The Old Rosebud and Catch Fish Like Crazy

In your lifetime, you’re lucky to have one good friend – that guy or gal that’s with you through thick or thin. Affectionately, I call this friend my one and only Rosebud.

Dave and I met in Peterborough, Ontario on Brown Street in an apartment when I was just eighteen, both of us newly married. We were both crazy about fishing and hunting…crazy crazy crazy…every minute that we could go fishing or hunting, we were off.

Now, I have many stories to tell in our years of friendship that are like all the rest of our adventures – hard to believe, but true. In this particular adventure, I’d just discovered this new product “Catch Fish Like Crazy” from a TV ad and went to Cabela’s Outfitters to pick it up.

I phoned up the Rosebud and said, “Let’s head down to the Omemee dam and try this new product out.”

I just had that feeling again…Of course, as was the case 99% of the time, his loving wife Mary and my wife said, “Get out of our hair you two.” (It is a bond that still remains true to this day, although, his health has pretty much forced him to give up any long distance marathons.)

Like two kids, we were off to the Omemee. As we got there we saw this one lonely fisherman and said to him, “Catching anything?” He said dejectedly, “No and I’ve been here for five hours already.” I thought to myself either this guy was really unlucky or that golf should be his new game.  Anyways…we felt bad for this chap.

I said to Rosebud jokingly,  “Time to ‘Catch fish like crazy!'” Rosebud laughed.

Now, this was the strangest smelling brew on earth. It smelled like liquorice. I put the minnow on, sprayed this product, and threw out a cast. Bam! A five pound pickerel! I thought that other fisherman was going to kill us with the look he gave us.

Rosebud put on a minnow and sprayed the secret formula…Bam! Another four pound beauty. This guy was now ready to drown us both. We did this, no kidding, until we limited out. The poor guy came over to us and asked us what the hell we were using. We told him it was a secret formula, but offered to spray it on his minnow. He threw it out and Bam! A four-pounder followed by a three and a five.

Then we said, “Well, time to go.”

“Hey!” he said, “Aren’t you going to share?”

We laughed and said, “We just did! But before we go, I’ll throw on a minnow, spray this, cast one more time, and you can have what I catch.”

I threw into the swirl…and pulled a Squirrell. As I was reeling in another five-pounder, Rosebud said, “Hey Squirrelly, you don’t have that fish by it’s mouth.”

The fish had been hooked by an unlucky angler before and had a white jig hanging out of its mouth. It was attracted to our formula. As it came up for a look, I caught it by the eye of this jig.

Well that sent the guy packing and saying to us “Man have I ever seen it all now.”

We gave him the fish as promised and laughed all the way home. I always did wonder if he took up golf…and what the hell happened to “Catch Fish Like Crazy?” Because it really did work!

Another fishing tale from the Squirrell’s Nest at Big Bear Outfitters – Nova Scotia from Brian “Bear” Squirrell your hunting and fishing guide for Nova Scotia, Canada. www.bigbearoutfitters.co