| Both men carried a knife. Jess actually had a combination knife, plyers, screw driver(s), both heads, a file, bottle opener and a couple other neat little tools on it. It was a Gerber so the tools on it were very competent. They were even able to skin the bullhead catfish which have some tough skin to pull off. They saved the liver and other parts of the fish they wouldn’t care to eat, and would use them for bait. They still had one hook available so they rebaited their line and threw it out. George fished while Jess spent his time split between getting the flashlights dried out and cutting his way through the throat of that bullhead in search of the lost hook. He took care to cut pieces the size for bait as he cut his way into the fish. Eventually he was rewarded by finding the hook. George brought in another bullhead which again swallowed the hook. So they did the whole process over again. George brought in another bullhead before Jess was able to clean the one he had, and then of course dig the hook out of its throat. Then he dug into his emerency kit and brought out the fishing line he had in there. He started to tie it to the other line so to double the length they could throw out their line. Jess stopped him and suggested he use one of their boot laces instead. Following that lead, George used all four of their boot laces tied together then tied to the fishing line to give them a much further throw out into the water. Jess cut out the liver of the bullhead and gave it to George for bait. Neither man said a word as they worked. Jess worked with his body between the fire and the tree line so his body would better cover the brightness of the fire. Perhaps if that creature was out there looking it might keep him from seeing the fire. George was a few feet out into the water to give his fishing line even more length. Bullhead would be okay for lunch but they would much rather be eating channel cats, flatheads or blue cats. next page |  |