A Fish Tale

                                 By J.P. Nix                                                    

        I’m not a fisherman by any means.  But the few times I have gone fishing have been uneventful.  Except for this one time...

      The day was hot and dry.  The kind of day that you wish you had been anywhere else but where you are.  But alone I sat on the edge of a bank, my pole steady in the ground, line in the water.  My bait, I believe was large shrimp, dangling from the end of my hook in the cold lake water.

     I removed my straw hat, and wiped my forehead with a red-checkered handkerchief. Replaced my cover back on my head from the blistering sun, and waited. And waited.  Patiently watching my line that did not move.  About every 20 minutes or so, I would check my bait to see it had been eaten by a by a fish.  Frustrated after the fourth time of checking my bait, and finding it gone, I promised one more cast for the day would be my last.  I watched with great intent at my line which swayed back forth from the wind that was blowing. But all of a sudden I notice the line was rapidly moving.  A fish had taken the bait!

     I grabbed my pole and jerked backward on it.  Something big was on the other end of my line.  I notice the reel was spinning.  I locked it down to prevent any more line from going into the lake.  I jerked back on the rod again.  Whatever was on the hook was big.  I released the line to give the

fish a sporting chance.  A true sportsman I am.  Then I pulled back on the pole again, locking the line down.  Slowly I started reeling the Big Fish in.

      Every once in a while I would pull back on the pole to let the monster in the water know that he had been caught.  A fighter he was.  He fought me for a good hour!  But victory for me I knew would prevail.

      All around the lake, the other fisherman looked on at me as I fought the Beast in the lake.  I moaned wit great anxiety, trying to work that fish on the end of my line.  He was a fighter, heavy and big I knew, for the sweat poured off my forehead like rain.  I lost my hat, and the sun began to work on the top of head blistering it.  I worked like a dog giving the fish line, and then pulling back on the pole trying to wear the creature.  One of us was going to give up.  At this moment I wasn't sure which one, the creature or me.

      But finally after a good hour and a long fight I finally declared triumph over my foe.  The fish (if you could call it that) was massive, as long as my arm from shoulder to fingertips.  I wasn't sure how much it weighed, but it took all my strength with both arms to get it out of the water. Flapping around on the ground as if he still had fight left in him ended when I was forced to hit him with a club between the eyes.  I then was able to remove my treasure from the hook and put him on a chain that I put back in the water.

      Before I left the day that day I caught 3 more monsters just like him. They were all huge, massive sizes.  Biggest fishes I had ever seen.  So big in fact I couldn't put them in the trunk of my car, and was to forced to stack them on top of one another, and tie them to the back bumper of my car.

       I had to get home quick in order to take a picture of the great catch I had made that day, because I had forgotten to bring my camera with me.  But before I could get home, I guess the weight of the fishes stacked on top one another tied to my bumper was too much for my little car.  When I got home, the bumper of my car had been torn off, and my great catches were gone.

       I circled back over the path I had taken, and came upon a litter of cats finishing the entree that I had caught. I have not fished again since that day.