Story Time: Something Painted

Four Hundredth Eleventh Post: Story Time: Something Painted (20090111)

Ok, so I’m going to tell a story that appears to have nothing in common with recent posts. But that is ok because it’s “story time”. Also this story does have some unmentioned significance.

A long, long time ago, back when I was in second or third grade me and my dad went fishing at a local dam. The weather was nice, but nothing but blue gal seemed to be bitting. Let me explain how my dad fixes his sinker. He places a huge 10 gram sinker a little less than 12 inches below the hook. It looks unconventional, however it is very effective.

Well you know how it goes: the little kid who doesn’t watch his pole gets all the bites. Well it took a while but I finally got a strong bite. I whipped the pole and started to reel it in. All of the sudden I saw a snake head poke out of the water about 25 feet out. I said, “snake, snake. Cut the line, I got a snake.” Or something to that effect, it has been a long time ago. My dad said to calm down and just reel it in. So that it what I did. And it was luck because it wasn’t a snake at all. It was a turtle.

We took it off the hook and but it in a bucket to hold it so we could show my mom when she came to pick us up. We continued to fish when all of the sudden 4 game commission officers just happened to stop by. They were using binoculars to look at the men on the other side of the lake. But pretty soon they wanted to know if we caught anything. That is when 1 of the game officers said, “Hey he’s got a turtle.” And it wasn’t just any turtle it was a state protected painted turtle.

That’s when we ask if I could take it home to so everyone. The head game officer said no, but another game officer pleaded to let me take it home. After about 15 minutes of argument they let me take the turtle home for a week.

Well I keep it a week showed everyone. But then we took it back a week later. A released it in the water and it just glided on top the water like a sailing ship until it just reached the other side of the lake and disappeared. It was quite impressive how fast it could swim.

So concludes the story of the painted turtle.