Smoked Out

As long as I’m decrying the use of certain words that dominate the fishing vernacular (see yesterday’s blog about “Choked”), there are probably a few more that need to get replaced.

The first is “Smoked.”

As in, “that 8-pounder absolutely smoked my spinnerbait.”

That will be a tough for me because I use it all the time (or at least as often as I catch a fish). Not sure when I started or where I got it, but it’ll be difficult to shed. Maybe I need to consciously come up with a replacement. The problem is that the likely candidates (e.g., “hammered” – as in “that brown fish hammered my Whopper Plopper”) are just as ingrained.

“Crushed” just doesn’t have the same power.

Can anyone suggest an alternative?