2004-06-06 - I am a big loser:

Weird things happen to me when I wander off to do stuff on my own. I am going to start bringing my digicam everywhere.

On Friday evening I wandered off to go fishing, and waded into the river up to my knees, jeans rolled up, sandals kicked off on the banks, beside my tackle box. Three casts into the evening, I casually look into the water surrounding me, and see a giant fucking carp about a three feet away from me.

Let me say something about carp, to clarify: they can be pretty huge. Here is a random picture of some guy with a carp he caught. Carp are in the same family as goldfish and koi, but, as you can see, they get much bigger. The carp I saw was about the size of the one the man in the picture is holding. They can easily get to be 20+ pounds. Also, I would like to have you bear in mind that I have never waded into the water to fish, only fished off the shore/dock or from a boat.

So, seeing mister huge assed carp, I just about shat my pants, especially because of its proximity, my initial reaction was: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THAT IS A BIG MOTHERFUCKER!

If anyone had been around at that moment, they would have seen a silly woman hopping around in bare feet with her pants rolled up, trying to get out of the water and simultaneously bring in her line while attempting to flee the scene.

Of course, in mid-flight, my Logical Side took over. YOU ARE DUMB, (it said) CARP ARE VEGETARIAN FISH. Which of course relieved my fears of either getting my foot chomped off by this sucker, and/or losing my little lightweight line and rod to something that weighs more than my left leg (and I am chubby, too). So, my new minnow-simulation lour was safe, as were my limbs.

Of course, in my spazing out, the carp high-tailed it out of there ASAP. I probably gave him as big a heart-attack as he gave me, to be realistic.

Immediately after my realization(s), I felt pretty dumb. But it was also pretty funny how I flipped out, so I thought I'd share. I've never caught something more than about 3 pounds, so you get the idea.

Anyway, that's my dumb fishing story. In addition to that, i got two snags; one of which caused me to lose my lour (a new one!), and the second of which I adamantly waded out to unsnag it myself, because I didn't want to risk losing another. So I walked home with jeans soaked almostly completely, despite my best efforts to stay dry.