I was fishing a fun tournament in late August this year. The water was cooling, so I was throwing a Sammy hoping for a big one to fall prey. I cast up toward shore, the perfect cast, right between a couple rocks, the kind of cast that swells your chest a tad, I start working the Sammy back toward the boat over the deeper water, when a beaver surfaces from under the back part of the boat and starts swimming toward the front of the boat between myself and my Sammy. The beaver swims over the top of my line. I watch as the line goes under the beavers neck, and pulls the Sammy into itself. Nothing I could do. The Sammy gets hung in the top of the beavers head and the fight is on. 10 lb. pline, a $15 Sammy, and a 30 pound beaver. I don't want to cut the line, I don't want to loose the Sammy, I don't want the hook in the beavers head.......I figure if I can get the beaver close to the boat, maybe I can reach down and pop the hook lose. The beaver and I go at it for a good 5 minutes, finally it comes up near the boat, I kneel down with my leatherman pliars to reach for the hook.....POP!, out comes the hook at a high rate of speed back towards me. In the span of 2 seconds, I went from trying to get a hook out of a beavers head, to having a hook embedded in my forhead! The co-angler in my boat that day saw it all!
_________________________
Smile, you're in a country God and soldiers have blessed with freedom. Tight lines!