My Big (and I do mean BIG) Fish Story

It was spring, the opening of fishing season. I don't like to get up early the way most anglers do, so I slept in until 9:00 a.m. My friend, Mike, had been out fishing since midnight, but he hadn't caught a thing. I told him I'd walk to the shore and wave him to come in and get me when I was ready to fish.

I grabbed my pole and a cup of coffee and headed to the lake. Mike came and got me in the canoe. I was sitting there in the canoe, daydreaming, when a felt a slight tap on my pole. I thought, "hmmmm, it's probably nothing, maybe my minnow is stuck in the weeds." Another tug on my pole led me to believe I had a fish. I waited a minute and then with a hard jerk on the pole, I set the hook.

"Wow, hang on," I told Mike, " I've got a big one!" Boy, my little fishing pole was bent all the way to the surface of the water. The line kept going out and out. I was afraid the fish was going to break my line. Mike kept yelling, "keep your rod tip up, keep your rod tip up!" But, I was just trying to keep from having this fish pull me into the lake. (Ok, that's an exaggeration, but all good fish stories have a few.)

After what seemed like hours, I landed the fish, a walleye. I said, "gee, isn't this a nice, big fish." Mike said, "Carrie, people fish their whole lives to catch a fish this big." I said, "no kidding?"

It must have been big because I took it to the local bait shop for a weigh in and to enter it in the week's fishing contest. It weighed 11 3/4 lbs. Guess what? I won a new fishing rod. Oh yeah, I also wound up marrying my fishing partner.