Hook, Line & Sinker: Fishing a Big One

Hook, Line and Sinker

one man’s fishing stories

WRITER Scott Lewis

Even a Squirrel Finds a Nut Every Now and Then!

Scott Lewis

This summer has been a hot one. So durn hot I have stayed inside as much as I could unless something needed to be done. My young friend Brady went fishing and he did very well this summer. I saw several pictures of him holding several over five pounds. So naturally, me being the fisherman I am, I couldn’t stand it. I loaded up and headed to the lake. My “early” mornings anymore are about 8a so I was up early and headed to the lake. Now Brady has been doing mostly fishing in late evenings and nighttime, so we are fishing a little different. But his success told me the fish were biting, and that’s all I needed to hear. Now I just needed to find them!

Night fishing and daylight fishing are so different. For night bass fishing you need good eyes! I don’t have good eyes like I did when I was 20 years old, so I fish daytime. Casting a lure at nighttime is sure to land in the bushes, and you know what that means… going in after it and snakes crawl at night. So, there you go, I ain’t going!

I got to the lake at 10a. It seems I was the last one there but what the heck. I was there to have a good time not to set a record. Water temperature was already 82*. That’s hot, so I head to an area I think I can find the coolest water and that would be upriver. I started out fishing a small worm and jig and after about 30 minutes, “pow,” there it was, a small spotted bass. How do you know a spotted bass from a largemouth? By its mouth with a small row of teeth on the tongue, where a largemouth doesn’t have. There is a color difference but that’s the easy way to determine the difference.

I moved on out in the main lake and fished for about two hours—nothing not even a bite. I decided I would head toward the dam/spillway—it’s deeper and cooler. I got there and the water is 84°. Gee whiz, the air is about 86°, man it is cooking! I drifted into this cove with deep water, lots of logs lying on the bottom and I am fishing around with a big worm and “bump,”there it is. I set the hook and reeled it in and it’s about a pound and half. Not big, but fun. Well, it’s getting on up in the day, and the heat is cooking me, I decided there weren’t any fish to be had so I headed home.

I had my rods laying in the bottom of the boat on-top of my fishing net. I am trying to get lures undone and clean up my mess and then splash, splash. I look behind me and the bass are driving the bait fish up in a small cut in the bank. I was standing on my net with eight rods and reels at me feet and I reached for my top water rig. I made the cast and this time I hit my target area. The lure lands just right, plop in the water, the water circles go out, nothing. I jerked it and let it set, nothing, and I did it again, nothing. Well, what the heck they have gone down or moved. So, I cast again same method, plop and jerk, let it set, then boom the water exploded, the fish came up, I saw her when she came out of the water and then she went deep. She stayed deep the entire time until I got her next to the boat. Then all I had to do was net her. But where is my net? It’s under my feet under eight rods and reels and there it was—a beautiful fish—her mouth was wide open, and the lure is about six inches long, there are three sets of treble hooks in its mouth and the lure was completely in its mouth sideways. So, what I had was a fish staring at me with a mouth full of hooks!

My guess was if the fish could have talked, she would be saying get this thing out of my mouth. It looked like a giant row of false teeth. I couldn’t get to the lure, and I couldn’t grab it or thumb it because it was all hooks. So, I had to dig around in a storage compartment while trying to hold on to this fish and find my pliers to hold the lure so I could remove the hooks until I got a good safe hold. When all this was done, I got her in the boat, finally. What a beauty! I weighed her, 5 pounds and 3 ounces. I weighed her again 5 pounds and 3 ounces, and then again. It just looked bigger than that, but they always do. So, I am going with 6 pounds and 3 ounces, nobody to know the difference What’s an honest fisherman to do? What would you do? I called a buddy of mine and told him the story and he said, “Even a squirrel finds a nut every now and then!”

This is a true story; I have several folks ask if I make these stories up. I tell you the same thing I tell my wife, I am too dumb to make these up. I promise, I ain’t lying this time. See you next time!