Cabin Fever Part 2

By T.L. Bush

Cabin Fever is never a good thing. It makes you do dumb things.

By T.L. Bush

If you slap me on my face, don’t expect me to turn the other cheek. I’ll knock you on you butt faster than you can say “rubber worm”. I hate being slapped.

That’s what I felt like had happened with my run in with “King Kong of the lake.” (Read Cabin Fever to get the whole idea.)

The next day the rain had stopped and the wind was down to ten or fifteen miles an hour so I could have gone to the big lake on my boat. NOT GONNA’ HAPPEN! The match was on. It was him or me. I’ve stood face to face with a Grizzly Bear, within three feet of a herd of stampeding Buffalo, counted the tines of a Twelve Point Buck by hand and stood behind a Bull Elk and whistled louder then he did! You can do the same thing if you visit the Bass Pro Shop by Des Moines. So I wasn’t going to let a great adventure like this escape the pages of my “Life’s Story.”

It was time to return to the hidden dangers living in the murky waters of the, Bass Pond!” Sounds kinda’ scary don’t it.

Well enough of the crap. I got my stuff together and headed out.  This time, however, I drove my friends Gator down to the pond. No mud to wade, cows to argue with just me and Destiny. That’s what I named the turtle, he was now my Destiny.

As I neared the pond I stopped high on a hill. That doesn’t sound right. I stopped on a high hill and took my binoculars and scanned the pond looking for the creature. There he was patrolling the banks of his domain. Too far for a good shot, did I mention I was armed this time, so I restarted the Gator and ventured onward.

As I got closer he must have felt the vibrations of the machine and I watched him as he quickly dashed back into the waters edge and dive out of sight.

Gun in hand I slowly walked along the bank looking for any sign of movement from the beast. Nothing!

Ok, he’s gone, I’m here, let’s fish.

The weather change must have awakened the hungry bone in the fish. They were hitting on everything, even the Blue Gill were active. I must have caught and released twenty or thirty Bass and Gills. I finally decided to keep a few, two pounders, for the freezer. I was catching them like somebody was down there putting them on my hook.

I kept six in all and had them on my stringer and decided to catch just one more and call it quits. I hadn’t seen the Beast so I guess, in my way of thinking, that he was more afraid of me than I of him. One more fish and I could return the “Victor”.

Then it happened. Bumps, a tug, then WHAM. Just as the day before. My line went tight, my rod bent double my drag said, “Forget it” and I saw parts of my life flash before my eyes.

Out of instinct I reached for my knife to cut the line, but my hand landed on the grips of my pistol. Yes! Yes! I’ll fix this SOB. I’ve got a gun and he doesn’t.

So for the next twenty minutes it was a push-me, pull-me sort of thing, do you know how hard it is to raise your rod tip, crank in line and hold on to a gun at the same time? Well it ain’t easy. Then finally the dead weight, just like the day before, but this time I wasn’t stepping in the water. This time when his eyes met mine I was going to give him a third one right between those other eyes of Satan.

Here he comes, ten feet out, six feet, five feet, four, three, rod tip lowered to just below the surface so I can get a shot when his evil head breaks water. I see line, swivel, and moss and just as the hammer is cocked to end this madness, I see one of the nicest Large Mouth Bass I’ve seen in a while.

With the adrenalin rush calming and the just plain stupid look I must have had on my face slowly disappearing from my reflection in the water, I finally laughed out loud. I laughed so loudly the cows even looked at me.

Gun now back in holster, I finished reeling him in. I weighed him and he topped right at the four and a half pound side of the scales and as usual, I turned him loose. I don’t keep big fish, as a matter of fact; I don’t keep many fish that I catch. Just when I want a few for a meal or they have swallowed the hook and would probably die.

Still laughing at myself, I walked up the bank to retrieve my stringer of six fish. As I pulled them from the water something didn’t look right. I only had five and a half fish. The back half of my largest was gone. Everything from the gills back was shredded and brutally ripped away. Upon additional inspection half of the face of the next fish had been devoured as well. Jack the Ripper had returned to remind me whose pond it really was.

As I stood there in total disbelief, with five and a half fish in my hand, I cast my glance across the pond, maybe looking for an answer different than the obvious, but it was not to be.

There, about twenty yards from the bank, I saw a small island swimming away. I swear his tail was standing straight up as if it were a hand waving good by with only one finger.

But I’m not done. There’s more.