Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Not just another fishy story

8/15/2006

Go fishing often enough, or long enough, and you are going to hear some stories.

The people who tell stories swear their lies are true, and swear Bob Izumi will strike them down if they are not. It’s too bad the people who tell stories don’t have a good fish for every one of their good fish tales. It might amount to one, even two, each.

For starters, there’s the story about the angler who stopped fishing long enough to eat an orange. While peeling the fruit, he accidentally lost his grip dropped the orange into the lake, and could only watch as it sank into the murky depths.

Seconds later, an enormous northern pike sailed out of the water, and began thrashing madly at the surface, in obvious distress. Moving quickly, the fisherman managed to scoop the trophy fish in his net, only to find it was choking... on an orange.

And then there’s the story about the trapper who stopped trapping long enough to realize he was stranded deep in the north woods for the winter.

With little more than a cabin, a rifle and his wits to see him through, the trapper managed to shoot a bear, large enough, and with enough meat to ensure his survival until the spring thaw.

The only problem was, the trapper had no teeth and would be unable to chew the tough, old bear. So, he pulled the bear’s teeth, fashioned a crude set of false teeth, and spent the winter happily eating the bear... with its own teeth.
And then there is the story about the father and son team who were fishing in the local derby. Their luck was anything but good, so the young man decided to pop his lure along the bottom, in hopes of waking up a sleeping giant deep in the water.

Suddenly, his lure stopping moving, obviously hooked on something big. With fishing pole bent under the strain, he carefully brought the heavy fish to the side of the boat; only to find he had hooked an old tackle box that had sunk to the bottom of the lake. The name on the box read: Bob Loblaws.

Inside the tackle box was a sealed container of three homemade fishing lures. The boy picked out what appeared to be the best of the lot, tied it to his line, cast it into the water, and hoped for a turnaround in luck. He didn’t have to wait long.

A massive fish took the lure on the first cast, and fought hard and long against the hook. When the weary fishermen finally wrestled it into the boat, their eyes grew wide in amazement at the sight of the biggest, fattest fish they had ever seen.

At the tournament weigh-in, the fish not only won the tournament, but broke the record for the heaviest fish ever caught in that lake. The name of the previous record holder... was Bob Loblaws.

Actually, I’ve never believed that fish tale—but I have no doubt the one about the bear is true.

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