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Well, we fished on. Had a good old time. Went into a small, narrow
cove with overhanging trees. Plop!!!
'Plop?', methinks. 'What goes plop in the boat?' Ah, ha!! Old eagle-eye
has already spotted the possum that
fell out of one of the trees. Landed right on a loose lure and stuck
a hook in his foot, too. Buddy is up in the
pedestal seat with his legs drawn up somewhere about his receding
hairline. (Having stepped on courting
possums in a briar thicket in the dark one time while making my
way to a duck blind, I understand their
temperament a little, so I'm looking for the nearest 'exit - stage
right', too.)
The hook apparently made the possum either mad (or madder than falling
out of the tree did)--- and, then,
possum-sees-tomcat and tomcat-sees-possum. (For you who are uneducated
in these types of worldly
things, possums got small, VERY sharp teeth; hiss like cobra snakes;
and, have no sense of humor at all.)
Tomcats that have been stranded on logs in lakes recently appear
to have no inclination to share their
new-found dry boat place. Beside, a possum looks kinda like a big
mouse!! You would have thought a
hundred high-pressure air hoses had sprung leaks at the same time,
with all the hissing and spitting and
squalling going on.
By now, I was on the trolling motor heading for the nearest bank.
I was going to be out of there. Buddy, of
course, would have critters between him and the front of that boat
(and the bank) when we got there, but that
was a hazard of fishing. You really won't believe the next part.
Buddy realized that the Speed Shad lure
adorning the possum's leg was his and his 'cheapskate Charlie' mode
shifted into gear. He decided he was
going to get his lure back. Now, Buddy's hissing at the possum,
too. Outnumbered, the possum goes under
the console. Buddy comes down off his seat perch and gets the cat
and starts sticking it under the console
trying to get the possum to come out (after the cat, I suppose;
never did figure what he was gonna do if the
possum really did come out). The cat did not take to this as well
as Buddy had hoped. The possum hissed
and bit at the cat's nose, the cat hissed and climbed Buddy's arm
and face, down his back and wound up
on the top of the bib motor cowling.
By this time, I am laughing like blazes (partly because I am also
coming to the bank). I jerk the trolling
motor up at the last minute, the boat slides up on the sand and
I jump out. Since the possum is under the
console and Buddy can now get by him OK, I ask Buddy to pitch me
a beer from the rear cooler before he
gets out. He did. But, of course, he forgot one for himself. Then,
he climbed forward to the bank and we
waited. The cat, seeing the land, ran down the gunnel of the boat
and jumped off. 30 minutes later, the
possum came out from under the console and got up on Buddy's seat.
Now, Buddy realizes he didn't get himself a beer and the possum
is sitting almost on the cooler lid. Buddy
also wants the lure back. So, what would any enterprising angler
do? He takes one of MY longer rods and
rigs a slip-knot noose in the end of the line. Gonna catch that
possum like the old dog-pound guy, he was.
He inched out and, sure enough, he lassoed that possum. (Possums
appear to have 4 major dislikes: falling
out of trees, tomcats, hooks in the foot, and being lassoed; methinks
they dislike the latter the most.)
Buddy's only saving graces were that he had tied a good knot that
didn't slip and he could reel down to
the possum and hold it safely at rod's length while he contemplated
his next brilliant move. He shook that
possum on the end of the rod and jerked him all around, trying to
get the lure to fall loose. Finally, it was
obvious to even the most casual observer, that the lure was embedded
and NOT coming out. So, Buddy
pulled (also spelled 'dragged') the possum down the length of the
boat and onto the bank. Then, he turned
and said, "here's you rod back." Wait a darn minute. It
still had possum on it. By the time I tried to give him
the rod back and tell him to get that damn animal off, Buddy was
back in the boat and head-down in the
beer cooler.
Well, what the hey. I dragged the possum out into the trees a way,
cut the line and ran like hell back to
the boat. It lightened my heart to see Buddy was sitting on the
edge of the casting deck scraping that
possum dookie off his shoe.
And,
I didn't worry much about the pile now smeared across the carpet.
It was his boat.
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