Buttholes

Today I feel the need to talk about buttholes.  Big, flaming buttholes.  Mom and I have upped our hikes, five and six a week now.  It's still tough but I can tell I'm getting stronger and faster.  And, now that it's cooling off, it doesn't suck quite so hard.  Well, about a month ago, we're clipping along and someone had thrown three cleaned catfish onto the hiking trail.  It was disgusting.  They were big catfish to start with and they made big dead gross catfish.  So I get a stick and poke them off into the brush.  I don't want to look at them. 

Two days ago, we're back on the trail and we came upon an elderly couple, 70's anyway.  The gentleman, who from now on will be referred to as Flaming Butthole, had caught two fish.  The little one was maybe a foot long, a decent sized catfish.  The other was the biggest catfish I'd ever seen.  I know they get a lot bigger, but it looked huge to me.  Flaming Butthole's wife waved at me and I waved back.  Mom said something about what a nice catch he had.  He smiles and walks towards a picnic table, presumably to clean his fish.  (Side note:: don't eat on a public picnic table)

Well, we're on our way back, passing the same area where we'd seen the Flaming Butthole, and he had thrown his fish right in the middle of my hiking trail.  Again.  They are huge fish.  I asked a coworker guy about it and he said that they had been filleted.  I have no idea.  It looked like he'd just skinned part of them and then tossed them. 

Why would he do that?  My coworker guy said most fishermen either clean their fish at home, or throw what's left over into the lake for the turtles to eat.  Or whatever.  So I think, well maybe he's doing the same thing, just throwing the fish to the raccoons.  I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.  If that's the case, toss that disgusting thing in the woods!  He knew there were hikers in the woods.  He had just seen us, literally ten minutes before. 

This is southern Illinois, so we don't have grizzlies or wolves, but we do have bobcats and cougars (according to legend, anyway).  I really don't want them drawn to my hiking trail because there is a source of food there.  Even if it's just a raccoon.  Don't care to fight a raccoon. 

I took a picture of the fish that Flaming Butthole threw onto my hiking trail.  It's down at the bottom.  If you don't want to look at it, "x" out now.  If you do, keep scrolling.  You have been warned.








**********************************************************************************