What Gives Me A Rush?

     Usually when people first learn of my fishing addiction, the response to it is always allot like the response you receive when you say “I like Nascar”. People say why? Can it really be explained I wonder? I sometimes I think not, none the less, I do my best to convince them that while they may not understand it, there is an element to it that can’t be explained. During my initial thinking about this I figured, why not take someone who doesn’t get it, show them, and then get their opinion. So that is exactly what gettingreel did.

     The victim, Jim Gartet. A fella I knew from work. Let’s just say Jim is from the city and buys his fish for $12 lb. Our destination would be the Potomac River in Virginia. Jim had lived near the Potomac River his whole life and had never once got a hook wet in it’s big bass waters. What a shame. I knew he was about to change his mind.

     After we launched on the chilly October morning, I could look over as we were on plane and see his cheeks gassing up with wind almost forcing him to smile. Finally reaching our destination the first words he said was, “Man that was rough”. I told him to just be thankful the tide wasn’t moving against the wind. We proceeded to fish and I let him throw my beloved Sammy. I figured why not give him a quick shot to catch a fish and jar his senses early. Wake him up a little. Knowing the fish were there, he mad a cast right after I did. BAM! First cast for me, a nice little 2.5 chunk. In my attempt not to front end him, I turned the boat so he could cast into the sweet spot. After 10 or 15 minutes of him trying to figure out how to “walk the dog”, he finally had one boil on it close to the boat. His reaction was instant. As he ripped the pole back the sammy, with triple grips I might add, went zinging over his head causing me to chuckle as I imagined how close our day was to being over. That would definitely not turn him onto fishing. A few casts later he finally had one hit and it was a biggin’. There was no need for him to set the hook because that haus came up, took it, and I mean ran with it. All Jim needed to do was hang onto the rod. As I watched him turn the handle on his reel his hand was slipping on and off causing me to panic. I wanted to ask if he wanted me to land it but I figured  it’d better to just let him catch or loose this thing on his own and if he does loose it, he’ll owe me $16 for another sammy. As he got the fish to the boat whoppin’ and whalin’ I reached the net down into the water and scooped up what would be a nice 4.9 lb Potomac River Largemouth.

     As I stood there watching Jim hold his beauty with two hands while trying to catch his breath, his face was saying it all. His smile was cheesin’ from ear to ear and his eyes had the look of a game winning home-run. As he gazed at her, waiting for me to call out the next move, he quickly gasped between breaths, “Man that was a rush”. This was it I told myself. We could go the rest of the day and not catch a thing and this would still make it all worth it. As Jim finally relaxed I patted him on the shoulder and told him “Awesome job buddy. She’s yours to let go”. Then in a dumbfounded manner Jim turns and looks at me and said, “We’re not going to eat her”? I said no Jim. She was going back into the water so someone else could get the same kind of charge you just got from her. That and a quick little lesson on the importance of catch and release.

     We continued to fish into the afternoon and had a pretty good rest of the day. Jim was able to catch 2 more nice little fish, but as I lifted up the trolling motor for the last time that day I turned back over to Jim and said, “Now do you get it”? He said, “I sure do”, and I was glad to hear it.