Travel into the past with me today. Three years ago marked an adventure on the Big Muddy River that will not be soon forgot. A few friends set off in a very small john boat in search for large catfish. What they found still haunts them to this very day.
The day of fishing started off nicely in the sunshine around 6pm, but by 7 things turned into a nightmare. Brian, David and I stepped into the little 10 ft. boat with two paddles, a hammer and some fishing gear. Brian and I are seasoned veterans when it comes to river fishing, David however, was as green as a freshly cut maple sapling. Brian paddling in the front, David in the middle, and I was steering the boat with my paddle in the far end of the boat. Shortly we reach our fishing spot, drop anchor and begun fishing.
We soon find that our line has something unexpected on it. I bring the line up out of the water with some struggle to find a beast attached to the end of it. There was a great SLAP... SPLASH... FLOP! I manage to pull the spotted gar into the boat while David tried to find a way out. Standing up in a small boat is rarely a good thing and today was no exception. David was trying frantically to get away from the fish, Brian was doing his best to steady the boat while yelling to David "Sit down!". All I remember was trying to get the hook out of the mouth of this fish which resembled an alligator more than a fish. Being very careful in the chaos I encircled the snout of the beast with my left hand and with my right begin to extract the sharp hook out of the mouth of the gar that has hundreds of sharp teeth.
The next part in the story happened very fast. The gar slipped out of my left hand leaving my right hand holding the extracted hook defenseless. SNAP! I felt the monster's upper teeth in the palm of my hand and it's lower teeth sawing into my elbow.
Yelling in anger and pain I pulled out the 3lbs. hammer and smote the savage gar on the head nearly splitting it into halves. Brian and David had traded places in the boat and they sat there glancing between the gar and I. After letting the moment set in a bit Brian said "Holy cow, Dude!" and we paddled back to shore.
We carried the body of the great fish up to the house to be photographed and thus remembered in history forever as the day one the great monsters of the deep tried to over take three fisherman.
Fishing season has started and hopefully more great story's and adventures this year.
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