going about and a minding my own business. My sister, @snook, was getting some serious down time and just enjoying the cool breeze from the water. Just cool enough to keep beads of sweat from forming beneath the heated shade of the big oak tree acting as our sunscreen. As for me, well, my main focus was landing a river monster. We'd both talked to our brother, @jackmiller, the day before, and he was supposed to meet us out here, but, he had yet to arrive. Which, saved all the good 'first-line-in-the-water' fishing for jolly ol' me!

I'd heard stories about this stretch of river. Most people called it Lake Deeperthanthat because it was somewhat of a body of water itself, though it still held a strong current from the flow in the undertow. I mainly brought Snookie along in case I did land a beastie and needed help. Same principle as never go hunting alone. A few 10 lb. Largemouth Bass, sure I can handle that. But what this river was fabled to have, I may not have been able to tell the story on my own, hell maybe even get pulled in and eaten!

This part of the river is insanely deep - up to 300 feet easy, and as everyone knows, all water leads to the ocean. So when I had heard some rumors of there being sharks this far inland, I did not doubt it, and had to see for myself. The Bull Shark often breeches the salt to brackish to freshwater thresholds and I knew, that's what it had to be. I rigged up a 10 foot St. Croix with a Shimano spin cast and 100 lb. test Spiderwire. Took some 49 Strand American and did me up a woopass shark leader to attach to the end of the line. All I needed now was some bait.

I noodled me up a few small catfish from some mud holes in the side of the bank. Cut em open and let the blood chum the water a bit before slicing off some chunks to chuck out in the middle. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could of sworn I'd seen what looked like a fin surface about 200 yards downstream. Which was good. It was coming this way.

But so was something else. The birds flew up about a half mile down the path and scattered about the river in various directions. You could hear the frogs getting quieter as it drummed its way closer. Honestly, I didn't care much, I figure @snook would take care of it if it was anything menacing. I gave her my tac .45 while I did my thing, especially you know, if a shark did try to eat me, she could pop it and say she helped me catch it. HA! So I did my best to ignore the ruckus down the way and lowered my gaze to the water's surface - waiting - watching - and finally casting to break its silence.

I didn't even have a chance to close my bail and I hear some loud giggling to alert me in just enough time to dodge @chris-the-batman's failed attempt to splash me. "You guys do realize - " but before I could get it out, @dreemsteem followed and got me soaked! @snook hid my weapon in a stealthy attempt making it look like she was worried about her hair that got doused. I was trying not to be mad and explain what I was doing, but they were having too much fun, so I slid my stiff rod between some mounds in the grass and jumped in the river with them and started splashing and playing and, and, and -

I had almost forgotten why I was there! I didn't want either of them to panic so I tried to explain to them why we were there, but all they could do was laugh and giggle. It was fun, no lie, it had been awhile since I even went swimming, let alone actually played. But really though, I mean, this could get serious real quick. Shit, the water is all chummed and here we're splashing around making all kinds of noise! And my fear surfaced. Just there, about 50 yards away I see a fin - gently cutting the water's scalp - heading straight towards us.