Surprise: Snag starts swimming off

Gator takes productive spinnerbait, fishermen for a ride

EAGLE LAKE — When I felt something hit my lure hard, instinctively, I set the hook.

What followed was comical, a bit sobering and never forgotten.

“Got one?” asked my partner Ryan Jones.

“No, afraid I got a log,” I said, “and it’s the only one of those spinnerbaits I brought.”

Since I had caught several bass and a couple of slab crappie on the Redfish Magic spinnerbait, I wanted it back. So I put the trolling motor on high and headed to where my line disappeared into the shallow, murky water.

Jones, a biologist with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, kept fishing as I pulled up to the snag. Reaching down with the 6½-foot rod, I reeled tight to the lure until I hit something solid, and then I jabbed at it to free my spinnerbait.

And I jabbed again.

And again.

And again.

When I noticed the wind pushing my boat, I hit the trigger on the trolling motor, but the blades thumped against something hard.

“Well, there’s the snag,” I said, picturing a log underwater with my spinnerbait attached.

Then, to my amazement, the boat was not on top of the snag anymore. I mistakenly thought a gust of wind had blown us away from it.

My rod was bent in a huge arc, straining against the pull. The reel was slowly giving up line, and seemed to be in time with the trolling motor, a bad sign. But, the line wasn’t wrapped in the blades, but was between the boat and the motor. I had to pull the motor up, run my rod tip under the blades and change hands. This I managed to do without breaking the rod, which was a miracle.

“OK, Ryan now I can go back to the snag,” I said.

His answer stunned me.

“Uh, Bob, we haven’t moved,” he said. “We’re right where we were.”

My line, however, was now 40 feet away, so I trolled to where the line disappeared, reeled tight and jabbed.

Once, twice, thrice … I jabbed at the log, hitting it solidly each time.

Then something curious happened. The log started swimming off, and in a hurry.

Line was peeling off the reel again and I gave chase, reeling as I went. Jones was standing over my shoulder, just as anxious as I was to see what I would pull up.

And then we saw it — at least 4½  feet of alligator tail. I don’t know how much more tail there was, or, for that matter, how much more gator there was. But I knew it was plenty large, and, as far as I was concerned, he was in charge.

I remember it like it was yesterday, but I hate I forgot what kind of 12-pound mono I was using — wow! But I digress …

While I was considering cutting my line and my losses and leaving this beast alone, Jones jumped down in the bottom of the boat to get pliers. He was going to reach down and get my spinnerbait back, wherever it was hung on that gator, if we could get the boat into position.

Youth? Crazy, eh?

“He’s still docile from the winter and the cool water,” Jones said. “No big deal.”

But the gator came to life, apparently having enough of our intrusion into his domain and not wanting another spanking from the trolling motor. This time I didn’t have to give chase, he pulled us along with him, until, suddenly I had slack line.

My spinnerbait had torn loose from the gator’s thick hide and I got it back.

The gator never did pop up on the surface, so we never knew how large it was. Big enough, we decided.

That’s when reality hit me. I had just jabbed the sides of a gator several times. I thought of Jim Croce’s lyrics.

I had tugged on Superman’s cape.

I had pulled on the mask of the ol’ Lone Ranger.

I had messed around with Jim.

And I got away with it.