Needed fish in a bad wayHe
Back in the early 80’s I was fishing below guntersville dam with my father in law (he would be my ex in law in a few yrs) and we had boated about 6 stripers, in the 4 to 6 lb range. Then my father in law decided he needed more beer which was in the car and only a few hundred yards away. I don’t know why, it was cold out and we were dressed warmly, but he was a retired old school army Sargent Major and if he was awake he had a beer, though I never saw him drunk, or I never saw him sober one. Not sure which. So off to the boat launch we went. On pulling up to the bank there was a man in his mid 20’s I’d guess, walking along the bank in cameo coveralls looking up and down the bank as if searching for something. He and my in law struck up the standard conversation, how are y’all, do any good? Gene, my in law told him yeah and how many. He immediately wanted to buy them, he had been looking for any fish that washed up on the bank that didn’t look too bad. At this juncture his buddy,still in the truck just laughed out loud and told him it wouldn’t work that she was going to kick his butt out anyway. So now his desperate attempts at finding fish made some sense. Gene told him that he couldn’t sell him the fish that it was illegal, but grinning ask him what he had to trade. The upshot of it was that for a half case of bud lite and a twenty dollar contribution to our fishing endeavors he happily took possession of the fish. I have wondered many times what he’d been up to the night before and if bringing home some fish saved his rear end.
