Skunked Again..

[Kawabuggy]

Went fishing last night. Noticed that when I cast, as the line was feeding out, I heard and felt a small "thump" even before the lure hit the water.. As I am reeling in, I see a large rat nest of tangled braid approaching my rod.. No biggy, cut it out and move on. How did that happen with braid?

I always use a mono leader & a swivel with my braid. I re-rig and start fishing again. Later on I get the tell tale "tap,tap,tap" on my line.. I hesitate just a moment to reel up the slack, and then pull sharply to the right at about 9 O'clock to set the hook. The line immediately goes slack.. I reel in my braid and find a clean cut. It's not frayed, or stretched, just a clean cut like it was cut with a knife. I don't know what could have cut it like that..

I then re-rig again, using another swivel and another leader. Weightless Senko. About my 3rd cast, I am watching the slack line laying on the water feed out as the Senko slowly sinks. I see a momentary pause, like it has hit bottom, and then it immediately starts feeding out much faster than before. I flip the bail, reel up the slack and pull back sharply on the rod to set the hook-and it immediately goes slack. I crank in the line and find that the mono leader is severed. I started with an 18" leader, but wound up with 10". At least I was able to keep my swivel this time.

Later in the evening I switched to top water as I could see several hits occurring on the surface, but had no luck at all that way using a Pop-R. I also tried a crank-bait (Rapala X-Rap) and no luck that way either. I did notice that a small school of bass (6-8") would follow the lure, but would not attack it. They would chase it right back to the shore line, and then stop and watch it.

If I have another outing where I don't catch something, I am going to hire a guide just to make sure I am not jinxed.

I have read here that it takes confidence to catch fish.. I am over-flowing with confidence that if something can go wrong-IT WILL! I try to have an optimistic outlook on life, but what that famous person said "if anything can go wrong, it will" was specifically talking about me. I am the guy that if you want to know which lane at the grocery store will be the slowest-just stand behind me. If someone is going to get rear ended sitting at a red light-it will always be me. I have been rear ended 7 times since moving to Houston. I play the lottery and buy 20 quick picks at a time. One day my friend was looking at my tickets with me and he noticed that out of 20 tickets, I did not have a SINGLE winning number in any line, on any ticket. He commented that it was almost impossible (statistically) that I would not have a single number right. I played again the next week, and the same thing happened. I pulled some of my old tickets and reviewed them, and finally found I had 1 number right back in June of 2005. What are the odds that I have not had a single number right in 3 years....?

How many fish will have to swim around with my worm and hook, and possibly a swivel and some braid, hanging from their mouths before I actually land one?

Live bait is my next plan. I am going to see what I can accomplish "cheating". At least being able to honestly say I caught a fish will justify what I have spent on the bait-monkey. If that does not work, I will resort to carrying my rifle as I did when I was young. Nothing like squirrel cut-bait.. Works every time. It is DEFINITELY something the fish have not seen before.