Spring is almost upon us – or so it feels like that today. Time for spending weekends playing baseball, soccer and, of course, fishing.

I was driving through the south end of the county yesterday and saw several herd of cattle grazing. My dad always told me that you could tell if the fish are biting by whether or not cows are grazing but I’m not sure if this is true or not. It seems like by the time I get to a place where I can test this theory they stop.

Over the years I have had many experiences while fishing; some memorable, some I would rather forget. Between trips to the ER over stupid accidents to an assortment of snags that have netted everything under the sun except fish, I could probably write about a book about fish tales.

In light of Demopolis native Boyd Duckett’s return to the Bassmaster Classic, I thought I would share some fish tales I found in the Internet recently.

Last year in North Carolina, David Hayes’ granddaughter asked him to hold her Barbie rod and reel while she went to the bathroom.

He did. And seconds later he landed the state record channel catfish at 21 pounds, 1 ounce.

I found a couple of instances where people caught ducks flying overhead. One guy said he was casting his line out and narrowly missed a flock of ducks – or so he thought.

He quickly noticed that the bobber at the end of the line never hit the water. Instead it was soaring up to the clouds wrapped around a mallard. The angler was able to soothe the angry duck down like reeling in a kite to safely remove the line.

One couple had to get the law involved after reeling in their catch. Apparently someone stashed a waterproof meth lab in a cooler under the water in a nearby lake thinking no one would find it.

What they thought was a huge catch turned out to be drug paraphernalia and everything needed to produce crystal meth.

When I was a teenager living near Okatibbee Lake, the Corps of Engineers decided to drain it to plant grass along the lakebed. As the water level lowered, fishermen kept complaining that the bottom of their boats were bumping against a huge boulder at the end of the boat ramp.

Finally the Corps decided to remove it, but instead pulled up a slab of concrete, they hauled in an old car from the mid 1960’s. What they found inside was even more bizarre. Sitting in the driver’s seat was the skeleton of a man. The jeans he had worn with his wallet and drivers license still in the back pocket had been preserved and gave authorities the identity of a young man who had disappeared nearly 20 years before.

You never know what may happen when you sink a line into the murky unknown. If you have any odd experiences while fishing please let me know. You can email me at john.few@demoopolistimes.com.

John Few is a reporter for the Demopolis Times.