The old fishing hole

Mother Nature has been razing havoc with the Midwest for the past few days with tornadoes, rain, and flooding.  As our route takes us right through the expected path of this storm, we decided to stop at the KOA in Manchester TN for the night.  A very nice park just off  I24 with big, long sites and all the amenities.  Even a fishin' hole.

I got the coach set up for the evening and came inside to cool off a bit.  I noticed a guy with a fishing rod head out to the pond in front of us and start casting.  It wasn't two minutes and he had one on.  His rod was bent almost to the breaking point, bobbing up and down as the fish continued diving and rising.  Before long he hoisted it to the bank and it was a dandy 4 pound catfish.  He unhooked it and tossed it back in.  About 5 minutes later he landed another, though a little smaller.  A couple of minutes passed and yet another. ' Enough' ..  I said to myself and told Sharon I was going fishing.  I've been carrying fishing gear along for the past three years and have yet to wet a line ... so here's my chance.

I gathered my stuff and quickly noticed that I had plenty of lures for trout, walleye and bass but nothing for catfish.  But what the heck.  They're almost most jumping out of the water and this guy was making it look so easy I could surely catch some myself.  The park had placed nice benches around the pond to make our fishing experience as comfortable as possible so I plunked down on one and began casting.  Casting and watching out of one eye the other guy continue to land fish after fish.  I changed lures more often than they change Depends at the senior center but to no avail.  Finally the other fisherman had tired and gathered his stuff.  He stopped over to my bench and I congratulated him on his fishing prowess.  He said the secret was hot dogs.  Hot dogs?.  He reached out his hand and handed me a chunk of hot dog about an inch long.  "My last piece ... looks like you could use it".

I took the piece of hot dog, thanked him and he turned to go back to his camper.  I looked at this slimy chunk of meat and wonder how am I going to fish with this?.  I looked in my little tackle box for a hook of some kind but no luck. Jigs, spoons, Rapala's, Little Cleo's but no single hooks.  My last resort was a small sinking Rapala with a small treble hook at the end.  I weaved on the piece of hot dog and tossed out the package into the murky brown water.  Bam! Bam! a hit right off the bat.  I waited ... and waited ... but nothing.  I pulled up my lure only to find it empty of that precious hunk of hot dog.

But now I know the secret.  I packed up my gear and headed back to the coach.  Maybe tomorrow.

Still livin' the dream.

Phil