A long day on the Dragon Swamp

[Captmikestarrett]

I hosted a float trip down the Dragon with a couple of my co-workers one year in the middle of August. This was to be a 17 mile float through swamps filled with Cypress Trees and black water. Two canoes and four guys started out at the crack of dawn on the upper part of the Dragon. It was Stanley ( a died in the wool tobacco spitting redneck ) Bert a 80 year old oxygenarian and Ralph a collections guy from the NY Bronx. If ever there was a misfit group this was it. The day started out great with Stanley and I in our canoe catching fish after fish for many happy hours. Big as your hand sunfish and Lgmouth up to four pounds. Pickerel up to 18 inches as well.

Stanley being a redneck had brought a fish basket along to put all the big bluegill in and wanted to eat some pickerel as well. When he would place another fish in the basket this snake would come shooting out the mesh in the basket each time. I kept quiet and did not mention it to him. The little snake was attempting to drag a bluegill out of the basket through the holes. Later I saw a big snake curled up on an overhanging tree as we glided underneath it. No word said again. I am in a canoe and did not wish to freak him out and go overboard. So I kept my mouth shut. He is very afraid of snakes and talked about them the entire night before.

Oddly we had not seen the old man or the NY'er guy since we started our trip three hours ago. I decided to wait at the next big pool for them. All of sudden the woods burst alive with gunshot after gunshot going off. Loud as hell and then I see the old man and the NY'er paddling as fast they can past us. The NY'er is screaming snake snake snake..and leaves us in there wake. We catch up and ask what that loud blast was and the NY'er produces from his underwear a snub nose hammerless 38 and says a snake tried to get them so he blasted it. Right over the old mans head. The old man was distraught at being shot at several times just above his head. The big old snake lay dead in the boat and bloody as hell.

After they calmed down I asked if they had caught any thing and they had not. They lost all there lures a while ago. Now we had a good 50 fish caught and I was in shock still a little. I divided my tackle box with them and sent them ahead. We must have caught all the fish so that is why they had not caught a fish according to them. We waited about twenty minutes and proceeded on catching fish after fish.

We get to this gut that went out a good ways out and tell the redneck to toss that little popper he has on his second rod way back there and pop it a couple of times. He puts the lure in the tree above him not once but six times and just starts cursing like crazy. It is mid–day and temps are almost 100 degrees and the deer fly are biting us good. So he kinda lost it for a bit. He breaks off the lure and I hit the branch with a paddle and falls in to the water beside the boat and I scoop it up. Tie the little popper on my ultra light spinning rod and cast it way back into the gut. Two little pops and it gets crushed by a big old pickerel. It leaps and jumps and comes to boat after a good fight. The redneck scoops it up with his hand cursing to give the popper back to him. Suddenly the pickeral slides down between his fingers and starts thrashing on the floor. Then the top hook sticks deep in his shin and the bottom hooks still in the fish. He screams loudly and starts a litany of curse words. I hand him the pliers and he rips the hook from his shin and the toothy fish is all over the place. He screams and holds the fish up squeezing it hard and says proudly "F%^& you fish" . At that moment it wiggles just right and slips between his fingers again and the top hook embeds deep into two of his fingers. I do mean deep at this point. Now we have a screaming cursing redneck and a large pickerel flipping about and driving the wee little hooks of the popper deeper and deeper into his index finger and bird finger. This goes on for a bit till he stomps the life out of the fish.

Now we have a dilemma and I need to calm things down. Really need to clam things down. So I remove the fish from the equation and cut the o-ring on the top hook.
Fingers are hooked together badly. I cut the hooks apart and one has an exit but the other is in the bone at the joint. I soak the fingers in ice for bit and manage to rotate one hook right out and thru. The other will require some surgeon tricks. Yes sir this will require terra firma so I beach the boat on an old fire road and will begin the loop of line hook removal trick. I hook it all up and tell him on the count of three I will back the hook out with the loop of line and downward pressure. One, Two and I yank early on the count. The hook pops right out and he screams and starts running down the old fire road.

Normally it would be all done but Mother Nature wants him to suffer even more. As he screams running down the road he runs right thru a swarm of deer fly sucking water from the wet sand. Up come two billion hungry deer fly and he starts whacking them with his bloody fingers and with the blood they get even more aggressive. He turns covered head to toe in those fly's and starts running towards me. Blood and fly’s are everywhere and I manage to create a deet cloud with the remaining spray. It works and they stop biting me and him a little.

Back in the canoe we start to laugh a bit but wait we are not done yet.

Temps hit 102 that day and we used up gallons of drinking water and two cans of bug spray surviving the trip and we are only half way to the pickup point. We decide to paddle and not fish much. We catch up the the NY'er and the old man and they have caught two fish but have lost all my lures yet again. So we just paddle to the pickup and make the cell call for pickup. 40 minutes later my boat arrives and my buddy says he good news and bad news. Good news is he has cold beer in the cooler. The bad news is he does not have enough fuel to tow us out. After some thought on the matter, I sent him back for the other boat with the full tank. Yep he brought the wrong boat. The redneck and the NY'er hop on the boat and they are gone. Abandoned and leaving us to tow the other canoe. Where the heck is he? I call several times on my cell and no answer. So the old man and I work our way out to the main river and it is dark by now. I see lights in the distance is my other boat and my buddy arrives again and tows us 300 yards to the pickup ramp three hours later .

Day is over and it is 11pm and I am a little tired…

Capt Mike

[bamabassman]

hahahaha, now capt.,.......i am thinking REAL hard about visiting you for a trip, lmao. may not be safe for me to come there,lmao. that is a FUNNY story.

[Captmikestarrett]

Wow did I post this twice? My bad again..

Kevin feel free to yank this copy if you want.. Sorry Kevin..

Capt Mike

[dave]

You have a part 1, part 2, part 3, a last part and the whole story. Put down the crack pipe mister.

[bamabassman]

and back away very slowly,hahahaha.

[dave]

I keep forgetting to ask, you have a picture up, isn't there supposed to be a fish front and center to protect the viewer?

[WTL]

Its funny how the setup to this story is just like a certain movie we bring up from time to time on here.

[woody]

It sounded like that NewYorker wasn't gonna go take any chances(38 snubnose)in that swamp .
I can't say I blame him though after seeing that movie.


~Mark