t into the line of a nearby fisherman. Improvising our rigs, we dug the heaviest weights out of our tackle boxes and clamped them onto our lures. Sure enough, we got our lures underwater and under control. On the first casts with our modified lures, we got bites and set our hooks, but only to the dismaying result of slackened line. Upon retrieval, we found only the ends of our lines. No lures remained. The fishes teeth had sliced through our lines leaving our lures honorably discharged from their service.Not knowing what to expect, my friend and I had come prepared for about any possible situation. We had brought along about every freshwater fishing rig and tactic from the mid-south, despite the insignificant probability that we might ever use some of them. Among these rarely used tactics was that of using steel leaders, lengths of wire that are tied onto the end of the fishing line to ensure that toothy fish dont bite the vulnerable, regular line when they strike the lure. The only time we had ever used this tactic before was when fishing for gar, long and hideous fish that resemble alligators without legs; but sure enough, our exceptional freshwater tactic did work. It spared our lures when fish bit, and we began catching many fish.Throughout the day we enjoyed catching countless fish with our petite, freshwater lures, yet the surrounding fishermen never modified their methods of fishing so they also could experience the same enjoyment. They patiently waited while a rod, as thick as a broomstick and as long as a car, sat in front of them, bobbing with the current. Somewhere out in the ocean was their rig, a huge, crippled baitfish swimming around in little circles, struggling, just calling for some hungry beast to engulf it. Those fishermen never caught much, but when they did it was always a monstrosity, twenty pounds or more. Word had it that just a week earlier a man had even caught a one thousand pound hammerhead sha...
