Ghost Pirates….

  • Jake
    Muddy Corn Field
    Posts: 2493
    #1219482

    That’s the only explination we could come up with for last nights occurances

    4 1/2 hours of fishing…….6 confirmed catfish runs…..2 other possible catfish bites……ZERO hook ups……Yep, had to be ghost pirates

    BUT WAIT……right around midnight, our luck changes……as we set up in the HONEY HOLE, the ghost pirates are busy playing with my buddies rod (keep your head out of the gutter BrianK )…….when I get a bone chilling hit……..tighten the drag…..rear down….and SLAM the hook home .

    another honey hole giant makes it to the boat

    Yeah…..he was that heavy

    We are able to avoid the ghost pirates curse and kick the skunk out the boat!!!

    P.S. Just to avoid any confusion, “ghost pirates” are regular ghost’s that for some reason have made the decsion to become pirates in their after-life……as apposed to “pirate ghosts” which would have at one time been actual pirates, but now have passed but continue to plunder even through their graves

    kwkfsh
    Posts: 116
    #380269

    Sounds like psychic alien boondoggle to me!

    bret_clark
    Sparta, WI
    Posts: 9362
    #380280

    I’m having a not so good day at work………..thanks Jake I needed that

    Brian Klawitter
    Keymaster
    Minnesota/Wisconsin Mississippi River
    Posts: 59992
    #380379

    Having it mounted?

    Jake….Lake Zumbro Guide and Ghost Buster…

    Gianni
    Cedar Rapids, IA
    Posts: 2063
    #380431

    So, What if you decide to become a pirate/ghost/pirate while still alive, but know that death is both inevitable and imminent, as was the case with VanderDecken?

    Brian Klawitter
    Keymaster
    Minnesota/Wisconsin Mississippi River
    Posts: 59992
    #380489

    History 101…in the catfish forum!

    Four hundred and fifty years ago, there lived a man named Hendrick Vanderdecken, a captain, a sailor, a man devoted to the sea. Captain Vanderdecken lived in Amsterdam, in Holland, and for as many years as he could remember, he had loved to be at sea. He knew that was where he belonged, heart and soul, and he could not imagine his life anywhere else.

    One day Vanderdecken and his crew set off in their ship, the Flying Dutchman. They were heading toward Batavia, a Dutch port in East India, and their course was set. The journey would take many months, or so they thought. They had no idea that this was a journey that would never end.

    After some time the ship reached the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of southern Africa, and there, just as they were rounding the cape, a fierce and unrelenting storm met the Flying Dutchman.

    The waves rose higher than the deck itself, and the wind blew so mightily, the sails were ripped to shreds. The crew, feeling the booms ripped from their hands, watching the wind pound at the masts, cried to their captain, “We must turn back!”

    Many of the sailors were down on their knees, praying that something might save them. “It’s a warning that we shouldn’t travel in this direction,” some of the sailors wailed, and this they believed. Others cursed and swore and talked of mutiny, for their captain had a gleam in his eye now, and they thought he might have gone mad.

    “Sail on,” Vanderdecken commanded.

    “This is a warning to turn around,” the sailors cried out, but Vanderdecken believed he could weather any storm. He believed that he, more than any other man, knew how to work the sea, how to steer his ship always forward. And so he shouted, “Keep sailing!” over the gales. “We will never give up!”

    When lightning struck the deck, and raging currents ripped the keel from beneath the ship’s hull, many of the sailors screamed in terror and pleaded with their captain to save them, but Vanderdecken was, by this time, listening only to his own heart. “We won’t give up, we’ll sail for eternity,” he cried. “We shall sail until doomsday!”

    People say the ship vanished from sight just moments after Captain Vanderdecken uttered these words.

    No one ever saw the sailors again, and no one ever saw Captain Vanderdecken. That is, no one ever saw them on land. But some say the captain did receive his punishment for his bravado. People say that he will never rest, and it is also said that those who see the Flying Dutchman — and people do — soon meet their own doom.

    So goes the legend of the Flying Dutchman.

    “A ghost ship?” others laugh. “No such thing.” But many have seen it. Nearly two hundred years after its disappearance, a British ship was rounding the cape when suddenly the Flying Dutchman approached, shrouded by a terrible storm.

    The crew stood on deck and stared in astonishment at the sight of this phantom sailing ship, with its black masts and blood-red sails. “It’s true,” they cried. “The ghost ship exists!”

    Sailors attempted to reverse the course, for they passed so close, it seemed the two ships might collide. But just as the Flying Dutchman reached the bow of the British ship, it vanished, as if lost in the mist.

    A few years later, two more British sailors saw the phantom ship as they sailed around the cape. “Look out! Look out!” they cried to their fellow crew members, but when the others rushed to deck to catch a glimpse, the Flying Dutchman vanished, and that night the men teased their fellow sailors about ghost ships and tall tales and wild dreams.

    The very next day one of the men who had seen the ghost ship was climbing the rigging when suddenly he lost his grip and fell to his death.

    “You see,” said his friends, “the ghost ship takes another victim.”

    Others, too, have seen the ship. One day, late in the 19th century, dozens of bathers sat upon the beach near the cape when suddenly the ship passed by. They stood and watched, noting the look of the ship, chattering about how odd this 17th-century ship looked. And later they offered precise descriptions of the Flying Dutchman, though none had ever seen even a photograph of such a ship.

    “But then it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared,” the bathers said, and the legend of the Flying Dutchman stayed alive.

    Keepers of the lighthouse at the tip of the cape say they too have seen the ship, usually at the height of a storm. Many who have seen the ship have later lost their lives at sea.

    “The curse of the Flying Dutchman,” people say, and legend or no, sailors say they have heard the cries of the ghost captain and caught a glimpse of something sailing past. Fiction or truth or something in between? No one knows for certain.

    Willeye
    La Crosse, WI
    Posts: 683
    #380616

    That was interesting. Brian Jacques wrote a novel loosely based on that legend (Castaways of the Flying Dutchman). I thought he just made VanderDecken up, but it sounds like the legend was the inspiration for his book.

    I’m too afraid to fish at night. I’m not afraid of encountering ghosts or pirate ghosts or ghost pirates. I am afraid of encountering you cat fishermen. You guys are nuts (but the good kind of nuts).

    Thanks for the laugh Jake.

    CR

    Brian Klawitter
    Keymaster
    Minnesota/Wisconsin Mississippi River
    Posts: 59992
    #380629

    Quote:


    You guys are nuts


    No truer words have ever been spoken!

    ….and we like it that way!

    drewsdad
    Crosby, MN
    Posts: 3138
    #380755

    Brian, should we start wearing “puffy” shirts and eye-patches when we are out cattin’? I know that some of us have a little of the captain in us when we are fishing. But that, I thought, was as close to a piratey thing as people around here get….. Or maybe not?

    LandLubber

    Brian Klawitter
    Keymaster
    Minnesota/Wisconsin Mississippi River
    Posts: 59992
    #380779

    Quote:


    I know that some of us have a little of the captain in us when we are fishing


    Were you refering to Captian/coke?

    Gianni
    Cedar Rapids, IA
    Posts: 2063
    #380784

    There’s a little Captain in all of us! In my case, yes, it is captain morgan.

    I have yet to go catfishing this year, but when I do get out, I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be with an eye patch, a funny hat, and a rubber parrot on my shoulder. Might have to fly the Jack Rackham from my stern light.

    Now, if something tragic were to happen, I’d have been pretending to be a pirate, so if I were to become a ghost – and I’m not sure what the process is – I think that would make me a pretend-pirate-ghost, whereas if someone just made me up in a story, I’d be a pirate-pretend-ghost.

    re: your signature space – Working on it Briank. I forgot my cam, so I’m waiting for Mom to mail me some pictures.

    Whiskerkev
    Madison
    Posts: 3835
    #380802

    I don’t know much about Pirates. I do know I wish I had a 6 pounder mounted on my prow on occaision. Think how much more polite other boaters would be if we could put one across the lubbers bow.

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