Jeremy Wade
Phone
rings:
Shaving
4: “Are you watching this?”
ML:
“Watching what?”
Shaving
4: “Are you watching this?”
ML:
“Watching what!?”
Shaving
4: “Turn on Animal Planet”
And
there he was, the River Monster guy fishing India’s Great Kali (the river not
the wrestler) for goonch, aka, man-eating catfish.
That
the goonch eat people seems likely as the locals’ burial practice involves
funeral pyres, on the river’s edge, after which the partially burnt deceased is
pushed into the river. People eat a lot of catfish and catfish eat a lot of
anything that comes by; fair’s fair.
The
“problem” was that live people, not far from shore and in plain view, were
suddenly going under. Now I do not think
that a catfish goes about eating people the way a shark goes about eating
people; catfish dentation isn’t really well designed for dismemberment. On the
other hand, people can drown really quickly esp. with a +100 pound fish, with a
lot of forward gripping teeth, hanging onto your heel. So I’ll go along with
man-grabbing catfish. What happens next is a technical detail of minor interest
to the principal and family/friends.
The
sawed-off TOTH (almost tooth…I like it!!) goes to Mr. Wade’s technique when,
towards the show’s close, he finally gets something big on his line. He’d
caught a few smallish goonch up to this point but here was what he was looking
for. The fish heads downstream towards trouble (from Mr. Wade’s perspective) so
, rod held high, he swims across the
river to ultimately land a goonch I would not want on my foot.
And
that, ladies and germs, is SAWED-OFF
FISHING!
Steve Irwin
On
TV there’s this guy, lying on his stomach, chin ~ on the ground, real close to
some death dealing viper (stomach & chin also on the ground) talking like he
wants to buy the snake a drink. Continued viewing of The Crocodile Hunter led
me to conclude: a) hotdog but b) really great hotdog.
And
so are we all familiar with Mr. Irwin’s general approach to wildlife….great
affection and knowledge of their likely next three moves.
Two
particular encounters come to mind. The first was atypical of his general
approach but underscored the snake’s universal reputation of profoundly
dangerous: black mamba. Everybody lived but Mr. Irwin gave the snake its due,
i.e. stay on the balls of your feet.
The
second encounter (TOTH) was Steve Irwin at his loving, deeply experienced,
finest. There’s this pig running through the high grass. Mr. Irwin tackles her,
lays on top of her muttering “oh my pretty”. Then he lets the pig up to shoe
her on her no-worse-for-wear way. The pig stands up, shakes off the dust and
charges. Now me, I’d have fainted dead away but Mr. Irwin simply grabs the pig
by its ears, says something along the lines of “Now, now, all in good fun”,
points the pig in the right direction and off she goes. Like I said, a GREAT
hotdog.
Nobody’s
perfect and “ain’t no horse that can’t be rode etc.”. I’m sure that sting ray
business came as a big surprise. In the end a) “too bad he didn’t live but then
again….” and/but b) all those “moments” that were not lost.
All Catfish Noodlers
These
guys are CRAZY and my reason for billing myself as a sawed-off sportsman,
not THE sawed-off sportsman. The fear being that if I billed myself as THE I would run into one
of these characters who would first say “oh?” and then invite me on an outing.
I’ve
got to hand it to them (as some may need a replacement) sticking your hand in
an underwater hole and wiggling your fingers until something bites it is
SAWED-OFF2.
I take that back; it is log10
SAWED-OFF! = TOTH!!
ML
5
June, 2014
