5-11-05 - Biting off more than you can chew... Waters Fished: Lake Como, Delevan Lake Working around the house gave me yet another opportunity to try my backyard! Wouldn't ya know it...maybe 15 minutes in, around 9:30, I tie into something big. The drag screams and then it's back breaks water...a NICE PIKE is at the end of my line. It fought valiantly and viciously...as landing approached I could see the wire leader coming out of the corner of its mouth. Had I been using mono this fish would have easily escaped with my flies. Once landed, I took some measurements as I had been looking for ONE Pike to eat this year - many folks have told me they're one of the best tasting fish around. 27" and a roughly 11" girth - 1 inch past the min. size limit. Maybe? I set to the task of removing the hook. While most of the Pike I've landed this spring have been hooked in the corners of the jaw, this one had simply engulfed the red & white flying bunny. While holding it by the gillplate, I inserted my hemostats to retrieve the fly. The fish was obviously nervous during this minor surgery and wanted nothing more to do with this fiasco any longer. It writhed in my grasp and somehow with its gaping mouth managed to get position...then reversing direction in his headshake he caught the thumb on my free hand and sliced it open! I stared at my thumb for a minute...at first thinking this might be a superficial wound not requiring any special attention. As the blood rapidly left my body, I decided this would indeed be my EATER PIKE. Goes to show ya what you get when you bite off more than you can chew! After rinsing my wound I took a good look. It was indeed a nice deep slice, almost an inch long. I could see some fat down in there...I didn't think the Pike's teeth were that long. After some phone calls regarding the minimum size of a wound required for stitches, I ended up making a trip to the ER. Honestly, I really felt like I was whining or even worse, a full-on moron coming in looking for stitches for this wound. Well, turns out it did require stitches, every ER Nurse and Doc that looked at it felt so. Any wound that's this size in the area it was would have problems healing and staying shut, let alone the fact that my fat was pouring out. I still thought that maybe this just needed some TLC and a butterfly bandage...that is until I took pressure off the cut and it started bleeding yet again, now an hour after the incident. 2 stitches later and I was back on my way. Back in the afternoon I gave Como a cursory cast or two before literally getting blown off the dock...time to go fishin' somewhere else. I turned my attention to another local lake that has some good public access - Delevan. After the drive, arriving around 2 hours before sunset, I set out on a long walk along the peninsula that separates the main lake from the boat launch. Winds coming across made casting the shallow flat side easy, while casting into the wind, even with all this weight, was impossible! It was a great walk, and all I found for my efforts were lots of algae and weeds. The calm side, sheltered from the wind by the peninsula, was flat and clear...no fish to be seen. I walked all the way to the point, passing several groups of geese who hissed incessantly at my trespass. Arriving at the point, I found what remained of a fatal struggle...a Smallmouth Bass, DOA, with a Panfish, also DOA, lodged in its mouth. Guess you can indeed bite off more than you can chew...you'll pay for it! After this futile hour of fighting the wind, I turned homeward and finished out the evening before dark back on the dock at Lake Como. Surprise - another Northern is fooled by the red and white flying bunny...send a message to your buddies fool...don't feed on the humans! MP |
||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2002 - 2006 |
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
