Tell us a story!

[The Grebe]

Everybody likes stories and everybody has at least one they like to tell...tell us yours.

Me, I have alot of them, I'll start this post with one from my collection....

When I was a teenager, I had a muskrat trapline strung out along a creek near a local golf course. One evening a couple of my friends had some time to kill before they went out on dates, they knew I was going to check some traps and asked if I wanted a ride.

I accepted and off we went. They decided that they would tag along to see how I did what I did. Well, things went along pretty good, I was picking up a rat here and there and before we knew it, darkness over took us.

I had a few sets left to check and I could use a flashlight for that....I would have one of my friends close by on shore, hold the light for me. Well, we get to the last set, a little feeder house and there on top of it sets this huge muskrat, firmly clamped in one of my traps.

The long wire I had on the trap, had not worked as intended, to drown the animal...no matter, I had a back up system....tap the critter with the wading stick, grab it behind the nead and pull it's tail...usually a quick and humane demise.

Well, I asked my friend to hold the light steady, I tapped the muskrat and made a grab for his head...at the very second my friend moved the light! I missed my grab, but the rat didn't miss me, he bit right through my chopper and right between my fingers.

In an instant, I threw the rat, my chopper, everything, as far away as I could get it! Unfortunately for one my friends on shore, the rat, the trap, stake and about a pound of mud, algea and weeds landed right on his head! The wire kinda wrapped around his neck and on the end was a raging mad, extra large muskrat and his teeth were going like a singer sewing machine!

I heard some terrible high pitched screams from both of those guys! One comming from the guy that was gettin et and the other from the other guy that thought he was about to get et! The light was whipping in all different directions as he was trying to rid himself of the wild muskrat.

I couldn't see em in the dark, but both of them took off down the creek bank and all you could see was the flashlight pumping in the air and follow the screaming and hollering...danged funny the fuzz didn't show up? Danged funny any way you look at it!

When I finally picked my way back to the car, both of the guys were sitting in the car and in the light of the open door, I could see that the one guys leather coat was all clawed up and tattered in the front, his face and hair were mud covered and and he had those little round algea pieces all over him!

Needless to say, his date was ruined and since he was driving, the other guys date was also ruined. They were contemplating working me over, cause they thought I had thrown the muskrat around his neck on purpose....luckily I was able to talk my way out of that! But, I wasn't entirely lucky....they spared giving me a beating, but they did make me walk the long ways home in the dark.

In retrospect, I guess it was worth it, because everytime I pictured him all muddy and dirty, with his hair limp with algea and that chewed up coat, I started to laugh and I laughed all the way home and off and on for years after that...I'm smiling big right now and that was alot of years ago! Some memories are made to last!

[DARK30]

Thats good! Heres one I've told before but its the same "attacked by a creature" theme.

Quite a few years ago I and a good buddy from high school were trout fishing. We were working our way up through some riffles standing about fifty feet apart. It was a dandy of a day and the browns were biting pretty good.

All at once I noticed him bent over in the stream looking at something in the clear running water. "Hey, Check this out" he said. "Its one of those things". I came over and looked down in the knee deep water. There attached to a rock was a small lamprey eel, its long body flowing in the current. Neither one of us had ever seen one up this close before. We took a few minutes to observe this weird little creature and my buddy finally decided to attempt a capture.

He took his needle nose pliers and grabbed it just behind its head. We stood inspecting it for a few seconds before he then decided to hold it in his hand. The thing immediately started to attach itself to his hand. Well, he freaked and the thing went flying out into the stream.

A short time later, I noticed another lamprey attached to another rock just like the other one. I got my pliers and grabbed this one also. My buddy came over to look at this one. We stood once again looking at this strange little creature. It was then that I decided to flick it a couple times with my finger. I gave it one last good flick and it came loose out of my pliers.

To this day, I can still see that little lamprey eel flying through the air and going right down the front of Randy's waders. I can also still see the look on his face when he realized where it went. I think if he had not been able to bend forward and somehow get ahold of it and throw it out...he would have been the fastest guy on the planet to get out of a pair of waders

[The Grebe]

Dark....Thats funny...isn't it strange how a little ugly creature like a Brook Lamprey can do a number on a full grown man? They are pretty sci-fi and alien looking though.

I just so happen to have a Lamprey story also...your story reminded me of it.

I was probably in my 20's at the time and I had this one friend that was rough as a cob, this guy was big and he could fight! We would go out to the bars once in awhile and it seemed like he was forever locking antlers with someone? But he was rough, tough, and hard to bluff!

Anyways, one day we decided to go fishing up near Mora and we walked back in to fish below the dam on Ann river (Fish Lake impoundment). We had had luck there in the past.

Him and I were the only ones down there and he decided to go on a walk about to find another fishing spot...I stayed below the dam.

Well, after he had left, I wound up gettting a snag and when I got it loose and reeled it in, there on my hook was this grayish green, nasty looking thing with a pie hole full of teeth!

I suppose it was about 4 inches long, kind of rounder at the head end and flatish toward the rear....sinister looking thing, I thought, "Dam, those Sea Lamprey from the Great Lakes have made their way into the Ann River!" I figured it was a Lamprey...I had just never seen one before and I didn't know there was Brook Lamprey, only the killers from the Great Lakes and I thought this was a baby one.

In my tackle box I had one of those round white, Aberdeen hook canisters like you used to be able to buy...you know, the kind that always used to rust shut. Anyways, I unhooked the critter, making sure he couldn't get that suction thing anywhere close to my skin and I stuffed him into the hook canister....I was going to bring him to the ranger tower, just out of Cambridge and save our waterways from the secretive evil menace! After we were done fishing of course.

A bit later, my big rough and tough friend comes back from his walk about, having lost all his hooks and asks me if I have anymore....'Yup, just get em outta the tacklebox.'

He walks up the hill toward the dam where the gears was and I go back to fishing. A minute later, I hear this shrill scream, like a little kid when they'er scared, I spun around just in time to see my friend go limp and plop to the ground!

Man, I didn't know what had happened? At first I thought he had been shot, or struck by a King Cobra, but I heard no gun report and I didn't see any 7 foot long snakes? Then I thought that maybe he had had a heart attck or something, I didn't know what the deal was, but I rushed to his aid....."Dennis, Dennis, whatsa matter man?"

I kneeled over his limp body and I rolled him onto his back, shaking his head trying to bring him back and his eyes flickered and he let out a little moan. Slowly his eyes opened, like he was comming out of a deep sleep and he propped himself up on his elbows. Says I, "Dennis, what the he!! happened?"

He looks at me for a second, works himself up to one knee, motions me over and when I got close enough, he grabs me by the shirt and in a matter of fact voice he says, "Don't you ever put a snake by me again and don't you ever tell anyone about this!"

He thought the eel in the hook box was a snake! He was afraid of snakes! So much so, that the big rough and tough guy feinted dead away when the little 4 inch eel popped out of the hook box right in front of him! I laughed my butt off but he didn't think it was very funny.

He's lucky he didn't fall in the water instead of on the bank...if he had, all that little eels relatives could have made a really good meal out of him!

[YUM]

lmao, tooo funny