A day worth remembering

[HarveysMinnow]

Friday before Labor Day, 4:30 AM. The alarm goes off and I’m awake, and wondering what fool would actually plan to get up this early. . . only a fool who loves to fish I guess. My gear is all loaded in my vehicle, and after a quick breakfast, I’m ready to head out. There is a stillness in our neighborhood; even the early risers who have day jobs don’t get out this early.

The highway is largely devoid of traffic; only the occasional all night trucker prompts me to dim my high beams. The forty-mile drive to the lake where my friend and I will fish today is uneventful. He comes from a different direction and we are meeting at the boat ramp on the north side of the lake. He has a small boat with a 5-horse motor, which can convey us across the water slowly, but safely. When I arrive, the parking lot is empty; we will be the first people on the water today. He arrives minutes later and we make preparations to launch. The lake’s surface is like a mirror and it almost seems a shame to disturb this scene of tranquility. There is so much fresh air here, and the thought crosses my mind that most of this air has not been breathed before, at least not on this fine morning.

We putter along, heading for a major tributary off the main channel of the lake. It is now barely light enough to see clearly. The water is warm, about 81 degrees, and the cooler air is punctuated with wisps of fog. In this setting the trials and tribulations of life seem to melt away, like butter on a hot potato. We are both certain that the fish are there, just waiting for us to present something appetizing in front of their noses.

This lake was built mainly for flood control, so its normal pool is some 40 vertical feet below the maximum it could contain without breaching the dam. This means there are no houses right on the water. Property owners have an easement, down to where they can build a floating boat dock, but no permanent structure is allowed at or near normal pool level. This major arm of the lake where we are fishing is also bounded by a wildlife management area, which makes the whole area seem more pristine than many of the larger lakes built to generate power.

My friend’s trolling motor brings us within casting distance of a rock face that rises out of the water. The depth finder says the bottom is 48 feet below, so this is probably where the stream channel had been before impoundment. I start with a floating frog lure, after seeing fish rising here and there. Soon I’ve hooked a small bass…maybe a pound at most. But it’s a fish, and that’s always encouraging. My friend catches another one about that same size. By now it is full daylight and a slight breeze is stirring, eradicating the last traces of fog. We move farther upstream, casting crank baits near the overhanging vegetation along the steep bank. It occurs to me that it would take a majorly hearty (and stubborn) fisherman to hack out a place to bank fish in this area. I’m glad to have a friend with a boat.

Soon he hooks a larger bass, and when he fights it in, we see it is in the 2-1/2 to 3 lb range…not a hog by any standards, but fun to catch and definitely an indicator of why we came here. I hook, and then lose what felt like a good one, but the ones we lose always feel like good ones – one of the immutable laws of fishing I suppose. After a slight lull, we both catch bass that are around 2 lbs. By the time the sun’s first rays reach the water in this protected area, the action has dried up. All the sensible bass have headed for cooler and deeper water.

We break out our basket of crickets and fish with bobbers at a depth of roughly three feet. We catch several nice bluegill – easily hand-sized keepers, but we decide we neither feel like cleaning fish later today. Gradually this action also ceases, leaving us to ponder what to try next and where. We decide to go back to the deep hole by the cliff and try a little drop shotting. I’ve never had great success in drop-shot fishing, but today I hook and land a large catfish. At least to me it’s large, probably over 5lb, and the largest catfish I’ve caught in years. I guess down in that deep channel, it may have been still dark to him. We dehook him and ease him back into the water, where he appears a bit befuddled, but soon dives out of sight. The thought strikes me that being caught with a hook must be a truly strange and disorienting experience to the fish. Catching a fish this size also put me in the comfort zone, with the knowledge that my knots had held, even the double Uni knot I used to join the braided line to the flourocarbon leader.

We spent the remainder of the morning trying a variety of worms and other soft baits, all with absolutely no success. It made me glad we had sacrificed sleep and arrived early. I settle up with my buddy by buying his lunch and we depart in our respective directions. The drive home gave me the opportunity to reflect on all that our various senses had allowed us to experience that morning. I decided that, even though the fishing itself was marginal, it was still going to be a day worth remembering.

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