We’ve all been through it: the sweet stress of a first date wih a new person. We know that something will come of it, good, bad, or indifferent. It is much the same with the first time to fish a new water. I have been fortunate to have had this experience on three occasions this spring. Each of these first “dates” left me giddy with infatuation. I will relate details of two of them. There will be no disclosures of locations — not even the counties.
I had spotted the first lake during a squirrel hunt. The owner told me that it was fairly new and that so far it had yielded only bass of around 11 inches, so I went to it just to have fun and catch numerous small bass. Such outings are good practice at detecting strikes and doing hooksets. On quality sensitive tackle even small bass can transmit intense sensations during the fight.
Things went as expected. On a hazy April afternoon with a stiff wind and light spits of rain, I caught 46 bass. Three barely stretched to twelve inches. Most ran eleven and some smaller. I had enough strikes to have caught over sixty, but small bass often do not hook up firmly.
But there was an exception. The 13th bass I hooked was much different than all those that had struck before it. The medium power rod bowed deeply when the fish took the minnow swimbait. I whipped, photographed and released a 20-inch four pound largemouth.
I’ll never believe 13 is an unlucky number again.
This surprised the owner when I told him about it. His new lake had not grown that bass. It was not a super fingerling with monster genes that enabled it to outgrow its hatchery mates.
Fish and Wildlife authorities frown on unauthorized stockings, or moving sportfish from one water to another. But people are scofflaws about this and enforcement gets little public sympathy. It often occurs between mutually consenting landowners and the almost universal opinion among the angling populace is that such matters are none of the government’s business.
Biologists will no doubt cite negatives, but I thank the unknown person who caught that bass and put it in that lake for me to catch, and I’ve heard subtle allegations that it might not be the only big‘un in that water, which is going to be a great place to fish in a few years.
Since that day I’ve been back once and I caught more bass than I tried to count — all small. It was a fun practice outing of using a jig and grub, but I don’t plan to do it again soon.
The other honey hole is in a dammed-up holler in its own fenced-in space, fortunately with a gate access. I had to walk several hundred yards down to it. It is a challenging environment to fish because of uncontrolled weed growth and steep banks. The north bank is un-fishable but the south side and the dam are manageable, and the day I was there these areas of water had a nice wind chop. A cloudy sky also helped. Fish do not like bright light and a placid surface. These tend to hold them down deep.
I usually start with my go-to minnow swim bait, and the first cast near and parallel to the bank to my left got an instant strike from what felt like a good fish, but it was not a solid hookup. A second cast to the same area brought another hit and loss. On the third, a fish seized the minnow as soon as it splashed down, but after a short fight threw the lure! That first “date” was not going well! My every move was meeting rebuff and rejection!
I got no other strikes along that shoreline, but casts directed to other areas finally found a 15-inch fish that I landed. The problem of poor hookups and lost fish continued, but I landed and released eight bass in the 15-16 inch category before the last one destroyed the soft plastic lure. It came from the water with the hook assembly in its jaw and the body of the minnow strung down the line. I suspect the lure’s hooks were working loose all along and that this might have contributed to so many lost fish. As usual, I released all fish.
My tackle and spare minnow lures were 400 yards away uphill in the car. I had packed three bait casting setups down to the lake with me. One was rigged with a soft plastic shad swim bait, but I could get no hits on it. The other had a Bubbling Toad, a surface bait that looks as if is the child of a frog and Whopper Plopper mating. One 16-inch bass plastered the Toad and three small bass blew up on and missed it before I made the long walk to the car to get a drink and to re-rig.
I returned with a fresh minnow and with a white Power Grub on a jig having replaced the shad on the Platinum Signature setup, the most high end outfit I own. I also fetched a rig with a hard crankbait in bluegill color. I threw the first cast with this and caught a 16-incher. Then I began throwing the grub and the bass hammered it.
I was beginning to think that 15 and 16 inch fish were the upper tier when something big slammed the grub. This was a 19 that looked as if it had been trying to bankrupt an all-you-can-eat buffet cafeteria and also working out in the weight room. This fish had lost the upper fork of its tail fin.
Most of those bass fought on the surface and even put on aerobatics. They were extremely aggressive. One of the earlier minnow catches had missed the lure twice, got it on the third try, pulled free during the fight and then had taken it again to be caught. I’m sure that when I showed them the grub later I caught two of those first three I had lost. In all I landed 20 quality bass, the smallest being 14 inches. There were two 17’s, the 19 and the rest 15-16, with 16 being the modal length.
I had to handle these fish without a gripper because had left mine in a bucket, along with a folding ruler where I was fishing a couple of weeks ago, and a dishonest person took them before I could get back the next morning to retrieve them. Handling all these fish gave me a sore “bass thumb.” Why do people make themselves thieves even over small value? It is not just dishonest to take things this way; it is also criminal — a particular type of theft of “property lost or mislaid.”
Playing a bass on the Platinum Signature rod is almost an erotic sensation, the rod is so sensitive. Mine is a Medium Heavy power with fast action. I intend to acquire another of Medium power with which to fish the minnow lures.
On the 16th I went back for a second date. Weather was too bright and calm and weeds had made conditions much tougher. I could not cast along that first bank because of the scum that had gathered. I spooked several fish from shallows because of the high visibility. I caught one 15-inch on a grub and then began throwing Red Eyed Shad lipless cranks to open deeper water. I had several hits that did not hookup, caught another 15 that struck near shore and landed the most important bite of the day — another 19-inch with an intact tail fin but not the bulk of last week’s fish.
I want a long term relationship with this one!
