It's the shirt!

[Reel Geezer]

There I was, spending a pleasant day drifting down the river, when all of a sudden I had a terrific strike. I was a bit surprised at how easily the fish came to the boat after such a hard hit. I was amazed when as I lipped it, the fish proclaimed "you da man!"

I asked what he was talking about and he told me that his great, great, great, great, etc, grampa had often told the tale of this old geezer with a German accent who caught and released him and the wonderful reel that he was using. This geezer called it a Takapart. This fish tale had been passed on for generations in the school.

The fish said he had been rooting around for crawdads when he looked up and saw me drifting past. He took one look at my T shirt and grabbed my lure. He told me he wanted his picture taken with the current geezer so he could show his offspring that he was caught with this wonderful Takapart reel. After I snapped the photo, he said he wanted to see the reel.

I stammered a bit and told him that I was using a modern Shimano reel. As he flipped his tail and squirmed out of my hands he yelled "Japanese junk. You don't deserve to catch a fish like me unless you're using a Meisselbach reel."

All I was left with was this photo and a fish tale. Incidentally, he was 20" and weighed 4.25 pounds.

[Jim Wiegner]

Fish tales:

Geeze:

Fine looking bass, and great looking shirt. And it is always a joy to see Bert in the window.

Obviously this fish was taught in an older school. As wonderful as the Meisselbach reels were, I'm pretty sure that if Gus were here today, he would have high praise for the current crop of very high quality Japanese products.

And while on the subject of rooting (but not for grubs), the World Cup final will be held in Germany tomorrow, and our two time champion United States Women's team will be playing first time finalist Japan, who last week knocked the two time defending champion German team out of the tournament. And for those folks who are not soccer fans, it is worth noting that while our women have represented our country in grand style, our guys (try as they might), have yet to reach the championship stage.

So while the bass are rooting for grubs, we will be rooting for the Red, White and Blue.

Jim

[Brian F.]

I'm waiting for Geez to fit his hat with a Go-Pro camera and upload some video so we can see all of his tackle in action.