Freudian slip?

An old running joke (from my childhood) was that of the effectiveness of "The Purple Demon".

My good friend bought one..........ordered it out of a magazine. It was guaranteed to catch fish.

We were in the keys once........causing some sort of trouble along one of the bridges.

It was night time under a bright moon.....and we could see dozens of tarpon along the bridge pilings. We were not prepared for any real fishing, but we DID have some rods, reels, and tackle.

My buddy went and got the purple demon out and started pulling it past the pods of tarpon. One by one, they looked at the thing then swam off.

He sacred them all off.

That was about twenty years ago, but to this day "The Purple Demon" is a well known lure between us friends. It is an archetypal representation of the frustration of fishing.

"You do any good today????"

"No....nothing.........they were swimming all around but no bites"

"You try the Purple Demon???"

I love when buy an exciting lure that you think will work and it catches a fish in a few casts.

You end up losing it some how run out and buy 4 or 5 and can never catch anything on it again.

Several years ago I was fishing off my Great Uncle's dock into shallow water during late summer. In shallow water I was able to bring in four good-sized muskies with a Panther Martin spinner. That thing was bent all to hell after that day.

Last year I went fishing up at my bother's lodge WAY up north. Off the dock, maybe 6 - 10 feet of water in August, I must have brough in at least three fair-sized bass with a Rapala Floater (original). They'd strike from the weed edge. In fact, I lost one of them as I was trying to untangle a bass from the treble hooks, and I wasn't holding the fish tight enough. The fish tensed, I lost my grip, and the fish broke my line - taking my lure with it.

I've never gotten much action from either a Mepps or a Dardevel (sp:?) with the exception of Crappie.