Headed over to the lake near the office yesterday with James and Chris. James had been there earlier that morning and had landed a bass on a fly, so I was hopeful. The three of us kind of spread ourselves out around the lake, but none of us had any luck. There were others there that were catching fish, but they were all using methods that none of us really want to use. A couple of guys had caught a large catfish while fly-lining live crawfish. Another guy had been bait soaking with hotdog and ended up gut-hooking a large bass. By the time we saw him it was already floating belly up on a stringer.
We also learned that a lot of the kids that go there to fish will stop at the fast food joint and pick up the cheap cheeseburgers. Then they'll use bits of that cheeseburger as bait. The bass have grown so accustomed to cheeseburger that it's difficult to catch them on lures and other plastic baits, they said. At first we were a little bummed about what this did to our chances of catching fish there, until we realized that if that's the case, then we're actually doing pretty well catching as many as we do on lures and flies.
So we got skunked during lunch, but were encouraged about the other times that we've had successful runs.
After I got home my wife mentioned that the Twilight sequel had come from Netflix and that she and my son were going to be watching it that evening. "Let me guess ... that means you're going fishing?" she asked. "Uh, yeah. That pretty much says it all." So I headed over to Harveston and got there around 8pm for some evening fishing.
I had been there for a while without any action at all, but I was still hopeful. With my trusty ribbontail dropshot rig I started working one of my regular areas.
~THUNK!
I set the hook and end up yanking my bait right out of the water. Missed him! I cast back out and start my retrieve.
~THUNK THUNK!
"There he is." I set the hook, but again nothing.
"Hmmm. He must be swiping at my bait; maybe protecting some fry. Or maybe he's short biting my bait and I'm setting the hook to early. Third time's a charm!" I cast out again.
As I'm beginning my retrieve my peripheral vision picked up movement behind me. That's pretty normal. There are usually people all over the place and many of them are walking their dogs. I looked back to see what had moved and saw a small dog sniffing around a tree about 25 feet behind my left shoulder.
"Ah, someone's taking advantage of the fact there are so few people here this late and they're letting their dog walk off-leash."
I keep fishing, waiting for that third strike.
"But I didn't see anyone behind that dog. Hmmm....."
I look again and it's still sniffing around the tree facing my direction.
"That's not a dog. Is it a cat? No, it's to big to be a cat. OH! I wonder if it's a racoon!!!"
(It was pretty dark there)
I don't know if it was ambient light from the lights around the sidewalk, or if a car drove by on the other side of the lake, but as those words crossed my mind light from somewhere fell on that little animal.
"That's not a racoon! THAT'S A SKUNK!!!!!" And now his attention was on me.
Forget my methodic retrieve, I need to get my bait out of the water fast. I started walking away as I reeled, and as I walked he walked. The more I walked, the more he walked. The faster I walked, the faster he walked.
"Holy cow! I can't believe I'm being chased by a skunk!!"
I get my bait out of the water and start jogging away. As I turned I saw the skunk running my way.
" 'Incontheevable!!!' You gotta be kidding me!!!"
I ran all the way to the other end of the lake, my backpack bouncing up and down behind me (not a pretty site), before I finally stopped, turned and looked again.
No skunk.
"Whew!"
At this point I should have taken this as a sign because I fished for about another hour and half (on the opposite side of the lake from the skunk, of course) and never felt another bite.
"I can't believe that little guy stole my fish!" I thought.
Ok, he didn't really steal it from me, as if I had already landed it. But after 2 solid hits I was sure that fish would've struck a third time and I would've had him.
Instead, the lake traded me a skunk for that fish. Man! What a metaphore!
So I got skunked twice yesterday, but I'll take that anyday over getting skunked by a real skunk.
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