5 replies to this topic

[ScubaHawk]

Bring on your tall tales, fish stories, yarns, and leg pullers. In other word, like Johnny Lang said "Lie to Me." - Please put it in story form, any one can tell a simple one line lie, IE: The check's in the mail, John Holms calls me "The Man", etc, but we're looking for a good tale. In a couple of months we'll vote on a winner and award that person the SD Golden Shovel award. Good luck and like they say in Texas - don't let the truth stand in the way of a good story.
I'll start things off with a story or two from my past, but since I never lie, my stories will have to be true. Honest!!

[ScubaHawk]

Reading the recent post about the big catfish caught in Spain, sure brought back some memories. Growing up in South Louisiana, we didn't know nothing about no records, but my brother and I loved fishin'. we go out 5 or 4 times a week. Now, in S. LA there are many different types of fishin'. Rod & reel, trotlines, seines, cane-pole, etc. Out favorite types were cane-pole - where you just set on the bank (or your back porch) and drop the line in the water, trotlines - where we would set out the lines and come back for the fish latter, and netting - on really humid days, the fish would get confused and swim out of the water and into the humid swamp air, and we would just catch them with a net. But our favorite type of all we called jetty catfishing.
For those of you not familiar with jetty catfishing, allow me to educate you. As you know the catfish found in the Atchafalaya swamp grow forever more big than any other fresh fish in the world. There are stories of Whale Sharks being even bigger, but with them shrinking in size they won't hold the title long. With the fish being so big, it takes alot of preparation to go after one. After fining your spot, you have to dig deep into the swamp 'till you hit bedrock, then pour a concrete foundation for your jetty. If you don't get down into the bedrock, the fish is likely to pull you and your slab into the bayou when it strikes. Next you get a strong anchor chain with the anchor still attached (to use as a hook). For bait I recommend a full grown hog, although some people swear by using half a cow. Bait the hook, attach the chain to a tow-truck (or logging truck) and toss her in. Some people like to troll the bait but I prefer to use the winch on the tow-truck to jigger it. The last fish we caught together gave us a fight for about 2 1/2 days but we finally landed it. I don't know it's weight but the water took 20 minuets to close in the hole behind it. Sadly it wasn't big enough for my brother, so he decided to use it as bait to go after a really big one. He was successful, now he has a chain of 7 catfish restaurants and has run them for 3 years off that one fish.

[annasea]

The last fish we caught together gave us a fight for about 2 1/2 days but we finally landed it. I don't know it's weight but the water took 20 minuets to close in the hole behind it. Sadly it wasn't big enough for my brother, so he decided to use it as bait to go after a really big one. He was successful, now he has a chain of 7 catfish restaurants and has run them for 3 years off that one fish. 

[Brinybay]

So - the way this works as I understand, others have to guess which part is a stretch? Well, here's one in the form of a dive report:


Date: Friday, July 29, 2005
Location: Edmonds Oil Dock
Dive Buddy(s) Yara
Weather: Clear, sunny, warm
Surface Conditions: Calm, minimal current.
Submerged Conditions: Visibility: 20-25 Water Temp: 57F
Max Depth: 48ft Bottom Time: :41
Dive Begin Time: 8:15pm
Enjoyment factor: Most Excellent


Yara and I dived the Oil Dock during Friday evening slack. Neither one of us had been there in a while, before the improvements. Parking is better there now. All they did basically was pave it and make it angle parking instead of parallel, same as the north side. No parking along the fence anymore.

We had a fairly easy (but long, of course) swim out, not much chop and little current. We descended and proceeded in a counter clockwise exploration of the T, staying close to the pilings. Visibility was about 20-25ft. It was sunny enough to be able to see the sun rays shining down through the emerald water. The usual abundance of marine life was there, lots of ratfish, sea stars, rock fish, anemones, feather duster worms, one or two large flounders, several smaller ones. An artifact that was encountered was an old metal ladder laying on the bottom. It resembled a miniature train track, so as best I could, I turned to Yara and shouted "All A-BOARD!" and made believe I was a conductor on a train. What fun!
I always like to explore the pilings. They remind me of an underwater haunted forest – dark, spooky, mysterious, yet irresistibly adventurous.

By the time we circumnavigated the T, Yara was down to 1000psi so we made our way back in, using the pilings as a navigation tool. Along the way were numerous other marine life – dungy's, moon snails, piling perch.

After the dive, Yara and I attended our High School reunion being held at Rory's, Shorewood class of 1985. They had a big banner welcoming us. All our high school chums were there and it was great to reminisce and do some catch up with the last 20 years. Seems like yesterday.

[WileEDiver]

Hey Hawk, not to hijack, but to add to the enjoyment of this thread:

Do you all know the difference between a fairy tale and a dive story?


A fairy tale begins, "Once upon a time..."











and a dive story begins, "No sh**, there we were.."

[ScubaHawk]

Come on, where are my BSers out there - I've been drinking with some of you, so I know you've got a tall tale or two.