The Best of the Mudshark Stories.....
Talk about a bad day. While fishing in a cove that had lots of houses close by and a few boats within sight, the ol' mud-shark started barkin'. Bad breath too. No big deal I thought till it crept out and drew a picture in the bottom of my skivees. In panic I hopped up onto the back deck, covered myself with a life-jacket, popped open the livewell lid and dropped ol' muddy right into the port box. Pretty slick I thought till I realized I had no squatwipe. Well, my skivs were ruined anyhow so I used what was left of them. I put a few bullet weights in the skivs, tossed them over the side and gave them a good salute as they sank slowely toward the bottom. While I was digging through a storage box for a minnow net to release ol' muddy I heard a boat pull up. NO KIDDING, it was THE MAN! He asked how I was doin' and I told him I was just "hangin'". He went through the usual routine, life jacket, fishing license, etc.. Then he asked if he could look in my live-well. I stuttered in disbelief that I hadn't caught any fish and said "you don't have to look in there do ya"? He got real suspicious and a little snotty. I took offense to his attitude and said alright, then pointed to the port live- well lid. He opened the lid, stared in for a moment, slammed the lid down, looked up at me and said, "what the HELL is that"? I said "sir, that is a mud-shark. I'll put it on the rule if you want but I'm pretty sure it'll measure". The scowl on his face was PRICELESS! He hopped out of my rig, mumbled that he would write a ticket for that if he could and tore off. Laughing myself to tears I took the minnow net and released ol' muddy over a brush-pile. I "hung out" in the cove for a while longer and went home. That live-well is pretty comfy. I may just have to install a magazine rack in my boat.
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A few years ago I was fishing a B.A.S.S. Tournament on Toledo Bend back when you had two Pro's in the boat. Anyway, I drew this guy, we flipped for boats and naturally he won. We met the next morning for the first day of the tournament and he drives up in an old...I mean old Chevy truck (from the 70's) and looked old too and pulling behind him was an old Stratos, turned out he had to borrow it.
Well, we launch and while we're waiting for them to check our live-well and all he states "I gotta go!" My responce to him was "where ya gotta go?" Being naieve has always been my forte'! He then says, "No, I mean I GOTTA GO!" Anyway, we're in flight 3B and they're only on 1B....still a ways before our time and no-where for my partner to do his thing. I mean, think about it, there's several hundred boats waiting to take off and this guys bustin'.
They finally get to us and this guy takes off and goes about 10 miles down the lake. We get to our spot and I'm fortunate enough to put my first fish in the boat on the third cast and this guy states..."I can't wait, I gotta go, NOW!" So he procedes to go to the back of the boat and whip his socks off and from there I turned my head and kept on fishing. Now, he's back there and says, "Hey Dude, I'm fixing to fall in can you help me?" I look back and sure enough his hand is slipping off the cowling and said "Did you hear me?" At that moment "IT" hits the water and the back-splash made its touch to the tushie and he falls back-wards onto....you guessed it and as he's coming up "IT" slides across his face and leaves a mark. I 'bout fell out of the boat laughing so hard. He didn't think it was too funny though.
Needless to say, I didn't fair to well in that tournament. I honestly could not stop laughing about what happened the entire three days of the tournament. It made it impossible for me to constipate, I mean concentrate.
