The Bobber

[Rat]

The Bobber

In the movie Men In Black, Part of the story line was that there was an entire universe stored inside the globe-like charm that dangled from a cats’ collar. While it makes for an intriguing plot in a Science Fiction movie that may be intended to parallel our own spiritual or emotional selves, it’s still just fiction, right? I certainly thought so, until a recent nightstalk last weekend.
You see, we live in an intimately complex world that, for the most part it seems, people never really see or understand. A cosmos greater than our wildest imaginations and a microscopic universe we are just now beginning to get the first glimpses of.
So how can something so unfathomably huge fit into a golf ball sized charm on a cats’ collar, or a bobber for that matter? I can’t explain how, but it can.
I was at Lake Granger doing some nightstalking, it was about Two AM and the bite had been slow. I had been staring at my slip bobbers for what seemed like hours in the still waters when one of them very quietly and deliberately slipped beneath the dark waters, without so much as a ripple. Like any good Slab Nabber I snatched the pole out of the holder and tried to rip the lips from the face of the crappie that had just inhaled my minnow. Once he was boated I realized he was the first good fish I had caught that night. I quickly re-rigged my other bobbers to that depth and for the next three and a half hours my life consisted of landing crappie and baiting hooks.
Towards the end of the run, when they were beginning to slow down again, and I really had to concentrate on the bobbers to see the bite, is when it hit me. My entire universe was locked up in those three bobbers.
You know what I am talking about. When you see the slightest twitch of the bobber, you pick up the pole, and you focus every ounce of your will on that bobber. Move, twitch, sink, run off, just one more indication that you have it in your mouth and YOU ARE MINE! The forest could be one fire, nukes could be going off a mosquito lands on my face and jabs his blood sucker deep into my cheek, nothing matters but the bobber. And when it happens, you go from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye. How about, when you are baiting another hook and look up and don’t see your bobber. Panic sets in, you grab your pole and set the hook with enough force to pull the Statue of Liberty from her foundations. Only to realize the bobber hadn’t gone under, it just wasn’t where you looked. And it goes wizzing by your face at mach 3 and the minnow is instantly vaporized. You look around to see if anyone else saw it, even though you know the only other person on the lake is 12.3 miles away and it’s five AM.
While I set there and watch the bobbers my mind wanders, family, friends, work, and life in general. But at the first inkling of a fish, the bobber becomes my entire universe. And for as long as it takes, I am not a slave to circumstance, not just another number at work or regretting missed opportunities. All I want in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD is for that bobber to move just ONE MORE TIME!

[tnvol]

Rat:

I like that story...it should explain a lot to those
who don't fish. Is it ok with you if I forward it to
some of those people?

[Rat]

Sure, forward and post it wherever you want.

[crappie-dude]

Liked the story there Rat.....I totally understand and have been right there!!!

[treepotato]

Loved the story Rat, I never really looked at it that way before. Even when deer hunting and you hear the telltale sound of a deer slipping through the woods , their hooves faintly crunching the leaves with every step comming closer and closer to my stand sometimes peaks the emotions & senses to the point of physically shaking from adreneline, at which point I would'nt even be able to tell you whether I was even breathing or not!! At that moment like you said your whole universe is wrapped up in that place and time. I guess that is what makes some people so good at what they are so passionate about , to be able to focus in that way. Thanks for sharing your thoughts...................treepotato

[Litebite]

Great story..You just told my life on the water...Its like nothin matters but that next bite!!!

[Rat]

Hey Treepotato, I know what you mean about deer hunting. I am a bow hunter and I wrote a short story several years ago called 25 to Life where I chronicled the shot sequence on a 125" ten point I shot. I had a melt down when I couldn't remember if my twenty-five yard gap was between my second and third pins or my third and fourth pins! If someone would have asked me how long I held at full draw right after the shot, I would have said a minute and a half to two minutes. But on the video it was almost exatcly 25 seconds, but in the midst of a melt down it seemed like a lifetime.

I still remember thinking to myself on that morning that I was going to miss a buck of a lifetime because I couln't get my brain to focus. Even after all these years I don't think I ever figured it out, I think I just guessed right at the last moment.

[ThrillSeeker]

I love seeing that bobber slip below the surface. Lately, I've had to hope that it wasn't a green carp or a catfish.

[Woohdog]

I like your story, too. I've told my wife that fishing's like meditation for me. There's a lot of focus on occasion, but usually it's loss of focus and drift. And patience.

[Barnacle Bill]

May the force, er bobber, be with you. Good story and that is what its all about!