I'm getting into fishing more and more now that I am retired. So Sweet Wife bought me a Heavy Meat Hunter rod for fishing for really big catfish. They are made here in Arkansas and are top quality. I was complaining about using my hunting knives to fillet fish and daughter, Carrie, bought me a Rapala 9" fillet knife.
This led into the famous, (within the family), retelling of "
The crab that stole my knife" story.
I have always loved fishing. My first fishing rig was a hand line wound on a square frame. I was about 5 years old at the time and my mother would take me and my little sister to the beach near Santa Barbara, CA. She was a student and UCSB at the time. She was recently widowed and quite a looker at the time. She would walk me all the way out on the fishing pier and ask the fellows there if they would look out for her little boy. Well many jumped at the chance and were very kind and helpful to me. God knows what Mom and sis were up to but I had a blast and actually caught a few fish. A few years later, at about 8 or 9 I received a Rapala 9" fish fillet knife for my birthday. I had a step-dad and the only way I figure this got past Mom was she was sick of me using her good kitchen cutlery to clean fish. At one point she pulled me aside and told me," I can't stop you from fishing, but you can't bring anymore home-the freezer is full!"
Back to the knife. I was very proud of my knife and wore it on my belt whenever I went fishing. Me and a few buds were fishing with shrimp off a docked barge on the Intracoastal Canal, hoping for speckled trout or redfish, but mostly pulling up saltwater cats, sea robins, croakers and other trash fish.
I got something, pulled it up and it was a humongous mossback crab. 10-12 inches across. I swung him over to the wood deck, but he had a death grip on my shrimp. So, I stuck him with my knife through the back pinning him to the deck. He gave up my bait and I turned to drop my bait in the water ensuring it was the right depth off the bottom.
Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my knife crawling off the side into the murky depths. Ole Crab got the last laugh.
Well, I'm sure the that was way more than you expected but I'm feeling kinda chatty.
Have a good'un!
