Sorry gang, I know that it’s late in the month but we’re still going to present this months “Pond Scum of the Month” award. And the winner is “Rapidfirous Scattergunameoba” or, RS for short. This particular strain of pond scum is absolutely harmless to anyone. If fact, it is amusing to watch as it skitters all over the water in the attempt to become productive without ever thinking that it’s behavior is precisely what prevents it from doing just that.
Yes, RS is everywhere there is water and as so many forms of pond scum tend to do, he travels in packs. This species is easily recognizable by the wake that he leaves from his boat, and that is just with the trolling motor, or the dust he is kicking up on the shore. RS does indeed make espresso nervous just by being in the area.
The most interesting facet of RS is the fact that no matter the time of day, month or year, he has one speed, flat out! His lures are all designed to be burned using a 7.1:1 or higher gear ratio. The idea of slowing down is heresy to RS as he figures that he is only targeting the aggressive fish in the water and no others interest him.
He can fish the entire lake in under ten minutes and once he makes his first cycle, he changes to another lure and does the same thing over again. Yes, he repeats this process all day, or night until his time on the water runs out.
RS shuns soft plastics of any kind because they simply don’t fit his fishing style. Power fishing is the only thing he knows and nothing else is worth learning. Is there a downside to “Rapidfirous Scattergunameoba”? It really depends on your proximity to him as you’re fishing. If you’re too close, he will run over all the water in a matter of moments and it can take some time before the fish have recovered enough to bite again. His style of fishing is such that from a boat, each casts takes about 5 seconds. He just flies down the bank, trolling motor on high, casting and retrieving as quickly as he can believing that covering a lot of water is the only way to have a good day fishing.
If he is fishing from shore, his feet never stop moving. He is casting as he is walking without any attention paid to where his lure is landing. He is just convinced that covering as much water as you can, every minute you’re on the water, is the way to a big bag. The worst thing that happens with RS is that occasionally a fish will bite, probably out of sheer panic from the lure that is coming at him a hundred miles an hour, and this just convinces him that he has the right game plan. So he immediately resumes what he was doing before.
You will have to be careful around RS as he is less than accurate most of the time with his casts and will cross your line in his exuberance to make that next cast. When this happens, take your time getting things straightened out as this only winds up RS that much more. He then will high tail it away from you so as not to catch the slows from you and interrupt his rhythm. This usually acts as a repellant for at least a day so that RS will avoid you at all costs and leave you to the water that you’re fishing, which in my mind, is the way it oughta be.
See ya’ on the water …