View from The Ditch bank

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A RATTLE SNAKE SMILE? Those of you that know me well, know that I don't do a lot of fishing. Very little, in fact. But sometimes I get the urge, and buy a license and go fishing. It only takes a time or two to get my fill for a while. And the cost of a license, a trout stamp, a habitat stamp, a postal stamp, OK so I exaggerate a bit, but not much. Plus the cost of gas to get to the lake and back, I could buy all the fish I would ever eat at the grocery store, Salmon, even, and have money left over for a Taco or something. But back to the story. After making the above necessary purchases, and cause I had never caught a Bass, and after hearing the Bass were biting at a local lake, ( 30 miles away, does that make it local?) I loaded up my skimpy fishing gear, a bait can of worms, cause that's all I ever fished with. I know a lot of people use a lot of different kinds of baits. Fish eggs, cheese balls, dough balls, artificial lures, ( for artificial fish? :-) and so forth. But, all I ever fished for growing up was trout, and we used worms. So when I got to the lake, I baited up and began fishing. Now, in addition to trout, I have caught Cat Fish, and Blue Gill, but never a Bass. As I fished at the local lake, I caught a couple of Trout, a couple or three Bluegill, but no Bass. Maybe the bites I had, that took my worms were Bass. There was a man close by catching bass, using frogs. He was also using a bottle of Jack Daniels. Not for the fish, but for himself. He took a nip ever time he caught a fish. Now that I think about it, he took a nip even when he didn't catch a fish. I sure wanted to use one of his frogs, but he didn't offer and I didn't ask. I was about to pack it in and go home, when I saw this rattlesnake swimming out of the lake with a frog in it's mouth. Now, I hate snakes in general, and rattle snakes in particular. But I wanted that frog, and since it was in the snakes mouth, he couldn't bite me. so I grabbed that snake by the neck. You know, right behind it's head. He, ( I assume it was a he ) opened his mouth, in surprise, or protest, I didn't ask, but open his mouth he did, and the frog dropped right into my bait bucket. And just sat there. Too stunned to move, no doubt. Uh Oh!, now I have a problem. There being no frog in the snakes mouth, he is now free to bite me. I say free, cause I doubt he would pay if I sent him a bill. And he is mad. Have you ever held a mad rattle snake. They are strong. they have muscles on their muscles. And he was writhing around, coiling up my arm, rattling and hissing, and telling me what he would do to me, when he got loose. Not if, when. I now have a dilemma. The man close by realized my problem and came over and offered me his bottle of Jack Daniels. I don't drink and didn't have time to even if I did, but he said, not for you, for the snake. Give him a shot. Can you imagine a snake, high on Whiskey. well, it couldn't be any worse, so I poured a shot down his throat. He soon went limp, passed out colder than Uh,a snake. I wondered how mad a rattler would be when he woke up with a hangover. But I threw him out into the lake, baited my hook with the frog, and proceeded to catch a Bass. In a little while I felt something bumping my foot, and just as the Jack Daniels man started laughing, I looked down, and there was that snake, a grin on his face from ear to ear, and he had two frogs in his mouth. And that's the Tale, Uh, View From The Ditch Bank