Some folks are just naturally accident-prone. I am. Mama always said I should write a book about my accidents. If I do, the one that will top the list happened when Dean and I discovered the honey hole.
In angling parlance, a honey hole is a place nobody else knows about, and we found one. The Sunflower River had flooded its banks, filling a cow pasture, and bass were thrashing minnows in the shallows.
No creature is deadlier at ambushing than these bucket-mouthed behemoths. Lurking in shadows, they attack anything that swims close to their hiding places, and the pasture’s fence posts provided ideal cover.
Stealthily, we waded, casting lures near one post after another. I chose my favorite lure, the Lucky 13. If you take a piece of hoe handle, paint the front half red, the back half white, and hang two treble hooks on it, you’ve got a Lucky 13.
Dean caught a lunker-jawed leviathan beside a post and stepped aside to let me fish the next one. My aim was off, and the hooks snagged the post. “Wait!” he whispered, “Let me chunk beside it before you get untangled.”
The instant his lure lit beside the post, a bass devoured it. Enviously, I watched the trophy tail-walk the surface as Dean fought him, grinning ear to ear. I jerked furiously, trying to force the hooks to release their hold on the post.
Suddenly they did. Feeling the rod go limp, I turned to see why. Whizzing at the speed of sound, the Lucky 13 whapped me in the face, knocking me off my feet and underwater. When I surfaced, the world was black. What Dean said froze my blood.
“Oh my God, you’re blind! Hold my shirttail — I’ll lead you out. We must get to the hospital quick.”
What the doctor said was even more chilling. “Good Lord Almighty! Thirty years, and I thought I’d seen it all. Son, there’s only one thing to do — push the hooks through and cut off the barbs.” After countless deadening shots, he went to work.
Unbeknownst to me, the lure smacked my face with such velocity that the hooks snagged scalp on each side of my head, pulling the skin back over my eyes, making it impossible to see. Finally, the doctor freed the hooks on one side, and an eye popped open. “Thank God! At least I’m not totally blind,” I gasped.
Still mumbling, “I thought I’d seen it all,” the doctor struggled with the other side. After much pulling, twisting, pushing and snipping, he removed the remaining hooks, and my other eye popped open. The first thing I saw was the doctor and several nurses, all shaking their heads in absolute incredulity.
Henry David Thoreau once said, “A man’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll go fishing.”
I agree, but I won’t be able to use my favorite lure. To prove that he had seen it all, the doctor kept my unlucky Lucky 13.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
