| After spending a great day with Sworral last weekend, he stayed behind and I headed up to Phelps. The raingear that served me so well on Saturday never left my body for the next two days. Thank God for Gortex! Winds were howling from the WNW, so I decided to rough it out first thing in the morning and headed for the weed bed on the SE corner of the lake. It was rockin' and rollin' and rainin' and blowin'....conditions were perfect. I tossed out the drift sock to slow my drift down and started firing Undertakers along the weed edge. A few minutes into the drift a suicidal pike of 36" grabbed my lure at boatside and went balistic. I hoisted him into the boat very uncerimoniously and tossed him back in. In an effort to stay out of the milfoil, I quickly went back up to the trolling motor and pulled myself out of harms way. It was then that I noticed that the pike had bent my leader in a few places so I set the rod on the gunnel and reached for my pliers so I could cut it off. Just as I reached for the pliers, a 2 foot swell tossed the boat around and the rod/reel/Undertaker all went into the lake. Without thinking much, I dove to the deck and reached for the combo as it was going down. Being wet and slippery, I wound up with one arm and leg in the lake and the others clinging to the boat....down periscope...there it went, down to the depths.
I jumped up and threw a marker as far upwind as I could while launching into a tirade suitable for some trailer trash on "Cops". I repositioned the boat and started launching DB-8's all around the marker and trying to dredge the bottom. There were too many weeds around, and all I did was harvest them off the bottom. What to do?
I looked around the boat and saw my Creature rod and figured it was the best grappling hook that I had. I pulled off the plastic and started dragging casts along the bottom. Every cast brought up some weeds, then on about the 4th cast, I felt something heavier.....I reeled slowly and the next thing that I saw was a rod tip!!!! The Creature jig hook had found it`s way right through the tip of the rod. I went into another tirade, but it was more like a little prayer meeting this time.
And, to make things better, I tied on a new leader and headed to the other end of the lake.....where I boated a 40"er on the same rod/reel/lure that I had tried to sacrifice just minutes before.
Best damn thing that I ever caught on a Creature! |
