Kerry and the Catfish

My catfish wasn’t as big as this but the water looked as murky!

I have a huge crush on Jeremy Wade who stars in the Animal Planet series, “River Monsters”.  He is not my type but something about his soothing voice and his gentle treatment of his monsters just turns me on!  I have my own monster story.  A few years ago I was going through a difficult stage of my life, feeling mentally unhealthy and wanting to make big changes in my life.  Early one morning, around 7 am,  I went to my favorite little forest and trekked down to visit the lake.  It is full of fish, stocked naturally, and many local anglers fish there.  Sometimes their lures and casts get caught in the trees and on this occasion one of the lures had landed in the water.  I saw movement in the murky depths and realized that something was caught on the lure.  There are both water moccasins and alligators in the lake and I am frightened of deep water and a poor swimmer.  Nonetheless, I couldn’t bear the idea that some poor creature was stuck by a lazy, careless angler.  I started to wade into the water which shelved quickly and by the time I reached the lure, I was up to my hips in the sediment filled water.  I grabbed hold of the fishing line and I don’t know who was more astonished – me or the gorgeous, healthy big catfish on the end.  It was about the size of a furry cat and quite hard to handle.  Every time it struggled to get away from me, I was losing my balance.  Finally, I grabbed hold of it and managed to unhook the lure.  It jumped back into the lake, probably terrified by the kindly predator who had rescued it.  I was fascinated by it’s beautiful dark gray flesh and it’s funny little whiskers – it just glowed with health.  That little act of compassion turned my life about in that moment.  I suddenly knew that life was worth living, if only to rescue catfish, and my moment of bravery showed me that I was capable of anything.  I hope he or she went on to live a happy, fruitful life.  The next week, I waded in and retrieved as many discarded fishing lines and lures that I could find.