The willys, the creeps, the ebeegeebees... You ever get them on the water for really no apparent reason?

The other day on Livingston I paddled about 3/4 mile out from my launch point crossing the Trinity to get to this big ol snag that I wanted to fish around. When I made it there I noticed two wooden crosses fixed to the snag. I really couldn't make out the names as most of the letters had fallen off but I could make out "in memory". As my mind wondered what happened, how it happened and the people involved, I drifted over a large stump that felt like it kinda picked the whole boat up just a little. Creeped me out so it had the hair standing up on my neck. I paddled off (quickly) to another area to do my fishin...

Anything ever weird ya out?

I've been at the back of Little Caney on Fork and for some reason couldn't get the thought of gators out of my head. It was real slick calm and all I could think of was a 10 footer jumping out of the water at me. Hate that feeling.

Spiders,spiders,spiders love any reptile but I hate freaking spiders

Camping solo on the Brazos this March. I've never been scared of things that bump in the night, but that trip had me a nervous wreck for some reason. Might've been that I got woke up several times by some serious fire power not too far away.

When i was younger i used to go to isle royale a lot with my father. There is a small island there called cemetary island. There is old hand carved wood grave markers and it appers to be a whole family. The island is very heavly wooded and every tree looks dead and has the scaryest moss hanging all over them. That place gives me the creeps. Never just out on the water though.

Lake fork two years ago in the dark thirty. A huge alligator had just been a week before. It was still calm and not a sound for miles. A freaking beaver slapper it's tail inches off me stern. It sounded like a .22 cal going off next to my ear. I dropped my fishing rod and almost fell out.

One of the reasons I quit float tubing at Lake Fork. I couldn't shake the feeling I looked like a giant duck to a big old east Texas gator!

I

trust me after the 3rd time of being taken up off the lake to the mother ship and "probed" you start trusting those feelings. Seriously though I worry much more at night when Im launching or loading up at the ramp.

I had been fishing the South Concho most of the day, and I got out of the kayak to stretch my legs. About the time I was about to get back in, I noticed this fella hanging out. My crate with poles is directly behind my seat....just a few inches behind my seat. There's no telling how long it had been there, or if it was playing on the back of my collar before it got on main lines. I did the typical heebie jeebie shiver dance and proceeded to move him to a safer spot away from my yak with my paddle. I'm pretty sure those dudes are harmless....but I don't care. Not on my yak, not on my back, no way no sir. I just did a heebie jeebie shiver dance again.

Also, I was out this past Monday, by myself as usual, yakking one of my normal stretches of river, but the water was clearer than I have ever seen it. I was in about 16 feet of water, and as I drifted over a known and very familiar submerged tree, I looked down and got a weird feeling as the tree looked to come alive as freakishly large turtles and other unseen creepy things came off it eight or so feet below me. That suddenly caused an underwater mushroom cloud of mucky muck bubbling around me. About that time I hit the top of the tree underneath me with the yak that threw me off balance and stopped the kayak in it's tracks. I yelled "to heck with you" and paddled at an accelerated pace back to clear and shallower water to collect my thoughts and wait for my yellowed spine to turn back to it's original buff and manly color. Certain times...certain circumstances...can scare the poop out of ya...even if for just a second.

"I ain't a brave man, but ain't no coward neither." -quote from Pale Rider.



Scott



http://www.scentofafisherman.com/2013/09/hows-aboutno.html

Last year in my favorite 'backwater' area, I got out of the yak to take a leak. It was late, just past sunset and the light was going fast. I wandered about twenty yards from the bank into the dense woods and as I stepped over a log I realized my foot was caught in something. It was a pretty large rib cage. I remember seeing some hair and decaying flesh, a jawbone, and thinking, oh lord, I'm that fisherman in the news article that "discovered the remains"... Turned out to be a very big feral hog. Still kinda creepy though... As I made my way back to the put in later in the dark, in one area I heard what I now believe was a bobcat in heat, as I have seen a few in the area since then. It's a really creepy sound in the darkness when you're all alone in what basically amounts to a swamp... I don't consider myself the type that gets nervous about things that go bump in the night, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have the creeps pretty bad. The whole day had turned kind of 'blair witch project'...There is a thick canopy in this place and lots of limbs you've got to duck under to get through certain gnarly areas. I kinda felt like the headless Hobie Pro Angler was behind me for that last mile and a half to the truck so I was paddling fast. LOL...

Hmmmmmm. I'm going to texoma after church to fish in the big wind with Lee and Roger. A big ol black feral cat just crossed my path on my way to the store. I guess we'll know soon enough!

they'll probably change the put-in after reading this and not tell me!

The Trinity in River Legacy freaks me out between the turtles and the gar bumping into your yak, the snakes, and finally the bobcats and feral hogs on the banks you really feel out numbered.

Man, fishing lake Bastrop during our dusk till dawn tourney always freaks me out. The lake is full of ribbon grass (not sure the real name). That stuff will get on your paddle and slide down on your hand and it feels like a wet snake. Between that, the carp jumping and hitting your kayak, the frogs jumping towards you and out of the cattails, coyotes howling, random ducks sleeping on the lake, its nuts. They should rename that place Lake Cardiac Arrest. My blood pressure is so high for all 12 hours I'm pretty relieved by the end, but I'll do it again lol.

I was fishing Flamingo, Florida late one day when I overstayed my welcome. I didn't start my paddle back in until sun was almost down and made a decision to take a risky shortcut across a shallow flat that connected to a deeper channel back to the launch. It would save me half a mile on the paddle back, it would avoid the mosquito infested shore line, and it would avoid a shallow bottleneck in channel where I had often watched crocs hang out at low tide.

I'm paddling like a guy possessed and am within 50 yards of deeper water when I become grounded. The flat that normally holds 5 to 6 inches of water on all but on negative tide days is filled with thick mat of grass. If you've ever seen where a turtle has crossed a muddy shoreline, that's what I left behind me. Huge clumps of grass piled up with each paddle stroke, growing larger and larger as the water became more and more shallow. When I came to total stop, I must have looked like an icebreaker with grass instead of ice stacked up against my bow...stuck. Tried hopping and pushing with paddle, no way to get out of yak without burying to crotch in soft mud bottom. I'm only fifty yards from my plan working, its almost dark, mosquitos swarming, I give up on plan and try to back up and take the long way around. No luck going backwards either, tide still going out, I'm here for good, or at least until water starts back in with tide change.

Grab my mosquito outfit, give myself thorough dousing of deet...and begin the three to four hour wait for water to come back and float me again. Notice I'm getting hammered by the mosquitos wherever the mosquito netting is tight against my knees and elbows. Those mosquitos laugh at deet. The constant drone sound of them near my face is terrifying. If that weren't bad enough my mind begins to wander to thoughts of crocs and their designated breeding grounds less than a half mile away. I shine my small light around me and see thousands of small shrimp and tiny crabs on every square foot of grass, their eyes shining. My light also attracts more swarms of mosquitos. Start wondering if the python crawl across the grass at night. Can't sleep, nothing to do but wait and listen to the sounds, start thinking about incoming tide and how the fish will be coming in shallow for the shrimp and crabs, start thinking that the sharks can't be far behind.

Can't remember what time I made it back to my car but it sure felt good to make it in that night.


Waiting for the water to come back


shrimp and crabs

Flamingo pics during the day below:
http://s593.photobucket.com/user/lconn4/slideshow/Flamingo%20Adventure

Fishing Lake Raven. It's a beautiful lake and perfect for a kayak but it's full of gators. I've only fished it once and I was on edge the entire time. I'm from West Texas so I don't know the first thing about alligators. As far as I know they are more than happy to eat me. Every splash I heard nearly gave me a heart attack. Oh and to make things worse, I got skunked.