Jun
25
Fishing is my war
Fishing is my war. My Sunday football game. I have my charts, I check the tides, I check em again. I check the wind forecast. I check the moon phase. I choose my target. I would usually go to a place on the west end of Galveston. As soon as it was light enough to see, I would get out of the car, parked next to the cow field. I put on my waders, my polarized sunglasses, grabbed my float-well and rod and walked to the water. Sometimes I would start far inside the cove, where the water was barely knee deep. Casting, retrieving, casting, retrieving. It was in this area that I caught my trophy flounder. The water was only a few inches deep, and I didn’t feel much of a bite. I felt like I was snagged on a log, until she shook. I could tell it was something massive. It was exhilarating. I was so scared to lose her once I finally got a look at her that I waded over to a patch of grass and climbed out of the water before I tried to get her off of the hook. She turned out to be a 24″ hog. I wish I had gotten her mounted, but she and the seven trout I caught the next day made a feast. That era was one of the best times of my life. I would love to relive it. I fished like crazy, and I did it, for the most part, completely alone. I did the planning and preparations, and the driving and the catching and the cleaning and everything else by myself. Everything except the eating. I caught so many fish in those days that I would come home and start filleting and then I would have to stop and sleep and fillet some more. I always had fish. If not fresh, I always had plenty in the freezer. That cove was my spot. I knew every inch of it. I fished it from first light until pitch dark on many occasions. I would cover a lot of territory, casting in every direction until I got a bite. I never wanted to leave. Even if I had done well, I was on a quest. I was obsessed with it. I loved the sunsets. I saw so many of them. So beautiful, so quiet, so peaceful. The only sounds were the seagulls and pelicans. Sometimes there were flamingoes. The sound and the splash of a big trout hitting my topwater lure, and the forceful tug on my line, finding its way to my wrist, where the muscles maxed out in a quick twitch to set the hook, then easing the tension and feeling the fish’s movements. Swinging her around to one side as I let her run, then quickly but smoothly arcing my rod back in the other direction. Like a cobra, trout seem reluctant to make their move while their opponent is still making their own moves. By keeping steady tension and keeping the rod in a smooth motion from side to side in long sweeping arcs, you will keep a trout from spitting the lure most of the time, but they are smarter than you think. Try to keep constant pressure on an older, wiser trout, and see what she does. They have their own tricks, and they don’t always stay on the defensive. When they jump out of the water in a massive leap, shaking that powerful head so hard that it vibrates down the line and through the rod straight to your wrist and down to your elbow, and then, nothing. Slack line, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Another more in your face tactic is for them to swim full speed, straight towards your legs. For the novice trout fisher, you won’t know what is going on until it’s too late. One of two things will happen, either you’ll react and reel like crazy to try to catch up and tension the line again, usually to find that there is no more tension- the moment has gone slack with your line, or, she will run right between your legs in an attempt to knock the lure off. She sees your legs as a piece of structure, a tool at her disposal. You see your legs as the new target of those two treble hooks, razor sharp, affixed to your Top Dog lure.More experienced fishermen have learned to always keep their legs together when fighting a trout in her element.