The wonderful world of Backlash!

[MississippiBoy]

Everyone feel free to tell me how stoopid I am, because I've told myself that plenty already tonight.

I just bought a new baitcast reel off eBay (it's new to me, anyway). I went ahead and put a bunch of some old 20# mono I had laying around on as backing, then tied 30# PowerPro on. I used up the last of that spool of PowerPro, and I wasn't sure I had enough. So I thought "I'll just put on a couple of split shot, take a few casts out in the cul-de-sac, and see if I get anywhere close to the knot between the mono and braid."

Like I said, this was gonna be the first casts with the new rod/reel. The spool on my old Abu reel is pretty stiff, especially compared to this one. (Does the word "foreshadowing" mean anything to you?) First cast, no problem. Kinda short, but ended up closer than I would like to the mono. Second cast I made a little harder to see if I would get all the way to the knot.

Guys, I thought my reel was going to eat me. I swear the line was growing, because the reel felt heavier once the line had finally quit coming after me. It reminded me of the time a big-city news reporter asked an old farmer the best way to grow kudzu. The farmer said "Take a piece of kudzu about 6 inches long to where you want to plant it. Throw that piece on the ground, and run like hell!"

Little Shop of Horrors, anyone? "Feed me, Seymour!!"

Anyway, I pick at it and pick at it, doing no good at all. Finally, I give up, come back inside, get my scissors out of my tacklebox, and go to cutting. It takes me every bit of 45 minutes to get that big mass of angry nylon off my new reel.

Now, I'm outside under the carport, cussing myself for being an idiot, while my wife has dozed off on the couch. Her little daschund puppy is almost a year old now, and very curious. Like the dumba$$ I am, I had left my tacklebox open on the floor after I'd gotten the scissors out. I've never had much luck catching crappie on some small green jigs I have, but apparently daschunds love 'em. She pulled out 5-6 of them out of the box and started playing with them, until one eventually gets stuck in her nose. So she yelps, scares the beejezus out of my wife, and goes tearing around the house with this bright green bug thing hanging off her nose.

The wife freaks, grabs it off of her, and throws it across the room. She figures out what it is, gets me, and we go hunting for jigs under the couch, the coffee table, etc. The dog's fine, not even any blood, I don't think. The reel is now empty again, and this story is finished.

The moral is: "Practice with cheap mono first, and work up slowly to long casts. Otherwise, you might end up sleeping on the couch."