Quote:
Originally Posted by John Davis
Caught this one on a 7 1/2 ft, 6 wt., Battenkill.
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Was that a bowfin, a grinnel, or a mudfish, John?
Them th'angs are the bane of my fishing in the river (oxbow) lakes, off the Savannah River. They are ferocious, and will tear a nice bass plug all to pieces. Right after I married "Queen", 49 years ago, I paddled her Dad to "reel" for bass in a river lake near here. He was using bait casting gear, and a topwater bait with three sets of treble hooks (a Jim Pfeffer Orlando Shiner). He hung a big (about 6 lb.) mudfish and "wrassled" him to the boat, then quickly swung him over the side and knelt beside him to unhook that plug from those jaws. That big sucker flipped himself up in the air about two feet and on the way down hung a set of those trebles in my F-I-L's leg, while thrashing about like a mudfish out of water will do. Pa-in-law just gritted his teeth and pulled the hooks out of his leg and pants.
He was the toughest man I ever knew closely. A well driller, he once had a water trailer to fall on his boot, cut through the leather, and lay open the instep of his foot in a bad gash. He went home, got in the bathtub, washed it off and called his wife to bring him needle and thread. He sewed his foot up by himself with no anesthetic.
Another time, he received a phone call on Christmas Eve from someone who supposedly needed a pressure switch for a home well. He agreed to meet the guy at the back door of his business late that evening. Two guys jumped him in the alley and hit him in the back of the head with a 2 X 4, knocking him to the ground. He got up on one knee, looked at them, and one of them pulled a knife to kill him. He grabbed the knife
by the blade with one hand and grabbed the long hair, of the other creep, with the other hand. He took the knife and half the other guy's hair. They fled the scene.
Lord, I miss that man.
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