Sunday, July 15, 2007

Badgering

Saturday morning, early, Hubby went fishing with A Cousin. The cousin is hard to describe, but I"ll try. He loves God a lot. He's married almost 10 years, has 3 kids, and is a redneck, in certain ways (Cousin, if you're reading this, I hope that doesn't offend you! We love you even if you're a redneck). They were fishing in a little creek, I think, and while they got a lot of bites, and a couple small fish, they didn't have much luck with any keepers. Then one of them spotted a critter of some sort in the brush. It was a young badger!

Hubby: "Do ya have yer .22?" (of course; a live critter, let's shoot it!)
Cousin: "No." (lemme guess, a little one, so hardly any meat at all?)

Somehow Cousin hooked his Mepps 3 into the badger. I'm still not sure if this was intentional or accidental, but of course he started reeling it in.

Cousin: "Man, I'm so glad you're here to witness this! No one would believe I caught a badger!" (especially with a Mepps 3?)

I'm not sure how far the badger was 'reeled' but eventually the lure came out, and the badger was growling. Of course, being the reasonable civilized guy he is, he hooked him again. According to Wikipedia, "Aside from Polar Bears and Humans, Badgers are thought to be the only animals which attack without provocation." By all means, let's hook him again. Eventually the critter lodged himself in a crevice somewhere, in a great mood, I'm sure.

Another interesting tidbit from Wiki: The lower jaw is articulated to the upper, by means of a transverse condyle firmly locked into a long cavity of the cranium, so that dislocation of the jaw is all but impossible. This enables the badgers to maintain its hold with the utmost tenacity.

While Cousin might not be familiar with the Wikipedia information (I'm not sure what those details mean, even, but I get the idea), he at least had the good sense to cut his line (and his losses - $3 for the Mepps) as opposed to reaching into the crevice and retrieving his lure. And while I'm glad they all escaped unscathed (aside from the hip young badger with the new piercing), I can't help but lament the lost opportunity to educate ourselves about a badger's transverse condyle.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't been fishing in a long time. I want to go with the boys because they have expressed interest in it but we don't own any fishing stuff. Thanks also for those web sites. I am going to check them out. Today I am am going to try to go all day without a soda. Please pray for me.

EllaJac said...

When she was young, my mom caught a fish with a stick, string, and safety pin, using raisins glued together with Pepsodent toothpaste for bait. I think the catching it surprised her so much she and the fish both ended up in the water... And yes, I WILL be praying for you today. Blessings!