Fish Tale

By carefully scheduling a full week's worth of languishing uselessly, eating yummy foodish things and frolicking aimlessly, I have yet again managed to successfully avoid the remainder of unpacking. But it hasn't been just the usual loitering, bathing in champagne and irresponsible partying with celebrities.

We've also been fishing!

Yes, we here at Random_Speak are avid anglers known to wax philisophical while battling the mighty monsters of the deep-- and this week was no exception!

After a hearty breakfast of hardtack and coffee at the crack of dawn, we moseyed on out the door to grab our kayaks. Of course, fishing is a lot easier nowadays. When I was a child, we ate dirt for breakfast and woke up two days early before moseying. But despite the late start, we paddled for miles through raging swamplands, alligator-infested channels and open stretches of sea filled with terrible man-eating sharks before settling into a top secret fishing hole.

Now, typically I'll use a 10/0 offset trap hook with 9' of S.S. cable leader, but I thought I'd try a little something new this time and baited my hook with a very large and irritable chicken. Immediately after I made my cast, a large whirlpool swirled before a monstrous leviathan with flashing scales and glistening fangs emerged from the depths to strike. I had only a moment to glimpse one red eye the size of a dinner plate before the monster fish darted away, pulling my kayak behind in its vast wake.

I fought to hold on as the giant thrashed and dove and leaped, watching in horror as it casually swallowed a scuba diver, three buoys, a snall dinghy and half a wake board. We battled for hours--my arms growing sore, sweat running down my brow, my face lined with grim determination. Gradually, the monstrous sea creature tired, and the shocked onlookers were finally able to help me lash ropes and cables around its tail to load it in the truck. Four men with chainsaws helped us filet, and we all ate heartily.

It was truly a memorable experience, and one that I will never forget.

But you should have seen the one that got away.