"I'm going to Muskrat
Lake this week-end", I told Bobber on the phone. "What in
the world do you want to go muskie fishing there for?" Bobber said
with surprise. I floored him even more when I said I wanted to go smallmouth
fishing. "Smallies? You mean bass? After your production last summer,
what makes you think you can suddenly catch bass? And in November?"
I was afraid that Bobber would
pull that dirty laundry out. Since the end of August I had been explaining
to everyone (anyone who could stop laughing that is) that this year
was a learning experience, and indeed it had been one hard lesson after
another. But things can't turn around unless ya keep going out there
- right?
So let's put on long johns,
sweatpants, track pants and snow pants on bottom, and on top let's put
the matching long john top, long sleeved t-shirt, light warm-up jacket,
old Ocean Pacific fuzzy sweater and heavy winter coat. Feet will have
snowmobile boots on them with thick socks underneath. Add favourite
head protection over the Fish-Hawk.Net hat and we should be OK to go
bass fishing in November, or be rolled down a leafy hill like an inner
tube - take your pick of Autumn fun.
We arrived shortly after sun-up
and headed straight for a landmark rock that is appropriately named
"S--- Rock" by anyone who knows that the rock exists. I apologize
now if my choice of words in this family-oriented venue is offending
anyone. But lets call a spade a spade here. Even my five-year-old daughter
will take one look at that rock and say "Daddy! That is soooo much
a lot of crap on that rock!" We caught nothing by jigging the depths
around that obvious piece of structure – and decided that catching nothing
around it was another good reason to call the rock what everyone else
calls it.
So we moved on down the lake
looking for spots where shallow water broke into super deep water. Nothing
much was going on until mid-morning when Slyfox decided that it was
time to break away from using baits that looked real nice. He took a
stand-up jig and attached, by the nose, something that looked like a
green, orange, and white jerk shad or super floozy. I grimaced when
I saw it – cmon man, at least snug the plastic to the head of the jig!
Next thing I know, I’m telling Slyfox to loosen his drag or lose whatever
kind of monster he has hooked into. It turns out to be a nice walleye
that we estimated at 6 or 7 lbs.
Bobber decided that it was
the ugliness of Slyfox’s bait that triggered the walleye’s violent assault.
He hastily began making preparations to throw out his own ugly offering.
He stuffed a ball jig inside a 6 inch, black tube, tossed it out and
began retrieving it as erratically as he could. A minute later I was
netting another decent walleye. I’m poisoned!
Thank goodness for Pepe. He
finally showed up around noon and we were pleased to report to him that
the morning’s fishing had gone well, although no bass had been caught.
He said “Follow me” and away we went down the lake, stopping at a long
stretch where the edge was dropping off almost vertically into the lake.
This was the spot.
I jumped in Pepe’s boat to
watch his technique and he moved his boat around the corner of a point,
out of view from Bobber and Slyfox. Pepe began to get hits - gentle
little taps that signal that a smallmouth bass had inhaled the bait
at 30 feet below. Anxious to make sure I wouldn’t be left out of the
action, I asked, “What ya jigging, Pepe?” He replied that he was jigging
a 3.5 inch tube on a light jig. I need more specifics…“What colour ya
jigging, Pepe?” I asked. “I don’t know” he replied. “I’m colour blind
– but I can tell ya that the catalogue number is a 229. I laughed. “Is
that anything like my LT4-5WHT?” and I showed Pepe a tube from a well-known
manufacturer. Pepe laughed back and said that it was nothing like it.
Un-phased by having the wrong
catalogue number on the end of my line, I dropped my “LT4-5WHT” back
to the bottom, felt a light tap, and cranked in my largest smallie this
year - a fish I guessed to be a little shy of 4 lbs. It was a good guess
as it turned out to be 3.94 lbs. Then Pepe hooked in too. As opposed
to the brown bass I was holding, Pepe’s was a golden colour with stripes.
“Look at the difference!” he exclaimed. We held them up to each other
for comparison and all I could think was that my bass's catalogue number
was a 654 and Pepe’s was a 487.
We put the bass in the well
so that later we could show Bobber and Slyfox what had transpired on
this side of the point. A minute later they floated into view, just
in time to see Pepe tossing another bass back into the lake. "What
ya using, Pepe?" Bobber called out. I cut Pepe off at the pass
- I didn't want him to sell off his secret weapon too quickly, so I
replied for him..."It's a 229 and that's all you need to know!"
I could hear Slyfox and Bobber muttering to each other across the water
"what did he say did he yell doo doo wine at us no it was blue
bleddy fine I dunno what the heck he said yell at him again WHAT
DID YOU SAY?"
That kind of fun with numbers
continued for a few minutes until I caved in and explained that I had
called out a catalogue number that represented the kind and colour of
tube that Pepe had been using. Next thing I know, Pepe was tossing a
few 241s and a few 212's to Bobber and Slyfox in the Fish-Hawk.Net Princecraft.
They moved down the lake a bit. Pepe continued to jig up nice smallmouth.
And I didn't. Then Slyfox and Bobber began to woop it up and there was
all sorts of action down their way with splashing and nets. But not
me.
I couldn't buy another hit
that day. Bobber caught nearly a dozen and Slyfox probably caught almost
as many. Pepe was catching them so fast I lost track after 1/2 an hour.
And I caught only one!
I am beginning
to believe that catching fish is not the most important part of getting
out fishing. Who'd a thunk it? This fall I have gone fishing with lots
of people that I know only through the Hawk Talk Message Board - Pepe
being one of them. And while I wasn't catching fish and Pepe was, it
sure was fantastic being out there and chalking my day's fishing up
to another great learning experience and making another new buddy. That's
pretty darn important too, ya know.
