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It was in early April and I was at Lake Fork as usual. It was a sunny day
with a moderate breeze from the southeast. I had worked back into a very small creek that runs into the lake and had done
no good in there, so had turned around and had the TM on a fast speed, not fishing on the way out; instead intending to clear
the brushy area at the mouth of the creek, then crank up and move to another location.
As I reached the mouth of the
creek, out of the corner of my eye I saw a large fish roll just off to the right front of the boat. Since it was the middle
of spawning season, I decided to stop and check out that area a little closer. I motored over to a small tree in the water
and tied up rather than fight the wind that was blowing directly into the area.
In a few minutes, I saw the fish roll
again. Then I began watching more than fishing and shortly observed that there were two fish there. The larger one would come
up near the surface and the smaller one would come up from below and butt her, then they would roll and go down, only to reappear
a few seconds later a few feet away. As I continued to watch, I noticed that from time to time, both fish would stop the rolling,
butting behavior and move over to a shallow flat area nearby (within casting range) and stop in an area where three trees
had fallen in a manner that formed a triangle. The fish would enter the triangle area and remain relatively still for a while,
only to emerge and resume the butting/rolling behavior again. Obviously I had stumbled across a couple of bass in the spawning
ritual.
Now the kicker! Over my 30+ years of bass fishing, I’ve caught a lot of visible fish and am usually
pretty close with my estimates of their weight; if anything, when caught they tend to actually run slightly larger than my
"in-the-water" estimates. On this occasion, I estimated the smaller bass at approximately 7 pounds and the larger fish was
easily twice that size!
Notwithstanding any reluctance to bed fish; this opportunity was irresistible! I spent the
next 2 hours trying most every type and color of bait available to me, both when they were rolling and when they were positioned
in the log triangle. The result - NOTHING! In that 2 hours, neither of those fish ever showed the least bit of interest in
what I was offering.
Finally I gave up and left, going to a number of other places and winding up with a pretty productive
day. However on the way back to the ramp that evening, I decided to stop by that creek mouth once again to give those huge
fish another chance to make my day!
When I got to the mouth of the creek, it became obvious that I would not be able
to tie up to the same tree as before since the wind had switched direction and picked up a little. So, I got out my anchor
and dropped it straight down over the side in about 6 ft. of water, but close enough that I could easily see the log triangle
and cast to it. I made a cast with my spring favorite, a 6 in. black, blue-tailed lizard, past the log triangle, then inched
it back over the first log and into the opening. Just after the lizard dropped into the opening, the smaller fish rose up,
clearly visible just below the surface. I remember thinking - "This is the time!"
Alas, just at that time a big gust
of wind came through and rotated the motor end of the boat so that it came very close to the log triangle. The fish I saw
immediately spooked, and though I fished there for another 30 minutes or so, I never got another glimpse, nor any takers on
my lizard.
I feel very fortunate to have witnessed these two huge bass in the spawning ritual, but it also is a frustrating
memory from the standpoint of whether there was something more I could have done to entice what could have been the "bass
of a lifetime".
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