The Outdoor Tripp
Knows what it's all about
Member # 619
|
posted October 29, 2006 02:43 PM
Down Under
Here they come again. I sure get a kick out of those yahoos up there, waving sticks around, flinging things they think I want to eat tied to neon string they’re convinced I can’t see. I may be small-brained, but Bubba, I wasn’t hatched yesterday.
Every morning, same story. I’m sleeping off my nightly dock light bug bender when a 150 hp screaming piece of steel pushing a stark white piece of fiberglass at 40 mph plows into my front yard, lurches to a halt and scares me half out of my scales. And they expect to take me by surprise?
Seconds later the gimme-cap boys get down to business attempting to feed this well-schooled customer breakfast. Still bug-eyed and groggy, their first guided missile nearly takes off my head.
Not red again. I hate red, and I’m not chasing that damned thing until someone ties a chicken fried steak to it. Attach a spoon, a pork rind, sauté it in scent, whatever – scrap metal and plastic taste like scrap metal and plastic no matter how much lipstick you put on the pig.
L-u-r-e. Can’t you guys do better than this? You sure Junior’s not missing something from his Happy Meal? Same circus, different clowns. I need a smoke.
And Einsteins, they call it stink bait for a reason. Do you actually think something capable of breathing will eat this stuff? I do have a nose… somewhere. Worms? I know this may be a surprise, but I’m not French. And please ditch the minnows. I may be slimy but Hannibal Lecter didn’t have fins.
If you think I like chasing down my lunch, you’d better think twice – fast food isn’t my bag. Remember, I’m in the shade for two reasons: One, I’m waiting for lunch to come to me, and two, I’m lazy. Hang something tasty from a cork and your chances may skyrocket from none to slim, but yank something past my yap at more than a fin’s distance and you’re the one going home hungry.
Now I admit even a fish needs comic relief – it can get old hanging by the stump all day. On the rare occasion Bubba ties on something edible I will play along. He’s got this new-fangled game called “catch-and-release,” and it’s actually kind of fun – as long as I keep my weight down (which isn’t posing much of a problem, obviously).
It goes like this: Play a little hide-n-seek, grab a free meal and then play a little tug-o-war. Then you’re tossed back to do it all over again. I play till I’m full. It sure takes the edge off a slow day.
But most days it’s the same old nonsense – we bucket mouths hang at the stump gossiping about weather, spawning, and the dumb catfish that fell for stink bait down by the dam. And we laugh ourselves silly at the topside yahoos – until they pack it in, dump the bait bucket, and pitch the sack lunch leftovers. Then we get down to business.
If Bubba ever ran a hook through chicken salad or a BLT a lot could change here at the stump. That’s never going to happen, but it wouldn’t surprise me to get buzzed by scrap metal and plastic replicas any day now.
I fear no weedless Cheetos.
Tripp Holmgrain is an avid outdoorsman confronting fishy issues. Email him at tripp@theoutdoortripp.com.
[ October 29, 2006, 02:48 PM: Message edited by: The Outdoor Tripp ]
--------------------
The Outdoor Tripp
www.theoutdoortripp.com
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
Posts: 805 | From: Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged
|
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
