When it’s the angler who gets caught dead

 

By Hank Nuwer

Heard the one about two anglers who hoisted a fancy trophy in triumph after “winning” $30,000 in prize money at a Lake Erie Walleye Trail tournament.

 

Before they cashed that check, a suspicious tourney director gutted their fish. Whoops! He found 10 balls of lead.

 

The discredited duo stunk—er slunk–out of town, bypassing irate competitors who wanted to stuff them with leftover lead weights and drop them off a dock.

 

Cheating while fishing never ends well. Back when I was 13, I fished alongside classmate “Swinny,” self-proclaimed  undisputed fishing champ of the Diocesan Preparatory Seminary in western New York.

 

We fished a bank on a reservoir unofficially known as Artificial Lake.

 

Swinny hauled in bass, rock bass and other panfish by the bucket. I stood hours without a catch.

 

Nothing worked. I tried rubber worms, spinners, crankbait and even crawdads

abducted from their rocky beds.

 

I elected to try a patch of water about two meters from Swinny. Soon, I swaggered back with a hefty catfish twice the size of anything Swinny caught.

 

I now had bragging rights as we headed back to our houses.

 

My dad was home from work and marveled at my catch. I swooned in his praise.

 

Dad attached the catfish to a board, skinned it, and set it atop a frypan sizzling in melted

butter.

 

Now you are probably thinking this is where I revealed my perfidy, but you would be

wrong. We hardened criminals are not known for our intelligence.

 

Only after Dad set half a fillet on each of our plates did I confess after experiencing

nausea.

 

“I didn’t catch that fish,” I said, squirming in my seat. “Swinny made me feel bad

catching so many fish that I came back to taunt him with this big dead catfish I found on the

bank.”

 

Dad wrapped the skin, guts, and fillets in newspaper pages. He sent me on foot about

five miles in the dark back to Artificial Lake.

 

“Put it back where you found it,” he said.

 

He was waiting up a little before midnight when I got back. “That learn you anything?”

asked my big strapping father.

 

It sure did.

 

That’s why you won’t ever find me at a tournament with lead in my trousers,

turning four-pound walleye into eight pounders.