Kenny Hutson

Well, he did have some friends and they were hungry. Though I had a few unrealized hopes when some tugs failed to convert into struggles and when a struggle or two failed to turn into acquisitions, I did manage to land a couple more one to two pound largemouths before Tripp and I had to make it back to sound-check. Though Tripp’s luck wasn’t as good as mine, he was successful in helping me accomplish the time-honored task of giving an old fishing buddy a little bit of hell.

Knowing that St. Louis is even colder than Nashville in January, I figured that my long-time fishing buddy Dr. Eric Bryan (professor of Medieval English in the Missouri university system) had not wet a hook for some time. It’s a fine-tuned craft, giving a fishing buddy hell. You have to be sensitive to your friend’s inability to get to the water, yet you still have to assert your momentary prowess and angling superiority (especially if he or she is the one that regularly out-fishes you). In the words of Dwight Yoakam’s character in Sling Blade, “That’s the way friends do one another!” For this instance, I thought it best to email a photo.

Now, I normally don’t condone the use of the interweb or cell phones while fishing. It just feels wrong. Nothing is more annoying than folks updating their Facebook status or tweeting when they should be feeling for a bump on the line or telling me a tall tale about “the one that got away”. The only exceptions that I have made in the past are texts, phone-calls, or emails that facilitate staying on the water longer than originally communicated. That being said, I did discover a new exception.

With Tripp’s handy dandy I-phone, I utilized the best that modern technology had to offer so that I could give Eric some grief. Hell, technology ain’t so bad after all. I might even get me one of them thar smart-phones.

Anyway, the tour rolled on with a couple more fishing opportunities that yielded no more fish (though that’s not exactly what I told Eric). However, they did provide refuge from the rigors of the road. Unfortunately, one of the excursions ended with a broken Okuma fishing rod. For the record, I wasn’t exactly impressed with Okuma’s customer service. My well-crafted letter (mailed the old-fashioned way) must have landed on the desk of someone that was too busy tweeting, but I digress.

I guess the only thing more to say is that I’m glad to have eaten some good Cajun seafood before sadness darkened the gulf this past summer. I also offer my heartfelt thanks to Matthew Smith for helping me acquire online fishing licenses, Heber Sr. for the use of his pond, Heber Jr. for the Jack Daniels brazed beef tenderloin, and Heber the Third for being my fishing buddy. Soon, I will use an I-phone to give you hell.

Have a good weekend y’all.

This entry was posted on November 25, 2010 at 8:11 pm and is filed under Six Strings and Six Pound Test. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.