Tripple Ha - HA, HA, HA or Ha x 3 if you will.

Chapter 20 - Part 3

They set up again on a decent looking spot and went back at it. Considering the luck they’d had so far, they were just about to lose confidence after 10 minutes had passed with no takers when Billy said “There he is.” “Oh, he’s a good one too. William stopped what he was doing to watch. Billy was doing a superb job of handling the fish in and was enjoying the moment when the fish came up and William scrambled to the center seat to help if he could when he saw the size of it. “Don’t lose him Billy” was all he could manage to make come out of his mouth. Billy’s mouth had completely stopped working. The fish made one last lunge under the boat and both Billy and William held their breath but Billy almost instinctively held the rod as far away from the boat as possible so the fish wouldn’t get on the boat and at the same time put pressure on him to keep him out of the anchor line when all of the sudden the fish just gave up and Billy reached down an picked him up. “Man what a fish!” “That’s a Jim Dandy, Billy, A JIM DANDY.” Billy lifted and turned him. “I can’t believe I don’t have a ruler with me” “I’d say he’s 13 easy, maybe 14 inches and at least a pound and three quarters. Look how thick he is.” Billy was beaming. “Here, let’s lay him out on the seat and we’ll put a mark on the bench and that way you can measure it later.” They used a hook to scratch out a line to mark where the fish’s tail ended from the edge of the boat on the center seat. Billy made the mark very distinctive and a little larger and deeper than it needed to be, but Billy wanted to make dang sure he got a good measurement later. That scratch was still visible the very last time Billy ever fished out of The Shadow some 12 years later and as much as Billy fished that little pond, he never did catch one any longer. But he never forgot it either. Neither did William.

Before William had finished, he had pulled to within 2 fish, but he finally had to concede defeat with the final count being William 9 and Billy 11, but that was only because Billy let William count the 1 little Bass, which William appreciated. It had been a banner day and one William would often think about, but he’d stayed a little longer than he really should have and his shoulder, back and legs weren’t going to let him forget it the next day either. “Billy, I hate to say it, but I think I need to head on back” “Yes sir, I’ve got some chores I need to do before my Mom gets home anyway.” There he went being agreeable again.

Wannabe...

OK, so it was a long winded chapter....sue me. Had to chop it into 3 parts due to a character limit on a single post.