Stupid Shoes + 17 Mile Wade = Fishing with the Prez

This month's winner fo the Fishing with the Prez Contest was Jerry Malone, father of Janice Malone. Jerry is an engineer in our Unnecessary Mechanical Device Department. His contributions to the company include various inventions. Some of his more noteworthy creations are: the toothpick sharpener, the coat-hanger straightener, the music detector, a device (at present unnamed) that removes the perferations from toilet paper and paper towel rolls, a fancy-maker (used to make normal stuff into fancy stuff), and a car wash washer (it cleans dirty car washes).

Jerry's latest invention, the one that gave him the privelidge to go fishing with me, is his "snake under-arm deodorant application machine". I believe this to be particularly unnecessary as snakes do not normally have a problem with B.O. to my knowledge. For those of you less studied in reptilian biology it is important to know that snakes do not have sweat glands. (Hang on. Sue just handed me a note.) Oh yeah, snakes do not have arms, ultimately causing them to lack under-arms. Wow Jerry, that thing is WAY unnecessary!


Am I off topic again? Damn. Anyway, this month I decided to take Jerry on a wade-fishing expedition down the Sasquageaweausauasha River. (Sasquageaweausauasha is the Cherokee Indian word for "bad taste"). My good friend Lyle Chivers suggested this place saying that "the smallies are tearin' it up" right now. He also claimed that the 17 mile stretch between Fishpiss Falls and Possum Scat Island is the best right now. Note: When Lyle describes distances between 1 and 50 miles, he always says 17 miles.


So Jerry and I got in the river below Fishpiss Falls as the sun crept over the horizon. We waded and fished with some success. The perch were hungry for sure. We caught several dozen ranging in size from almost microscopic to microscopic plus one.

Problems started after the first 70 feet or so. I had selected my footwear that morning based on no particular criteria at all. I wore what I refer to as "water socks". They extremely flexible shoes designed (by people much like Jerry) to be worn in the water. They suck. By the 70 foot mark of our journey the souls of these things were torn to hell by the jagged rocks in the bed of the Sasquageaweausauasha. This caused problems with the walking, which is the primary form of transportation when one is wading. Nevertheless, I continued to fish, and wade, and grimace without audible complaint. Jerry and I continued to catch miniscule perch along with a few bass varying in mouth-size.

We finally made it to Possum Scat Island and got out of the river. I figure the distnace was about 48 miles, or maybe seventeen. When I looked at the bottom of my feet, they were not pleasant. HAve you ever opened up a chirizo burrito with all the fixins? Yeah. Sort of like that.

Someone once said, "a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work." Someone else once added, "If you don't lose your soul in the process."