"The Lake Monster"

I was reluctant at best to embark on this excursion, but Tony was insistent. The Farmer's Almanac stated that today was a special day to pull fish. I was highly skeptical and unenthusiastic. Tony twisted my arm, so off we went on an hour drive North, to the Great Beyond.

Tony pulled out a hand auger, and thrust it mightily into the ice. He drilled three holes.

"Well, settle in jt-Money."
Tony baited the hooks, whilst I reflected on the philosophical nature of death. And death wore a grey hoodie that day.

Tony proceeded to yank 50 fish out of the water in the next three hours. Most of them he threw back. It was utterly incredible, like the Farmers knew something that we didn't. Fish after fish, as if the Lord Jesus himself were trolling the Sea of Galilee. Tony didn't teach me how to fish that day. In fact, most of the time I spent trying to figure out how to monetize my website - a task heretofore elusive. For my part, I pulled zero fish out of my hole in the ice; although at one point the Lake Monster grabbed my bait and took off. Tony threw me aside as my fishing rod leapt towards the circle in the lake. He grabbed the line bare-handed and wrestled the Monster, but it ripped the minnow and the hook off the line. Speculation had it that it was a sharp-toothed pike, the apex predator in the ecosystem. While Tony is away.

editor's note: Two months later, Tony's fishing career ended when he fell onto the edge of a 5-gallon bucket. The impact caused the damage, but the lung wasn't actually punctured until he smoked a cigarette after falling.