One windless evening the bass started biting just before sunset as I glided along the bayou in a pirogue with a ****** of the paddle here and there for direction.
I was casting a topwater up against the bank among the cypress trunks and stumps and overhanging limbs and shrubs and twitching and popping the bait until the fish struck.
To see and hear and feel the violent burst of each strike and to set the hook firmly in each jaw and each battle kept me out until the mosquitoes and the gator came.
At first a bumpy head at least a foot wide and three feet long with big shiny black eyes inched toward the pirogue and me as if we were just what he had in mind for dinner.
I dropped my rod and thought I’d better paddle fast and hard before Wally got too close but Wally sensed panic and to my horror I saw the swish of his tail fifteen feet back.
The gator accelerated smooth and quick and locked its gaze upon the very spot the paddle broke water to push me away as the jaws snapped shut and cracked it in half.
I slid away watching as the gator shook its monstrous head free of the broken splinter and I realized now he’d be coming again for me down the bayou with half a paddle.
The pirogue rocked on the wave Wally made during all the commotion and sure enough he came again stalking the little boat now stalled and adrift so I had to act fast.
I untied and lifted my stringer of bass gasping and wet like a shiny green fleece and hefted and hurled it aiming precisely at the slashing jaws of the reptile beast.
The gator struck at the fish with a splash of his big toothy head and chomped down on three huge bass and swallowed them whole in one gulp then snapped up three more that were still on the string.
So Wally was happy for now as the sun went down and I wondered how to get back to the dock half a mile away in the dark with Wally nearby and perhaps hungry yet.
Then I got an idea and picked up my rod and cast the old topwater past Wally’s head and chugged it back popping in front of his face where soon he attacked it and hooked himself good.
Wally went down with a **** and a swirl and made such a wave I grabbed the boat rail with one hand while holding onto the rod which bent almost double as the line stretched tight.
The pirogue took off like a rocket boat as Wally swam up the bayou to flee the pressure and drag and the alien hook underwater and then on top with me.
In no time I neared the dock in the dark and slackened the line until Wally shook free then glided right up to the dock and ******* and got out fishless but at least in one piece.