Something's Fishy in Biloxi

[irisheyez]

After two years of no luck, I was finally able to finagle two weeks of leave in a row. The first week was the mandatory drive up to New England in three days, spend one day with my wife's family and then drive three days back. I took one day just to relax from the relaxing vacation and then my real vacation was to start. That could only mean one thing: some heavy duty saltwater fishing on the Gulf. I was ready, and I mean ready to do some serious fishing here and nothing was going to stop me. Nothing that is but some storm named Isidore. I knew on Monday that I had at least a couple of days before I had to cry uncle and admit that there would be no fishing for me. I went out on the pier and stayed there like the biggest goober in the South for over 5 hours but only caught some water sprays and an award for stupidity. I did not give up though and the next day I was back out again only this time I brought a few rocks to put in my pocket to anchor me and also go along with the ones in my head. This time I actually got a few nibbles and a few stares from the Weather.com people. I went home deflated but not defeated. On Wed morning I gave it one more shot though and through crashing waves, driving rain and a wonder at my sanity, I made my way to my favorite pier. I stationed myself in my spot and nobody but nobody could convince me to leave, expect for the city police who sympathized with my plight but felt that he had to "move me on". I had not caught any fish on this much awaited vacation, although I did catch some steamy words from my wife for forgetting that her birthday was that day. I rode out the storm at home and on Thursday when the rain let up I decided to give my fishing one more try. As I started to walk to my pier, my spirits lifted and I thought "one day is better than none". That is until I got within sighting distance of my beloved pier. It had blown away from its mooring and was now in the middle of the Gulf. I thought about almost crying but noticed that a lot of people were around the pier so went over to investigate. Some volunteers were helping to go and get the pier back in. So with rod in hand I went over and gave a helping hand. After hours and hours of work we had our pier back. So I did not catch my fish that got away but instead caught the pier that decided to fly the coop. Oh well, there's always next year!
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