Purely by accident

Late this evening, I paid a visit to the pier.  Last night, I had fished a bit but, for the life of me, could not catch a fish.  I had plenty of bites but never caught a single fish other than one hardhead catfish.   I tossed it back over since I would have to be pretty hungry before I ate that!  While missing those fish, all I could think was "If Mark was here, he would be reeling in those fish!"  Not me.  I missed fish after fish and was getting a tad miffed at myself for being so incompetent!  Tonight, I wanted to try again.  Maybe, just maybe, I would have better luck at catching those bait-stealing fish!

I cast my line out as far as I could and sat back to wait.  Sure enough, within minutes a fish tugged on the line.  I pulled and missed!  Not this again!  I rebaited and tossed the thing out again.  The wait for a bite was not long.  I pulled back and missed again.  No bait.  What was taking my bait?  Why could I not catch this sneaky fish?  I tried again.  This time, I let the thing take as much time as it needed to get hooked.  I was in no hurry!  The line spun out of the reel as the fish thought he was free.  I pulled back and started to reel.  This was strange!  I could feel something on the end of my line but it was surely not very big!  And..it was tugging in a weird way.  I wound the fish in and pulled it up on the pier.  Well, that was indeed strange!  I caught fish alright but not the type I expected!  I caught a mullet!  Now, for those who do not know, you do not normally catch a mullet on a hook and line..and you especially do not catch it the way that I did this one!  I had snagged that poor fish in the back!  Oh, geez!  I felt terrible!  I tried to gently (well, as gently as possible) unhook the fish.  It looked up at me with sad eyes.  I am sorry, Little Mullet!  I promise that I did not try to hook you in the back!  (Yep, I was apologizing to a fish!)

After unhooking the little guy, I slipped it back into the water with wishes that it would heal properly and quickly.  Well, that ended the fishing for the evening.  I just could not toss another bait over.  Those bait-stealing fish would have to wait for another evening.  They had been saved by a poor, hapless mullet.  The sad part (other than my hook stabbing the poor thing) was that this fish looked as if it had been previously injured.  It had large bite marks on its back not far from my hook.  To console myself, I decided that perhaps I had inadvertently saved this fish!  Perhaps it was in a larger fish's mouth and I snagged it right out of danger!  (Wishful thinking but, hey, maybe...just maybe?)

My brother was on his pier casting the net for mullet.  When I told him about missing so many fish, he remarked that my bait-thieves could possibly be Black Drumfish or Sheepshead as he was catching both with his net.  Well, that does make sense.  Those both can beat me at fishing.  I have a tendency to pull too fast to catch one of them.  It takes patience as they like to "mouth" the bait a bit.  Plus, I really have no desire to catch one.  They are not the easiest fish in the world to clean.  So ended my fishing day.  I caught nary a fish save one by pure accident.