Last week I told you the first part of my fishing trip to Smith’s Lake (a small lake on the upper Pee Dee River). How, as we entered the lake through a small passageway, a log had fallen across the small opening, and as we passed under it, a flea-bitten bobcat presented himself right above my face. How I sawed off a four-foot stump with my Swiss Army knife, just to get my 10-inch Rebel plug back.
As we continue this story, and the quest to catch a trophy bass, my friend and I rowed our boat over to the opposite side of the lake trying not to spook anymore fish. There just happened to be some rather large willow trees lining the bank on the other side of the lake and their branches were hanging heavy over the lake.
It didn’t take us long to catch several seven or eight-pounders, but like I said earlier, “I wanted a wall hanger.” To do that, I started throwing that 10-inch Rebel plug as far as I could to cover more water.
Why, the last time I threw that plug, I put all I had into it and that plug flew about a hundred yards and landed right in the top of one of those large willow trees. Now I was in another predicament: how was I going to unlodge my plug with them nine treble hooks from the top of that tree?
I said, “Self, the only way to get that plug from the top of that tree is to jerk it out.”
Well, I started pulling on my line and had the whole tree shaking. Why, I shook that tree so hard that out flew two turkeys and a hive of bees. Then, 10 water moccasins fell out of the tree and landed in the water. One of them snakes was about six foot long and before he could swim to the bank, a 15-pound bass done jumped up and swallowed that rascal.
Now I knew that big bass was the one I wanted on my wall, so I gave another huge yank to retrieve my plug. All of a sudden, that 10-inch Rebel plug, with them nine treble hooks, was flying through the air right towards my face. Folks, you aren’t going to believe what happened next, but one of them turkeys I shook out from the willow tree was still flying around and he thought that plug was a bug. As he swooped down to get it, one of them treble hooks done and hooked him by his beard. I be John Brown if’n that plug and that turkey didn’t come crashing head-first into our 12- foot V-bottom boat and flipped us right over. I don’t know if both my friend and I were Baptists when we went under, but when we came up out of the water we had been fully immersed, don’t you know.
After flopping around in the water a while, we saw that our tackle box, life jackets and that ol’ dead turkey were still floating in the water. Why, we just pulled the boat ashore, emptied out the water, loaded all the equipment we could find, and stuffed that ol’ turkey under the life jackets even though turkey season was out, don’t you know. Well, then we started out into the river. Like I said, to get into and out of Smith’s Lake from the river, you had to go through this small passageway, which at that time had a huge log lying across it.
‘Bout time we got to the passageway, I be doggone if’n the game warden won’t sitting in his boat right up under that log. Well, there won’t no other way around him, so we just stopped the boat.
“You boys caught anything?” asked the warden.
“No sir, nothing we could talk about,” we said.
“Well, let me see them fishing licenses,” said the warden.
We handed him our licenses, hoping he hadn’t spotted that turkey in our boat. You know a law enforcement officer has got to have pretty good eyesight and he spotted that turkey’s foot sticking out from under them life jackets.
“Y’all boys know turkey season just went out and I’m going to have to issue both of you a ticket,” said the warden.
He pulled out his little ticket book, licked his pencil, and started writing. ‘Bout that time, the same bobcat we talked about in the first part of this story, the one with all them fleas, appeared on the log right above that warden’s head. When that bobcat growled and showed them teeth of his, why, I ain’t never seen anybody move so fast in my life. That warden had his boat motor cranked in less than a split-second and the last thing we seen of that game warden was his new hat flying off as he sped up the river.
Needless to say, we enjoyed a mighty fine turkey meal the next day.
J.A. Bolton is author of “Just Passing Time,” co-author of “Just Passing Time Together” and author of his new released book called “Southern Fried.” Contact him at ja@jabolton.com
