Y'all ain't gonna believe this. Sometimes I'm just a dummy (more often than I care to admit).

I'm at my local river fishing and listening to the baseball game, all is well. It's been very very slow, but I eventually do get a hook up. Rod bell starts ringing and the tip starts dancing. This is happening on a very cheap pole I got years and years ago at Wal-Mart called a South Bend mudville ready to Fish. Well I get over there and reel down, I was using a circle hook, and the fight is on. I'm not sure how big this fish was but I'm guessing not very because the little cheap spinning reel wasn't even pulling drag. I get the fish across the river and near to the bank where I am standing.

The fish may not have been big but it was smart. As you all know it's been raining like crazy in DFW and the river was flooded. Trees and bushes were underwater that usually are not. Well the crafy old fish dived right into a tree near the bank and wrapped my line up. I couldn't untangle it and couldn't land the fish, and had to break the line. My fault, I should have moved down the bank a few yards during the fight to a clearer area. Stupid on my part but I know it's not unusual, 'tis common to all catfishers to get wrapped and broken lines. Knock on wood, it hasn't happened to me very often, and that lack of experience, and my own dumba**ery is what I blame for waht happened next.

I snap the line and I'm looking at the tree branch. I know that somewhere down there SOMETHING of a fishy nature is relieved. Then I start wondering, what if that fish is stuck? What if it wrapped itself around that branch enough that it is tethered to that log and can't get free? I don't care about catching it anymore, but I don't want to leave it stuck to that tree. So I decide I'm going to walk over to that tree and try to snag the other end of my line with the tip of my fishing pole. The tree is close enough that I can reach it from shore, but obviously the part where I got snapped off is underwater and I can't see it. So I reel in my now broken line, there is no line going through the eyes, and nothing on the end of the line at all. I use my rod to poke around for the line. I guess in my mind I would feel the tension of a fish struggling on the end of my line which was wrapped around a root or something. I felt a lot of roots and stuff and poked around in them.

I have a sudden wave of common sense and realize a few things:

-I realized that DAMN this water is DEEP, even right off the bank my 7 foot rod was going all the way in the water and up to my mid-forearm before I could feel the bottom. I also realized that there was a even deeper drop off further away, about 6 inches from the roots of that tree, the actual normal riverbed.

-I look like a complete [censored] poking around the water with a fishing pole

-The odds of that fish swimming in circles around that branch enough to really get suck are astronomically small. What REALLY probably happened is that it went into the roots, continued to pull against the line that was holding him, and when I broke off the line the tension was off and he swam away with a circle hook and maybe a little bit of line in his mouth, which likely came out of its mouth later just fine

-The pole that I'm poking around with is actually a two piece pole and I'm in imminent danger of...

Sure enough, I pull up the rod, or to be more accurate, the bottom half of it! The top half is of course down in the damn water, this deep, dark water. Well that irritated me. Most sane people would just leave it at that I think, it was cheap a 30 dollar or so combo I'd had it for years and got WAY more than my money's worth out of it. Just go on with life.

-Chapter 2-

Unfortunately the wave of common sense had passed and none of this really sunk in to me. The Dorf on fishing episode continued.

I decided I was going to get my damn pole back. So I grabbed another one piece pole and tried to snag the top half of the one I lost, no luck. Then I tried laying on my belly and reaching down into the muddy, deep water in the middle of the night to try to feel around for it. Tried this for about 45 minutes, I couldn't reach the bottom of course and the pole was not sticking up high enough that I could reach it. I tried with my arm until a water moccasin came swimming out from the bank i was feeling around in, about a foot from my face (which was right above the water) and asked my very politely to stop doing that! I obliged him of course.

So I'm standing there covered in mud, wet and mad (now it's raining again). It occurs to me that HEY I HAVE A CAST NET! I decide I'm a genius and go get it! This is not a little twig, it is a short but thick tree with lots of branches and healthy leaves and thorns that will keep a cast net from reaching the bottom and will tear it up, also it's a 40 dollar cast net being used to retrieve half of a 30 dollar fishing pole (that's what a normal person would think). Of course I'm not normal so I throw my cast net all over and around this tree trying to snag the top half of my rod. I throw it and drag it along, out past the tree and back, over the top of the little tree and up. My cast net is not working, and is getting COMPLETELY torn up, I mean I ruined it, absolutely destroyed it.

Now I got a torn up cast net, 1 and a half fishing poles, muddy, nasty clothes and a bad attitude. I decide screw it I'm going in after it. So there I am in a public park abutting a river at right around midnight and I take off my rain coat, my shirt and I'm taking off my shoes when suddenly two bolts strike. One is a bolt of lightning close enough that the thunderclap is nearly instantaneous. The second bolt is one of common sense hitting me again. I realize suddenly all of the things that a normal person would have realized long ago (fish ain't damn stuck, it is half a cheap pole, expensive ruined cast net, snakes love fingers, lightning and water don't mix, public indecency is looked own upon even at night, and the river has current and pole is likely deep and downstream).

TL;DR -That's how I ended up half naked at a public park in a thunderstorm in the middle of the night with a beheaded fishing pole, a ruined cast net, nearly snake bit, not lightning struck but still shocked at my own temporary insanity.

BTW can anyone suggest a good catfish rod and reel setup?

Fish!!! Fever!!! we've all been there Good story.

That is a terrific story! I'm happier reading it here, than some of the alternatives.

Much nicer crowd lol

Priceless!!

On a side note, after reading about recent drownings, I am glad that bolt of lightning may have saved your life. Call it what you want, I would have taken it as a sign from someone saying don't do it.

Exactly!

Lowew79 are you my pops?? Cause this story is exactly something he would do

Maybe, was your mom ever a waitress at a worn down truck stop in Slickpoo Idaho named Pearl?

Dang ... where were you fishing at ?

Nolan river

At the Byron Nelson park ?

thereabouts yes

I would start with a one piece rod.

Your one lucky guy!!!
I use a AbuGarcia 6601C4, on a 6�6� Ugly Stick. Got a 27lb. blue on it, no problem.