him if he'd let me use one of his rods.
Now I'd done seen the setups he had in the rod lockers with the fancy smancy Skeet Reese rods, the high dollar Shimano and Calcutta baitcasters loaded with expensive fluorocarbon line so I'm thinkin he'll give me one of them, seein as how I'm his favorite cousin and all.
Well, he's on his knees with his head buried in the rod locker and he's pullin rods out and layin'em off to the side and digging some more til he finally says "ah, there it is"!
He pulls out this old, beat to death, POS rod and reel combo that looks like something sold at Zayre or KMart back in the 60's on the discount rack. The rod had the action of one of those old steel rods and the line had more wrinkles than Larry's face, more kinks than Doug Farnsley's back, and as many frays as a roll of binder twine we used to used to bale hay! So much for favored cuzzin status.
Now, we know smallies like to hit top water baits late in the evening so Larry pitches me a Bandit 300 crank bait that dives to 15 feet. I'm thinkin' WTF?
SO, I'm figurin' out how to use this setup, making a few practice casts. When I get to where I'm getting it out there about 13 feet, my confidence is getting pretty high. And we had seen a big bass bustin shad on this shoreline comin down so Cuz turns the boat around, figuring his 21 ft boat would keep my 13 ft casts from reachin where that bass was workin.
And he was right....but apparently the bass didnt know he was supposed to stay right there!
So, I wound up and made the cast of a lifetime, probably 15 ft or so, but....I looked at the reel and it had a bird's nest that made Richard Pryor's afro look like a Marines buzz cut!
And, of course, when the lure hit the water, that smallie decided he wanted that lure....and he grabbed it, sounded like a washtub hitting the water.
Well, there ain't no reelin this thing in with the bird's nest it had going, Larry's hollerin, "HE'S STIIL ON" so I hand him the rod and I just pulled that fish in, doin my best imitation of an Illegal immigrant haulin in his handline fishin setup.
But I did land that 2 lb smallie, hand over hand!
Cuz Larry didnt have his phone, my phone battery was dead so we couldn't get a picture of the fish. Hell, I wanted a picture of the backlashed bird's nest more than one of the fish!
So we took the fish back to the cabin, Larry (supposedly) took a picture of the fish. (I ain't seen one yet) and then I fileted it......me and Susi ate it for dinner last night.
Cuz is tellin me he had so much fun, he wants me to come up and do it again. And I'm gonna! I've already got July 12, 2027 locked in on my date book!
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