Rip Tide (A Ripple Effect Cozy Mystery, Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

another fifty to sixty feet through the air.
    Poor little critter. And I'd thought I was having a bad day . Crap! Now I have to start this whole ordeal over again . I baited the hook and tried again. The mullet landed on the sandy shore behind me. After many disastrous attempts, and spending at least an hour untangling the rat's nest of fishing line that resulted from an errant cast, I managed to land a mullet within a foot or two of the pothole. It was close enough that I wasn't going to mess with it again unless I had a bite.
    The next hour-and-a-half seemed to last a full week. My back was already beginning to ache from the awkward position I'd assumed in order to maintain my balance in the undulating water as I waited impatiently for a tug on my line. I set the hook on more than one imaginary fish, not exactly sure how it'd feel if I got a bite. When each of those imaginary fish failed to take off in a frantic attempt to shake the hook, I let my bait lie where it had landed after my spastic yank.
    Finally, I decided it was time to check my bait, only to find the mullet was long gone. It occurred to me then I might have spent the last four hours fishing with no bait. Apparently one of those earlier bites had not been just a figment after all.
    After another taxing effort to bait and cast my line, it hit the water at least a city block from the closest pothole. Although no one could hear me, even the brown pelicans a hundred yards away pounding the top of the water for fish to consume, I shouted out a long string of profanities. I cussed the "fish gods" for the suffering I was enduring. I was beginning to understand the old saying, "swear like a sailor."
    Later, I nearly fell into a coma from standing in the same place for yet another two hours with my boots buried six inches in the muck beneath me. I wondered exactly how much time it usually took for fishing to "get in one's blood," as Milo had assured me it would. The way I felt just then, I didn't think I'd live long enough for that to happen.
    I hoped Rip was having better luck and a better time than me, which wouldn't take a heck of a lot. The bar had been set extremely low on my end of this fishing experience. I finally decided my back couldn't take much more abuse. I told myself if I didn't get a bite in the next ten minutes, I'd head back to the boat, which now looked like a speck on the horizon from where I stood. Any energy I'd started out with was long gone. I feared returning to the boat would require more oomph than I could scrounge up. I almost prayed for a dorsal fin to emerge behind me when I headed back, giving me the adrenalin rush I'd need to reach the boat.
    After checking my bait, only to find it gone again, I mindlessly cast out and finally landed a lively mullet just inside the edge of a large pothole. I began cheering out loud, as if I'd won the lottery, which was virtually impossible because I was too cheap to buy a ticket.
    To while away the allotted ten minutes before giving up, I mentally made a list of groceries I needed to pick up at H.E.B. and debated about what to cook for supper. Fresh redfish was most likely no longer an option. I had glanced toward where Milo and Rip were fishing on occasion and hadn't seen any sign of yanking going on.
    I then pondered how much longer my hair and nails had gotten since I'd flopped myself out of the boat what seemed like a month and a half earlier. Suddenly, I was jerked from my reverie by a solid tug on my line that nearly pulled the rod out of my hands. I'd been instructed by Rip to resist yanking so hard and fast that I'd reel in nothing but a pair of fish lips. But he'd also said there was a fine line between yanking too early and waiting so long I'd give the fish a chance to swallow the hook. He'd said, "Milo told me they're tough to get out when they swallow it. And if you're unlucky enough to catch a hardhead, don't let it prick you with its dorsal fin, or it'll burn like crazy for a good twenty