Bait
Reading the police logs every week can either be entertaining or downright depressing, depending on the entries.
Way more people either try to commit suicide or threaten to commit suicide than one would ever imagine, which are the most depressing entries.
There’s the typical violent screaming matches that end up in a call to police and then there’s those that go way over the top.
Last week, for example, a guy not only allegedly threatened a woman with a gun, but also sprayed her with bear spray.
I’ve accidentally sprayed myself with bear spray, and it is no fun. I can only imagine what it would be like to purposefully be sprayed with the stuff.
I hope that guy is in a jail cell and is kept there for awhile.
There are lighter sides, of course.
Last week someone was — again allegedly — trying to steal bait out of a store refrigerator.
I can imagine the conversation in the getaway car.
“Djyou get the maggots?”
“Yeah, I got ‘em!” Now step on it!”
Tires squeal. Police in pursuit.
You know folks, there’s like a million grasshoppers out there right now. All of them, last I checked, are free.
And I can speak from experience that there is almost nothing better than a live grasshopper for bait. When I was a kid and used bait in my fishing creek back east, the fishing cycle in the summer went like this:
Find grasshoppers. Use them to catch minnows. Then use minnows to catch northern pike and smallmouth bass. Oftentimes big ones.
I let them all go. Couldn’t bring myself to eat the bass, which are some of the best fighting fish on God’s green Earth.
Let the pike go, too, for the most part.
There aren’t many smallmouth in this part of Montana, but plenty of northern pike are lurking around, way bigger than the ones I caught as a kid.
I think my biggest was 31 inches. Big ones around here top three feet, easy.
But then again, my home water was much smaller.
I wonder if it’s still good fishing. Someday maybe I’ll make the 2,500 mile long drive to find out.
Mmmmmm. Probably not. There’s plenty of fish around here.