Foiled again

Everyone at home is tired of the story, but it still exhilarates me.

It has to do with my quest to catch that big catfish.  In preparation, I bought a high class, albeit closeout, baitcasting rod and reel combo -- a Daiwa Strikeforce 6.3 100h reel and a Megaforce rod (if you're keeping score) -- and filled with 15 test monofilament line.  I’d considered braided line, on the theory that stronger is better – but when I realized that I’d have to use a leader with that, of uncertain test, I decided to stay with the heavier mono.  I also pondered buying a net, but decided that was overdoing it -- not to mention a hassle to carry around.

I put on two, not one, egg-sinkers, and a treble (three-pronged) hook.   I arrived at 4:30, under dark skies spangled with stars, and soon settled onto the rocks, in my usual spot.  The water was black and still, reflecting the stars and the pale lights that marked the entrance to the lagoon, one red, one green.  A slight chill breeze came and went, the only sounds the occasional splash of jumping fish and the intermittent lap of small waves.  When I arrived it was too dark to cast the catfish line (the reel is kind of tricky for the neophyte baitcaster like me) so I spent the hour until daybreak fishing for perch with the other, using a bobber baited with worms (a paltry few and scrawny collection gathered from my backyard, nothing like my usual store-bought collection of beefy night crawlers, or the ones I recall gathering in my childhood; I blame the drought and the usual exaggerations of memory).

Nothing happened.

So it was with welcome anticipation that the sky lightened, and I squeezed a ball of stink bait onto the treble hook and launched it . . . . about 3 fricking feet.   As I said, it's an art.  A few casts later I had it close enough to my intended spot and propped the rod into the rocks.  Still nothing doing with the perch or bass or bluegill, so I took the bobber off and let that sit on the bottom, too.  And I waited, watching the clouds and birds, exchanging brief pleasantries with passing boats (some time I'll tell you about a recent incident when one of those boats snagged my line and began stripping it off the reel, nearly severing my fingers when I foolishly grabbed the hotly whizzing line -- as though I could stop a boat -- until I fished the scissors from the tackle box at the last second and cut the line, cursing the beer-bellied driver as he obliviously went off into the wider lake).

Then I noticed the bait caster line moving, pulling, then slacking, then pulling again, hard.  I  picked it up and jerked to set the hook.  Line began stripping from the reel and the rod bent nearly double.  I went through a mental checklist -- let him run, keep up the tension, keep cranking steadily, let him tire himself out.   At the same time I thought, "it's working.  This rod, this line, treble hooks, I've got him."  I couldn’t believe things were working out exactly as planned, first time. 

He ran toward shore and out again, then clear out the mouth of the lagoon, into the lake.   I tightened the drag a bit, and reeled him back.  Ever so slowly, in two, out one; he surfaced, and i saw he was big, moving with steady, bullheaded determination.  He circled, churned up a large wave, and dove again.  I held on and cranked, my shoulders tiring; eventually I could see the two leaden gray egg-sinkers, like a pair of oversized rosary beads; one long foot of line remained, then he was at the edge, bigheaded with  baleful yellow eyes, olive-green and black, pale underside, about two feet long and thick as a yule log.  I held the rod with my left hand and reached toward him.  I stuck my index finger in his mouth, felt the rasp-like tiny teeth, and tried to get a grip with my thumb.  He was not moving, exhausted I think, then slowly rolled over, and was still as death.

Then it happened.  Again.

The line parted (I like to think it was too much strain, but I’m afraid it might have been my knot giving way).  He moved ever so slightly with the loss of tension.  He lay at the edge of the water, and I dropped to my knees, hard on the hard rock.  As I reached down, he twitched, flicked his tail, and was gone.

Damn.

I stood and stared, literally trembling with tiredness and disappointment.  I looked around and saw that I’d knocked over my tackle box, scattering sundry things near or in the water, so I stepped into the water and gathered them robotically.  I saw the other fishline twitching.  I reeled it in, and landed a fairly good-sized sheepshead drum, which would have pleased me much, earlier.  Instead, I methodically unhooked and released it.  I noticed then that my right knee hurt.  I looked down -- the pants were ripped across and my knee was seeping blood, as was the knuckle of my right hand.  Nothing serious.

The disappointing sheepshead drum

I rebaited the catfish line and let it sit.  I put the bobber back on the other line, and caught a few small perch.  Nothing doing on the other line.  The bobber got tangled, so I called it a morning.  I trudged back to the car, shoes squishing lake water, kind of achy all over, and sorely disappointed.

I'm not going to say that I'm glad he got away, but I am grateful for the experience, and have come to appreciate the raw sense of primal existence I had felt, the total absorbtion in a challenge and the full expenditure of energy.  For those few moments I was fully alive, and the memory bobs pleasantly through my consciousness as I drift off to sleep.

Next time though, I bring a net.