When |
July 27th, 2008 |
Where |
A pond in MA |
Who |
Fishing with Vinny |
Sunday mid-afternoon (to avoid the summer heat), here we were, in a car full of fishing gear and arriving to our destination. Trouble is very dark clouds arrived exactly at the same time. I took my bait buckets and started to prebait a bit. Took me a few minutes. Didn't take that long for the rain to start pouring like crazy. Vinny had wisely stayed in the car, so one of us was dry and the other thoroughly soaked. Will teach me to listen. After a little while, the rain subsided a little, so that we could set up our gear (and more importantly a tent to take refuge under!). I was actually quite hopeful that the rain would trigger fish to feed after a hot day.
Well, rain resumed, kept going for a while, then stopped and no fish seemed to care... A couple of hours later, while I was walking along the shore, I heard a scream from Vinny's corner, and he was on his first mirror. Not a big one (around 10 lb), but the curse was broken! Well done, Vinny, a very colorful fish.
So I was fumbling in my car when I vaguely heard some strange sound. Could it be a bite alarm? Nah, stop dreaming. I finally came back to our fishing spot, saw a head lamp moving jerkily in the dark, and heard a mega splash. No, Vinny didn't fall in the water, but he was playing a very lively fish. I thought for a minute that he hooked one of the monsters of the lake! After landing it, it turned out to not be such a monster, but a very respectable 18-8lb and a true beauty. Which is Vinny's new "mirror PB with a pic" (he caught a bigger mirror once, but without pictorial proof).
As you can expect, Vinny was a very happy camper by then, and so was I of this very lucky last minute catch. Now what about my rods? Well, they couldn't have been more silent during all this time. So I played net man and photographer for this session. And was very happy to do so. Notably considering that Vinny released a rather disoriented fish, which started to swim towards me and gave me a terrific shot. A perfect ending.