The Great Fishing Competition

Despite two readers voting that I go orienteering on Saturday, I went fishing instead. But rather than the big city fishing competition held at one local lake, Amy and I held our own fishing competition Saturday morning.

We had been trash-talking for the previous 24 hours, with me telling her to bring a towel so she could cry into it after I humiliated her, and her telling me to be prepared for the ultimate fish-related ass-kicking.

Me (while gathering up the supplies Saturday morning): Don't forget to bring tissues.
Her: What for?
Me: So you don't have to wipe your weepy nose on your sleeve from crying over your loss today.

Her: Did you sign up for therapy yet?
Me: What?
Her: You're going to need it after the crippling depression sets in Saturday morning.

And so on and so forth.

On Saturday morning, we got up, bought bait from the local store, and headed to the lake right by our apartment. We decided that the competition would be who could catch the most fish between 10am and noon.

The first half-hour was slow. We only had a few bites, but nothing took the hook. Yet only minutes after my charge that the first person to catch a fish that morning would have to be served lunch by the other -- a fish grabbed my hook.

There it was, a tiny little Blue Gill, maybe 3.5" long - but I won the first challenge. Amy grumbled that I was hogging the best fishing area, so we switched places to make it fair. I cast by one set of trees, she cast by the excellent little nook I had discovered on a previous fishing trip.

Well, that didn't take long. Amy pulled out two fish in about 20 minutes. Both were around 4 to 5 inches long. She was up 2 - 1. In between her two fish, I had managed to catch a giant branch from the out of the depths of the lake. Of course I had made it into a big deal, thinking that I had hooked something huge.

"Oh yeah! Here we go! Awesome, this is huge!" I yelled out like an egotistical jock.

Amy looked over, unimpressed. I grinned, looked down, gave another good pull to the fishing rod....and dragged out a giant branch.

Amy laughed. I made it into a competition. "Well, I win for the biggest stick hooked today, so beat that!"

Amy won later by snagging her line on some branch attached to the bank, so technically she had hooked the entire landmass encircling the lake. She always wins.

Anyway, after she snagged her second fish I had to gain some ground, so while she was she was removing the hook, I quickly stole back my excellent little fishing nook.

Amy grumbled as she had to cast back into the area where I had caught an oak tree and the fish were only nibbling and not biting.

20 minutes later, I had two more small Blue Gills. Time was winding down. It was 11:30, and it was 3 - 2. We decided that because the sun was coming out more, we should move to a shadier area of the lake.

We found a fantastic little area right by a waterfall where the lake had been dammed and the bank was almost like being next to a pool. There was no slight grade down into the water, but rather it was like standing next to the deep end. And it was shaded. Perfect.

Amy's pole was already baited and ready, so I knelt down to add a worm to my hook. No sooner than Amy put her line down in the water, she pulled out a fish. I swear it was the fastest cast and hook I'd ever seen. It was like magic, as if she had bribed the fish to do that while I was slowly preparing.

I grumbled and kept to my worm. Amy cast in again, and 30 seconds later -- another fish. She had the magic touch. It was now 4 - 3, and I only had about 10 - 15 minutes to go in our competition. Then Amy caught one more.

At about 11:56am, I pulled in a tiny fish to make it 5 - 4.

But I lost. I did not catch another by noon, so Amy won the morning's challenge and humiliated me in front of the entire fish population of the lake. Her team of worms dumped Gatorade on her and they accepted a huge trophy in slow motion (because everything looks cooler and more dramatic in slow motion) as I dealt with the agony of defeat with my worm team.

But the day was not over yet. Oh no. I redeemed myself and my worm team. Because we had worms left, we thought we'd keep fishing for a little bit. After about 30 minutes of only bites and no more of Amy's magical fishing (she totally bribed her fish to bite during the time limit), I recast to where she had been casting.

Something nibbled on the line here and there, so I had to keep checking my worm. And then, after one particular cast, the bobber totally disappeared underwater.

Now, Blue Gills are fun little fish to catch because, while they are small, they put up a pretty good fight when hooked. They don't just float to the top and let you catch them. Yet what grabbed my line Saturday afternoon was no Blue Gill. I could not gain much ground on it while reeling, and began to think I had hooked another large oak tree.

So I stopped reeling at one point to see if the line kept moving. And it did.

"What the hell is on my line?" I asked Amy. We both laughed about who would have to unhook the snapping turtle I was about to reel in, and then I gave the fish one last yank.

The uglist fish came flying out of the water and onto the ground in front of us. A big, ugly catfish.

"AAAAHHHHHH!!!!" we both yelled as it flopped around. On the other side of the lake, we heard two kids yell, "Hey they caught something!"

"You're taking the hook off that one," Amy said with force, backing away.

"Oh hell no, I'm not touching that!" I yelled back, the big catfish still flopping around.

We were both scared of the tales we'd heard about how painful catfish can be to touch.

God bless Amy. She put on the glove and grabbed that ugly fish. By this time, the kids from the other side of the lake appeared behind us, asking us every question possible about what had just happened.

"What is that? Did you catch it? Is it alive? Did you kill it? Is it dead? What is it? Can I try fishing? Can I touch it? Is it dead yet?......"

I answered, but was in total shock. As Amy wrestled with the hook and the fish snorted at her (it was making some weird noises), I could not believe what I had just caught.

The catfish was about 10-12" long, and must have been around 3-4lbs. Amy will verify this, as this is no fisherman's tale. I have never caught anything that large before. Hell, all morning we had been pulling in Blue Gills that were no larger than 4" and a couple ounces.

I had caught The General. Well, maybe not the General, but it was a General to me. It was a big fish. Maybe someone had seen it in the lake before and thought, "Hey, that's a good-sized fish" and then it became a legend in their head.

While I basked in the glow of catching The General, ignoring the kids' endless questions, Amy finally pulled the hook out of the catfish. Then we threw him back.

So even though I'd lost the competition that morning, I had easily won the size competition for the day. We walked back to the house triumphantly. And everyone else I told the story to this weekend heard about the 10-foot, 200lb catfish I caught with my bare hands while wading in the lake.