Nine fish and a you won't believe it

[Rebbasser]

Well, Flyrod and I planned to meet at 5:30 this morning to head for the lake, and it was a comedy of errors. The phone rings at 4:45 with Flyrod telling me he hit a snag and wouldn't get there until about 6-no problem, but I'll let him tell you his tale. Forecast: Cloudy with 10-15 MPH winds...riiiiiiight. Not a cloud in the sky,whitecaps on the lake. We get to our first spot and it isn't fishable-too much wind, and we were using a 12-volt TM since my 24-volt is in the shop. So, we run back across the lake and find a spot out of the wind. I pick up a dink on a wacky rigged Tiki, Flyrod got a keeper on one, and I picked up 2 on a crankbait. In between I make a long cast and look down to discover my line is broken at the reel-new line, too-no clue as to how that happened. We work our way around to a cut in the bank. The Texas Hill Country is composed of rolling hills made out of limestone, and the cut we were in was about 300 yards long, 20-50 yards wide with sheer limestone cliffs about 30 feet above the water and water ranging from 20+ feet 10 feet from the bank to 40+ in the center. We didn't pick up fish, and as we were getting ready to leave I got hung up. I moved the boat to where I could get it loose, but then whatever I was hung up on moved. It was heavy-pulled drag, but I could never gain on it. We thought big catfish or carp, but I could not get it up to the boat-it wouldn't come. Now, I have never had a fish behave like that, and the only time I could gain anything was when it was directly under the boat and then only when the rod was pointed straight down. After about 25 minutes of this Flyrod and I decided it must be an inanimate object like a log, but both thought "what if it is a dead body ?". Finally I handed Flyrod the rod and started pulling it up hand over hand.

Remember I said the Texas Hill Country was limestone? Limestone is porous and often has holes in it. Well, this takes the prize for strangest thing I have ever caught:

I caught an 8 lb chunk of limestone on a wacky rigged watermelon/chartreuse swirl Tiki Stick !

Now I know how Charlie Brown felt on Halloween . Apparently I caught the hook in a hole in the limestone, pulled it off the shelf it was on into deep water-thus the reason for drag being pulled and why it moved like it did.

Needless to say we had quite a laugh, and Flyrod ain't going to let me live that one down anytime soon. Yes, we did get a picture with the hook still attached-I'll post it later when I upload it from the camera, and since an 8 lb chunk of rock is legal to keep in Texas the rock is now sitting on my back porch .

We caught a few more fish, but the lake lice and skiers were getting so thick we packed it in around 2. Fishing with Flyrod is an adventure, but it is also a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to heading out again next week!