Guest Blogger: Michael Vorhis, author of ARCHANGEL suspense thriller, OPEN DISTANCE adventure thriller & more to come

I was about fourteen, and after corn-on-the-cob and chicken and tossing baseball in the sun, I had become bored of the heat or perhaps the relative inaction of the family picnic. I wandered down to the midwest lake’s edge, where a short rickety pier no more than 6 or 7 feet long jutted out from shore in water that went from 2 inches to 18 inches in warm cloudy depth. I pulled a little spooled hand line from my pocket (a kid always carries one), tied on what amounted to a fuzzy little wet fly to which I had attached a tiny spinning metal blade at the hook-eye end, and began to drag it mindlessly along one side of the pier. As I watched a duck swimming far out in the lake’s middle, my flashy wet fly snagged on something, which turned out to be the mouth of a huge 6-pound carp, the largest fish I had ever landed up to that point.

Another time: I was about sixteen years old and my Dad had driven us up to Ohio’s Rocky Fork Lake one late November afternoon. It was nippy, and we got there with really not enough time to do much of anything, but as a very rare treat the family had planned to make it an overnight. November is late for fishing in those parts, but kids will be kids, and instead of helping with stuff I put reel to rod and tied one of those “L&S Mirro-Lures” to the line. There was a marina there, and a low cement wall along the top of which I could walk–the water was probably 20 inches deep at the wall. I dropped the lure into the drink at my feet and attempted to get away from my siblings, who were following me asking what the heck I was doing…so I walked away from them. They followed. I walked faster. The lure dragged along in the water. Suddenly there was a lurch, and I landed a very nice 2-pound bass, by far the largest game fish I had ever caught up to then. more…