Fish For Victory!

There’s a big football game down in Baton Rouge this weekend. It’s all you will hear about if you are a sports fan this week. So I thought as my Trick or Treat blog,  I’d share my take on it via, of course,  a fishing story.

I don’t know how it all got started, but here I was in the big purple and gold boat with LSU coach Les Miles, with him telling me, “Fish for Victory!” We were in a two-team fishing tournament on a mystery lake against Alabama’s Nick Saban and quarterback A.J. McCarron.  Tim Brando was even there, announcing the event live.

I told Les I didn’t really know where to start fishing, but he told me, “When two teams fish on a neutral lake, they both have the advantage.”

Just minutes after we started fishing, McCarron drove down the lake and threw a perfect cast into the corner of a grass zone, which set his team up for a three pounder. A minute later, Nick did the same with another three. Things looked bleak.

But wait.  Les threw the challenge flag, stating that Nick had caught the second fish out of bounds.  After further review, the catch stood. Them 6, Us 0.

Brando pulled over and asked Les about the situation. “I like my fishing partner,” Les said. “We are going to throw the purple worm into the grass and are going to run the gold spinnerbait around the stumps. We are going to open it up.”

Just then, there was a commotion in the “A” boat. McCarron turned over Saban’s tackle box. Saban was livid. He jumped and screamed and almost messed his hair up.

“Just what we needed — a turnover”, Les said with a wry grin and a wink. Almost instantaneously, Les spotted a big fish swirl. “I look forward to playing that fish,” he said. He straightened his hat and made a perfect cast. He hooked the fish and as it swam by, it jumped right in the boat. It was a seven pounder.

Us 7, Them 6!  The final horn blew. Game over. Brando came over to interview the winners. Knowing his prowess with the spoken word, I let Les take the microphone.

Les held up the big one for pictures, adjusted his hat once again, looked into the Valley of the livewell and said,

“This is truly the place where our fishing opponents dreams come to die.”