Page 63 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL10

On the way to Taughannock Cape I dropped by a tackle shop and spent S2.50 on small fry. It was my first time using live bait in the past year. When I arrived, two people were fishing at the south of the pond so I headed to the north end which was still unoccupied. I hung the tiny live bait on the hook and threw the line into the water waiting for the lake trout to rise. While smoking, I saw trout and salmon jumping out of the water here and there.In almost two hours not a single fish struck the line. An arm-long trout drove me crazy by swimming closely past. On the opposite bank I saw a guy catch a trout at 3pm. Notwithstanding the few that he missed, after a while he caught one more as big as the previous trout. Fishing beside him was an old, squat man who looked like a dwarf from Snow White. When the guy snared a fish, he would leave his rod and grab a huge net to scoop up the fish with. Lake trout weighed around 8 or 9 pounds, or 4kg. It might not be so clever to try to hoist it up by line. The trout would wriggle and throw its weight against the line until it snapped or the fish slipped off thehook and swam away.I wondered what kind of luresthe guy was using. Observed from a distance, his rod looked almost as light as an ultralight model. I could not tell what the bait was exactly but I could see it was an artificial one. He dragged the lure particularly slowly. Drag and stop, drag and stop, like levelling the soil.When the young man left, I gathered my gear and drove to the opposite side, asking the old man what bait the guy had used. The answer was tiny spinners. This made me remember a fishing theory that if the fish do not bite, reducing the size of the lure will help. This is because when the fish are not so eager to feed, a small line with small bait, slowly dragging the lure, will seem safer for the fish to bite. This was the truth today.Story concludes in the next issue of Elite+.About the AuthorSeksan Prasertkul was born in 1949 in the eastern part of Thailand. He received a PhD in political science from Cornell University, USA, and apart from writing, he has served as a lecturer at Thammasat University, Bangkok, during the past 20 years. Seksan rose to prominence in Thailand as both a writer and public figure, and his literary works are considered unique because of their consistency, original style and inspiring thoughts drawn from his direct experiences.Seksan Prasertkul was honoured as a Thai National Artist in the field of literature in 2009.Elite+ 61