What is this I have caught?

Airman Steve

It was a warm, lazy summer day on the air base. I had been working hard and finally was given a day off to do as I pleased. To get away from the main part of the base (and yet stay on base) I decided to go to the lake on the far side of the grounds and fish. The lake on this Louisiana base is surrounded by bayou and swamp. In an attempt to allow airmen to fish, the base provides a dock protruding out into the water to fish from.

My grandfather, a fisherman, had taught me the skill of fishing when I was a kid, so I got my rod and reel and set off. I had been fishing several hours, using a variety of different lures, as I casted out into the lake. I caught several fish during the day (mostly bass) in the catch and release method and then went back to my favorite bait, a plastic, purple worm with 3 straight hooks placed in it so that there was a hook in each 1/3 of the plastic worm. By this point it was about 4:00 in the afternoon and I had been casting into the lake most of the day. With the purple worm on my line, I cast out one more time. As I reeled my line in, I thought I snagged onto something in the water. I jerked my line a couple of times to attempt to release it from whatever it was caught onto. I continued to reel in the line until I could see into the water that I had something on my line that looked like a large, long tree limb. As I got the tree limb up to the dock I was standing on, I realized I did not have a tree limb, but I had instead a 2 ½ foot long alligator. I had hooked him in the mouth just like a fish. Well, as you might suspect, I did not take my favorite purple, plastic worm out of his mouth, but instead I cut the line. There was no way I was going to tackle that alligator for a replaceable worm.

That is what you get for fishing in a Louisiana lake.

Airman Steve