Sometimes playing to a tie score in sports is called "kissing your sister." You get to kiss, but, um, it's just your sister. So it doesn't really count.
That's how I feel about catching a jack. What we call a jack, some people call a pickerel or grass pike or mud pike or chainsides. No matter what you call it, though, it's ugly. I mean U-G-L-Y. Prehistoric looking, if you ask me. He's got a long nose, an upturned mouth, hundreds of tiny teeth, the dorsal fin is set way back, and he's long and skinny. And VERY aggressive.
The place where I fish regularly is plum full of jacks. They'll hit almost any lure I throw out there: spinnerbaits, crankbaits, worms, topwater. I've even caught a couple on frogs.
Standard procedure for me when I catch a bass is to size him up, take a photo if he's worthy and release him back to fight another day. Not jacks. There are so many in this little lake where I fish that they've become a nuisance. So when we catch them, we either slit their throats right then and there (if they're injured badly enough, which they invariably are after we have to retrieve our hooks from deep inside their throats) or we keep them in the cooler until we get back to the house. As big a nuisance as they are, though, they do fight pretty good. And on a slow day when the bass don't seem very interested, they feel good on the other end of the rod. You get to catch a fighting fish, but it's just a jack.
Which is why it's like kissing your sister. But with a few more teeth.
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