The One That Could Have Got Away

I arrived at the nearby reservoir with fog still hanging heavy on the water.  With June-like air temperatures, the water is already in the high 50s.  I'm never on the water this early in the year so I had low expectations.  This was supposed to be a scouting trip.  The park drains the reservoir every winter for spring run off (which we had none of this year).  So, with the water still four feet lower than summertime, my plan was to run most of the shore line taking pictures and mental notes of the structure I can't normally see when the water is raised back.  I paddled my kayak to the opposite shore and started throwing a white spinnerbait; taking pictures when a partially submerged log or a rocky ledge came into view.  With the size of the lure I hardly paddled as it was pulling me along a steady pace down the shoreline.  I even started to steer my kayak by retrieving my lure.

After two hundred or so casts, I thought of changing my lure choice, but I always have a good feeling using spinnerbaits.  I slowly began paying less attention to my fishing and my eyes and mind wandered.  I watched the bluegills smacking gnats off the glassy water, a spider skitter across the slippery surface of my kayak, the carp beginning their water thrashing mating rituals, the walkers and joggers going around the lake.  My mind sank deeper into unfocused thought, jumping from topic to topic with no provocation and no set destination.  I was elsewhere in my thoughts, but in reality, there was no where else I wanted to be.  Drifting through the calm morning waters with the sun beginning to warm me and the turtles already stretched out on the logs.  

My stream of consciousness started gaining speed.  Over the thought-worn rocks my ideas swirled and foamed, sprayed and tumbled. It pushed aside the small flotsam and rushed between, over, and under the larger obstacles on its way to harbors unknown.  Each runlet of conception added more strength to the torrent raging inside my brain.  Strong enough now where no force can stop it, eroding, moving, destroying anything in its pa-

My lure stopped.  My thoughts and ideas evaporated instantly, through my head, and back into the fog surrounding me.  My attention snapped back, but my mind still faltered.

                  It could have been a rock... a branch maybe... no this is moving... what do I do again?

                                Oh.  Right. 

                                        SET THE HOOK!

I leaned back and drove the hook home.  Somehow in my daydreaming, there was a fish fifty feet away who was daydreaming harder.  Thinking of the boys who will court her soon, the shad she stalks until one strays from the school, the diving birds stealing her lunch, or perhaps about those strange metal and plastic fish she sees occasionally who never swim just right.  Oh, hey, there's one now.  Yes, let's eat that.  And I'm glad she did. 

After a brief hand to fin battle I get her close and and I start shaking.  She fought well, but I didn't think she was this big.  I fumbled and swiped at her mouth causing her to dive deeper.  I got her back to the surface and make another pass that she nimbly shruged off.   I start thinking she is going to escape.  I reach my arm into the water, guide her in with the rod and lift.  Twenty three inches of scales and muscle and gills and slime.... a lot of slime.  It looks like she was swimming in pig spit.  Clumps of it clings to her body, her fins, her eyes.  Due to her poor health, I want to make this release even speedier.  Unfortunately, I'm as giddy as a schoolgirl when Justin Bieber asks them to the spring formal and apparently, my newly lost thoughts took my dexterity with them.  I manage to unhook my prize and take a slew of pictures of her letting her rest in the water often.  When I am done admiring, I open my hand, she turns under my kayak and vanishes back down through her suitors, the shad, the loons and those pesky fishing lures.

The One That Should Have Got Away

The house my girlfriend is renting in Louisiana had a Walmart Shakespeare rod in the garage with what was once 8 lb test line.  After sitting there for a few years in the blistering summer heat the line is probably closer to 2 lb test.  In October, I used this pole with a found buzz bait and ended up with a small largemouth out of the pond thirty feet behind her house.  I ended up breaking off a good amount of the weakened line just trying to tie a decent knot.  On my last cast, the buzz bait kept going across the pond and the line dangled from the spool. 

On my last day in Louisiana this week I opened the green pumpkin senkos I bought at Bass Pro.  My girlfriend tried to get me to use them earlier in the week but for some reason I didn't oblige.  My total fishing time using a senko is about 30 minutes but I had the basic premise of fishing them down.  Wacky rig, cast out and let it hit the bottom, wait a few seconds, lift the rod tip to a 90 degree angle and let the bait flutter back to the bottom and reel in the slack.  Rinse.  Repeat. 

I was about 6 casts in and I had a hit, I set the hook, felt a good head shake and then the line was slack.  I was okay with not landing the fish because I knew I was at least giving the fish something they were interested in.  I also went out not expecting to catch anything since the only hook I managed to scrounge up from the garage was a size 6 Aberdeen.  I kept working the same area and had a couple more short strikes before the fish began to commit to the worm.  I learned I really had to watch the line for any change indicating a fish.  I ended fishing for 45 minutes before the light faded and I had landed three decent largemouths.

One fish

Two fish

Small fish

After my third fish and attempting to keep my fishing partner out of the water I was ready to be done but Jackie told me to catch one more fish.  I not-so reluctantly agreed and recasted the line.  I just finished saying, "You make it sound like it's easy for me to catch another one," when I had a very noticeable hit.  The fish took the worm like it raced across the pond to eat it.  I set the hook and felt solid weight.  I knew I did not have the upper hand.  I was using line a bluegill could break and using a hook that the same bluegill could swallow.  I pointed the rod tip down to ease some of the tension and started fumbling with the faulty drag.  The fish changed directions and headed straight up.  It broke the surface with its mouth wide open, made three head shakes, exposed its whole body, and slammed back into the pond.  I had no words for that sight but I heard my girlfriend say, "Oh my God!"  I thought that was the last I would see of that bass but it miraculously stayed stuck on the hook.  After a few seconds and equally as many expletives I was thinking of how I would land this fish.  I knew I had to land it quick but was afraid it would bolt when it hit the shallow mud bottom.  I babied the fish fifty feet down the shoreline reeling in slack when I could and finally decided I would push my luck some more and bring it to hand.  I got the fish close to shore, knelt down and pulled the pole back with one hand while my other hand was in the water awaiting its mouth.  I lipped the fish and heaved it out of the water.  It didn't get away.  I frantically asked Jackie if she had a measuring tape and she ran in the house to grab it.  I snapped a picture, she came out, measured it, and told me it was 20 inches.  I didn't believe her and remeasured.  I was hoping it was at least 21 which would have tied my longest largemouth I have caught but she was right, a solid 20.  Jackie scoffed at me but still took a few pictures of me with the fish.  I  normally don't care about weighing fish, but I guess that's because I usually don't catch them this large.  If I guessed it was between 4 and 4 and a half pounds.

Big ass fish

I will end up using senkos more this season as a result.  Hopefully with similar results.