====== Hatfish - April 14th, 2000 ======
{{:hatfish-april-2000-01.jpg?400 |}} Scott and Aric invited me back to Strawberry for ice fishing in January. Still not into the fishing “thing”, I was certainly not going to freeze my butt off for it. So, my next trip was in April. The weather was nice here in town. It was warm and very spring like. However, up at Strawberry, it was just getting over winter. I had packed some cool weather clothing, but I was not prepared for how cold and windy it was up there. After all, in October, it was beautiful! The fishing was really hard that time. I think that I was wearing every article of clothing that I brought and could borrow. We didn’t stay out on the boat as much as we did before. We ended up catching only four fish the entire weekend. Scott caught 2 and I caught two including the one that caught me!

===== The Fish That Caught Me =====


You remember that hat that I won on my first trip. Well Scott had one it away from on the first day. On the afternoon of the second day the winds were coming hard out of the east. We were fishing the windward shore. It was borderline brutal, and we weren’t catching anything. The water temperature was in the high 40’s, I think. Being the novice, I looked over at the eastern shore and saw a little inlet protected from the wind by a ridge. The water there looked calm. I told them that my “instincts” said that we should fish over there. Since nothing was happening, we went. I figured at least it would be a little more fun to catch nothing out of the wind.

Now, usually when we go out on these trips, we spend a great deal of time on the boat. When I say great deal of time, I mean that we’ll fish for 6 hours come in for an hour or two then go back out for 8 hours then come back in to eat dinner then go back out for 5 hours then come back in to sleep for 3 or 4 hours then start over. So, with just one and a half trips under my belt, I must have thrown 1000 casts. Anyway, the point is that I had some {{ :hatfish-april-2000-02.jpg?400|}} practice. As we glided out of the wind and along the calm shore, I saw a pair of submerged logs [now known as [[Hog Log]] ] I was paying attention as Scott and Aric talked about structure and cover. From my perspective, the logs looked like a big underwater “A” with the middle bit missing. With my newly developed casting skills, I was able to lay my power worm right at the point of the “A” and walk it down one of the legs. Near the end of the log is when the fat beastie you see in the picture had a go at my worm. The hookset felt great! I began to crank him in. The guys were telling me “Don’t horse him!” I had no idea what that meant. The Largemouth was taking my drag. It was a great feeling. As I was playing him, I told Scott “Mr. Norton, I think you are wearing my hat.”

It was this moment that made me love fishing. To me, that big fish from that last fall was total luck. This fish was mine. I picked the spot, I made an intentional cast, I felt the bite and set the hook. This was no accident. The fish was 23 inches long and 13 inches around. During the downtime, Aric and Scott made me watch Mandingo. They think it is great, I think I missed something, but “you dance with who brung ya.”