From Dangling Participles to Dangling Lures... And Beyond

Hope this dude remembers what's laying just to the left of his
bare feet. Otherwise, fishin' may be the last thing on his mind.

I spent plenty of time in the classroom, learning why you're better off not using dangling participles in your speech or writings. However, it doesn't take any classroom training to understand why you also never should let dangling lures become the norm when you're fishing--whether it's from the front or back of a boat.

While talking to a friend the other day, he brought up the fact he knows a guy who often lets lures dangle in the water from multiple rods he's not using at the moment. I, too, know some anglers who do the same thing and often have wondered what they would do if a fish suddenly jumped on one of those dangling baits.

I personally never have seen that happen, but I did read about such an incident just the other day. This fella had a habit of laying one rod across the deck of his boat while picking up another one for a few minutes. Most times, the lure was left dangling just over--but not touching--the water. During a tournament day, however, this fella laid his rod across the deck with a Carolina rig attached, and the worm was left dangling in the water, instead of hovering over it. He looked down when he heard a splash--just in time to see his rod and reel headed to the bottom in some 30 feet of water.

This fella's partner subsequently said he had seen a bass come up beside the boat, grab the worm, and take off, pulling the rod and reel in the water. They spent the next hour trying to drag up what the victim described as his "favorite Carolina-rig rod and reel," with absolutely no luck.

On another occasion, the same fella was fishing one foggy morning when he again heard a splash right beside the boat. He just figured he had heard some schooling fish until he went to reach for his buzzbait outfit. It was nowhere to be found. "I guess I bumped it with my foot and kicked it overboard," he said later, while admitting that he knew he shouldn't keep so many outfits on the deck.



'Twould appear the lure found him. I have to wonder if he
found any fish.

In my opinion, the matter of determining what's "too many" outfits on deck is up to individuals. If you can navigate safely with 10 or 15 rods laying all about, go for it. In my case, though, I realize that age has caught up with me, and you'll seldom see more than 4 to 6 rods on my casting deck at the same time. Any more than that, and I almost can guarantee you that my feet will have put a whammy on at least one of them before the day is through.

And when I'm holding down the back seat in someone else's boat, I carry the same number, simply because, if I carry more than 4 to 6 rods, I usually spend half the fishing day untangling them. In case you haven't noticed, fishing rods are notorious for having "twists" (my term for what otherwise, when it involves people, is known as "trysts"). The only difference is that the former don't mind doing it in broad daylight, whereas the latter usually look for a little privacy.

However, I digress. Getting back to some more of those brain freezes that beset anglers from time to time, I invite your attention to the story about a dude who got in a hurry to tie on a spinnerbait. When he thought he had finished, he hurriedly dropped the spinnerbait over the side... and had to kiss it goodbye. You see, in his rush, he mistakenly had tied the bait to a piece of loose line.

Can't say I've ever pulled that particular blunder, but, on more than one occasion, I've done something equally foolish. To wit: In snipping what I thought was the tag end of the line after retying, I actually snipped that part of the line on which I just had tied the lure. Fortunately, all I lost was the time it took to retie yet again.



Ahhh... the joy of casting into the wind with one of these.

And how about those occasions when you or a boat partner get a little sloppy with your casting? I've had a couple of personal encounters with that trick. The first time was many years ago, when my young son at the time got close enough to snatch the hat off my head--no harm, no foul there.
In a more recent incident, however, my tourney partner accidentally smacked me in the back of my hat-covered head with a bait hard enough it shattered a couple of barbs on one of the treble hooks. While one of those broken barbs lodged harmlessly in my hat, the other, unfortunately, ended up buried in my scalp. A trip to a local emergency-care center, though, and all was well there, too. We even went back and finished fishing the tournament.

Finally comes this incident, which I read about. An angler was pre-fishing for a tournament. He just had run up river and stopped to start fishing in 15 feet of water. After putting down the trolling motor, he reached for a rod and accidentally hooked the handle of another outfit, flipping it overboard.

Without thinking, he lunged for the rod, losing his balance and falling overboard, too. Upon surfacing, he instinctively looked around to see if--hoping actually--someone might be watching and laughing at him. He wanted to have someone he could signal to for help. To his chagrin, though, there was no one.

He had no choice but to start trying to get back in the boat on his own. After struggling for several minutes, he managed to work his way to the boat's stern and climbed back aboard by using the outboard. It was while sprawled on the rear deck, trying to regain his breath, that he realized a $200 rod-and-reel outfit wasn't his only loss. His $300 pair of prescription bifocal sunglasses also were gone now.



Reckon this'll end up in one of those "twists"?

I've never lost any sunglasses over the side, but I certainly left my fair share of prescription bifocals and trifocals laying on the bottom before I had cataract surgery. I still vividly recall one close-to-Christmas night in particular many years ago when I was driving home after losing a pair of trifocals over the side.

If those drivers I was meeting on the road that night had known what I was seeing as I drove along in the darkness, they likely would have been even more terrified than I was at the time. My vision in one eye then was only 20/400, and I further was seeing double, not to mention all the glare I was dealing with from the bright holiday lights. Nevertheless, I made it home without incident.

As a fisherman, there are a couple of sayings I've subscribed to for many years. The first one is: "S_ _t Happens." The other is: "If I didn't have bad luck, I often wouldn't have any at all." You simply have to accept the reality that, if you're a fisherman, some very dumb things probably are going to happen to you. Here's hoping you survive all such encounters.

Tight Lines!