A Hornyhead fishing story, based on true events:
“……I was standing in the current of the creek, the water way up over my ankles. The creek was about 20 feet wide bank to bank with trees and bushes hanging over it, a mixture of shade and sunlight dappled on the water.
The water was cold when I first got into it, wading being easier than trying to work around all the bushes and briers on the bank. Now I was almost used to the temperature, wading down stream, fishing, wearing my tennis shoes to protect my feet, wet up almost to my pockets where I had straddled over a downed, slick, moss covered log and fell. 60 yards down stream I could hear my 14 year old daughter scream, “I’ve got another one, another keeper”…. “what, what if she out-fishes me is my latest thought.”
Below where I was standing in the current, it was swirling hard around a sandbar creating a pool on the back side. Further down steam was another pool, partially under the bank, where the creek took a hard bend to the right….I knew that is where my quarry would be, in one of the two pools, the quiet water. In the main stream a dozen small minnows raced in a glint in the sunlight, a fleeting shadow off the sandy, pebbled bottom and were gone.
I took my 6 foot cane pole, with 6 pound test monofilament attached and a #16 hook, smallest I could find…attached were also the smallest bobber and weight I could get. I had threaded perhaps a quarter of a worm on the hook and put the old Prince Albert tobacco can back in my back pocket, the tin used as my bait box.
The pool was in the yawning shadow, murky in the shade, with some of last years leaves eddying and damming up the shallow edge……I flipped the baited hook into the darken pool, the pool a lot deeper that the running water near it and I waited…… the cork rested, then drifted, then bobbed, bobbed again and was gone…in a snatch I lifted my cane pole and out I came with a horny head, flashing in the sunlight, flipping water all around, swinging toward me.
This beast was maybe 3, hoping for 4 inches long and weighted a ounce or two, just a little bit longer than my forefinger, but not a ‘horn’ to be seen…….and I knew instantly I was going to have to do better to win the prize for biggest fish at the school house when we went back for the weigh in…..and maybe…… probably, knowing that my little girl has out fished me again…………”
Exert: from ‘Horny Head Fishing chapter’ in the book; “Newborn, GA: Characters, Places and Tales”
The water was cold when I first got into it, wading being easier than trying to work around all the bushes and briers on the bank. Now I was almost used to the temperature, wading down stream, fishing, wearing my tennis shoes to protect my feet, wet up almost to my pockets where I had straddled over a downed, slick, moss covered log and fell. 60 yards down stream I could hear my 14 year old daughter scream, “I’ve got another one, another keeper”…. “what, what if she out-fishes me is my latest thought.”
Below where I was standing in the current, it was swirling hard around a sandbar creating a pool on the back side. Further down steam was another pool, partially under the bank, where the creek took a hard bend to the right….I knew that is where my quarry would be, in one of the two pools, the quiet water. In the main stream a dozen small minnows raced in a glint in the sunlight, a fleeting shadow off the sandy, pebbled bottom and were gone.
I took my 6 foot cane pole, with 6 pound test monofilament attached and a #16 hook, smallest I could find…attached were also the smallest bobber and weight I could get. I had threaded perhaps a quarter of a worm on the hook and put the old Prince Albert tobacco can back in my back pocket, the tin used as my bait box.
The pool was in the yawning shadow, murky in the shade, with some of last years leaves eddying and damming up the shallow edge……I flipped the baited hook into the darken pool, the pool a lot deeper that the running water near it and I waited…… the cork rested, then drifted, then bobbed, bobbed again and was gone…in a snatch I lifted my cane pole and out I came with a horny head, flashing in the sunlight, flipping water all around, swinging toward me.
This beast was maybe 3, hoping for 4 inches long and weighted a ounce or two, just a little bit longer than my forefinger, but not a ‘horn’ to be seen…….and I knew instantly I was going to have to do better to win the prize for biggest fish at the school house when we went back for the weigh in…..and maybe…… probably, knowing that my little girl has out fished me again…………”
Exert: from ‘Horny Head Fishing chapter’ in the book; “Newborn, GA: Characters, Places and Tales”
