I have an indicator in the past that several of you people would like a free copy of my autobiography I think Gene MO has already bought it and read it but I have four other people that I think I should mail a book to.
They are;
Paul Fox, Bkeeper, Sid Smith, and Patria.
Here is one of the stores in the book;
FISH
Adrian and I were tied up to a bush near the mouth of Silver Creek where it dumped into the White River. We were after northern pike as usual, using chubs and small frogs as bait.
Adrian was using frogs tied onto a single hook. The frogs would swim around on the surface and hopefully attract a large, hungry northern pike. I was using the silver chubs we caught where Russell Road crossed over Silver Creek.
My set up was to have the chub hooked through the back about a foot above the hook, and a small weight with a red and white bobber about the size of a baseball that would float upside down. The bobber was set about 2 feet above the hook. I would just drop it in the creek next to the canoe and let the current drift it slowly downstream. When it was six or eight yards from the canoe, I would stop it from going any further.
It wasn't long before the bobber turned white side up, red side down, and started moving upstream against the flow of the creek. I took up the slack in the line and set the hook. We both thought I had a very big pike hooked up. The fish kept stripping line off my reel, so I tightened the drag. Adrian reeled in his line and untied the canoe, and the fish started pulling us upstream. I told Adrian I didn't think it was a pike because it was fighting more like a cement truck than a T-Bird.
I finally got the fish almost under the canoe, but my fiberglass rod was bent double and the rod snapped off at the handle. Once that happened, I thought sure as hell I was about to lose whatever was on the other end of my line.
I quickly grabbed the rod, put it in my left hand, and picked up the handle and reel that I had dropped in the canoe. I stuck the handle between my knees and began to fight that fish with the rod in my left hand, my reel and handle between my knees, and cranking the reel with my right hand. I continued fighting that fish with two hands and both legs for another ten minutes before I got it close enough to get it in the canoe.
It was the ugliest monster of the White River I had ever seen. I had no idea what it was. Adrian said it was a dogfish.
After getting it home, it weighed in at 18 pounds and 36 inches long. I nailed his head to the oak tree in the backyard, where it dried out looking like a fishing trophy – which it was.
Later that same year, Adrian and I were fishing the White River where the construction of a new double lane highway was being built across the White River. We were both using red and white daredevil spoons, and we threw them in a small slew alongside the new construction. We weren't getting any action, and I had thrashed that water for so long my arm was getting tired.
When my daredevil came to an abrupt halt, I set the hook. It didn't move. I set the hook again, and it still didn't move.
I thought: “Aw shit, I stuck that daredevil into the side of a sunken log at the bottom of the slew.”
I started flipping the tip of my rod, trying to release it from the log and cussing myself for setting the hook the second time. As I was doing this, the log started moving downstream towards the river. At first, I couldn't figure out why the hell the log had started moving all of a sudden; but then I realized I had a big fish on my line. That fish was a northern pike, 36 inches long and 16 pounds.
My family had fish for dinner that night, and I now had two trophy fish heads nailed to the oak tree in the backyard.