Mickey and I were going to the Garhole but the weather was dicey and the landing there was even more dicey so we went to the chute.  After we caught the first fish it started raining, not  hard but wet.  We fished through the rain and were catching a few all along, mostly on a worm. I caught the first one on a swimbait and missed a few more. Mickey did his usual trick by calling one up with a crazy shad.  Called it out of an ironwood bush and it had the lure sideways in his mouth.  Then Mickey picked up a worm and started catching them on a regular basis. I’m hardheaded, but not that hardheaded, so I picked up a worm and tried to catch up.  Occasionally Mickey would pick up his crazy shad and throw a few times. One of those times he got hung up and pulled it. The lure came loose and was coming straight at his head. He put up his arm to stop the bait and it hit his forearm and went through the rainsuit and up to the barb of the hook.  Dr. Metcalfe, having recent experience in this sort of thing, sprang into action. We unsnapped the bait from the line, took off the rainsuit except the part that was pinned to his arm. I worked the needlenose pliers down the hook until I was close to the barb and pulled gently to see if it would come out. No deal. We decided to count to 3 and snatch. It came out with no blood. We continued fishing until our cutoff time. After putting up 2 rods, I picked up the one with the swimbait and made one last cast and got a bump.  Not wanting to let the fish get off that easy, I made a couple more casts and caught the FOD, a 5 – 8 on the last cast. We caught 18 total and had a wonderful time despite the rain. A photo of the 5 – 8.

Got another email today from John Eddleman today. He’s been tearing them up in his secret spot for the past three weeks.