Fishing with Dave *New Installment*

[bountyhunter]

It was early June many years ago when a group of us guys from work hit Mosquito Island for an afternoon wade. Of course Dave was with us, we needed him for the comic relief. Not to disappoint us all, Dave was late. He pulled up to a sliding stop and jumped from his truck to the horror of the other five of us. At first we were all blinded as the afternoon sun reflected off his milk white shiny belly. His was not the normally flabby beer gut one would think, no this gut was stretched so tightly we feared all the time that something sharp might pop it and kill anyone within one square mile. Once our eyes adjusted to the bright glare from this globe of power, what we saw next almost sent us running and screaming like scared schoolgirls. It appeared Dave was totally naked, but we soon learned he was in fact wearing these very small and very tight short shorts. Needless to say we quickly turned and headed for the water leaving Dave behind. We should have hung around, as Dave did put on his pair of cheap plastic stocking foot waders, which was always quite a show. They just did not make them big enough for Dave, but he always found a way to get into them. Oh and yes he did put his shoes on the outside this time. He also donned a shirt so that his soft delicate skin wouldn’t be burned by the mean ole sun.

The bait of choice in those days was the good ole tried and true Kelly Wiggler touts. We had already discussed that we would all start with a different color and because I called this trip I picked first. My colors of choice back then was really tight between, strawberry/white tail, rootbeer/orange tail and chartreuse/orange tail. I opted for the chartreuse/orange as I’d been catching a lot of flounder on it around Mosquito. We moved off and started fishing and it didn’t take long for us to hear Dave splashing behind us trying to catch up. We waited for him, so he wouldn’t scare all the fish out of the bay. A few minutes later he fell in line and we moved forward fishing along the island. Before to long Greg had one on, which turned out to be a nice keeper trout. The trout had hit the rootbeer, and I made a mistake of showing Dave something new. It was only one fish, and I was still confident in my chartreuse, but about twelve inches above it I tied on a rootbeer. Not sure about you guys but a lot of us threw tandem rigs like that from time to time back in the day. Anyway Dave saw what I did and quickly copied me. Well as luck would have it I struck next with a very nice flounder on the chartreuse. The next fish was caught on a white fire tail and the first five or six fish were all caught on a different color.

The next thing I can remember is hearing what sounded like a huey gunship on a strafing run come over my head. I looked up to see what looked like a multicolored string of Kelly Wigglers rotating as they moved past me. Yep you guessed it, good ole Dave had improved on my tandem rig and had six different colored touts twelve inches apart up his line. As they flew through the air they rotated and sounded just like the woof, woof, woof of a helo’s rotor. I had wondered what the other guys had been giggling about off and on over the last half hour. They were closer to Dave most of the time and had seen what he was doing, I only noticed it then because after adding the sixth tout he could no longer control his casts and had thrown right over my head. “Sorry Little Buddy” is what he said as he moved closer to me reeling. I told him if he wanted to keep throwing that mess, he needed to move farther away. He didn’t argue and moved about thirty yards to my left and all was well for about five minutes. I should say that the shirt that Dave had put on was a big white T-shirt that he had gotten from Omar. You could sleep a whole family of illegal aliens it that thing and even on Dave this thing looked big and baggy. This is when I heard Dave yell, “What the F**K!” and looked over to see the back of his big baggy shirt pulled up and over his head. The only reason I knew what had happened was there was this string of six multicolored touts hanging from the shirt in front of him. Needless to say, he decided to take off a few of those tout……

More to come later.

[coachlaw]

AWWWWWWWWWWW You can't do that to us. What are you, George Lucas?

[imhammer]

That's not right! just leave us hangin!

[bountyhunter]

We fished on as we moved down the island, everyone but Dave picking up a fish here and a fish there. I had put three pretty nice flounder on my stringer by the time we got to the end where the shells and rocks start. At this point I took off my tandem rig, putting on a smaller head and strawberry/white. In fact everyone was doing the same thing, you guessed it, except Dave. Dave still had three touts with what looked to be quarter ounce heads, not a good mix for fishing a reef, but Dave was casting it out anyway. I was surprised to see he had actually made a few successful retrieves without hanging up by the time I was ready for my first cast. What a cast it was, my tout hit the water and redfish hit the tout. I set the hook and line ripped from my reel. I was pretty sure this red was oversized, and in those days we didn’t have tags yet. Well he had run over into the deep water between the island and the levee and followed that direction until I came to the point where it started getting deep quick. I backed up a step and held my ground and continued the fight. By this time the rest of the guys and stopped fishing and moved over to watch, Dave included.

The red continued to fight as reds do, but it wasn’t too much longer and he was about done. Of course when he got close and saw us he summoned his remaining power in one last short run. At this point I said something to the affect, “Come on big guy, give up or you are going to kill yourself.” A reply to this statement came from, who else, Dave as he said, “I’ll get him Little Buddy.” With his rainbow trout net in hand, Dave moved past me quicker than you would think for a guy his size and before I could warn him, he disappeared in the water. Well everything but his hat disappeared; it was floating where he had gone under. Remember, Dave was wearing his trusty waders and the rest of us pretty much shouted “Oh S**T!” at the same time. I quickly bit my line and let the red free as the other guys moved in to help. At this point Dave’s hand came up and three of the guys daisy chained together to grab it. Well it took the other two of us to also lend a hand to get the big guy up above water. As his head came out of the water he stated in a very claim manner, “The water is a little deep over here.” Of course after the danger had passed we all had a good laugh.

More to come…….

[032490]

Funny stories. Keep them coming.

[bountyhunter]

After getting Dave up where he could stand again, he looked around for his hat. Of course it had floated away and he wanted to got get it. Finally I told Dave I get his hat while Greg helped up to the island so they could pop his waders, yes once more Dave needed his waders popped. While they were gone, I tied on a spoon and on the second cast trying to catch Dave’s hat, something hammered the spoon. I wasn’t really working it other than reeling as fast as I could to get in another cast to get Dave’s hat. Well it was screw the hat now, I had a good fish on. At first the fish came towards me but soon she figured what was happening and turned. Line stripped from my reel and then I knew it was a good one. She soon tired and I netted the second biggest trout I ever caught, a 27 inch beauty. By this time Dave and Greg had made it back and the other two guys came to check out my fish. Dave was mad that I hadn’t gotten his hat and he would believe that the fish had hit while I was trying to hook his hat. Well to claim him down I told him he could keep this big fish for his wife. I even put it on his stringer for him and that seemed to do the trick and everyone was tying on gold spoons. We mush have thrown 500 casts with those spoons between us the rest of the afternoon and not one more hit. It had been a good day fishing, and we got a few laughs as well.

The next afternoon as I was getting off work, Yon (Dave’s wife) was on her way in and stopped me to say, “Derek, thank you for big fish, but he too big to fit in oven. I had to cut off head, but I make soup. You want I bring you some?” I didn’t know what to say, I mean I had heard of fish head soup while I was in the military, but I’d never had anyone offer me some. I didn’t want to hurt her feeling, but I really didn’t want any of that soup either. So I said, “No thanks, it just isn’t as good reheated.” To which she replied, “You right, next time I make I bring you fresh.”

[majek_maniac]

Haha! Thanks for the afternoon entertainment. Great short story!

M.M.

[WestEndAngler]

[Milkjug]

LOL, thanks for sharing that one.