What Log?

Some years back a friend and I made a Saturday fishing trip to a small East Texas lake that was known at the time as a pretty good bass fishery.

To set the stage for this story, I have to tell you about my fishing partner that day. His name was Dave, and he was one of those individuals that you meet from time to time, that takes a highly competitive approach to most everything he does, no matter how insignificant the event might be. Casual fishing outings such as the one we were on were no exception.

Once you began to know Dave’s personality a bit, you could easily deduce from his demeanor how he was faring that day, without even asking. If things were going well for him (e.g., he was winning handily), he was all smiles and very outgoing. If he was rather quiet and subdued, he was not winning handily, nor was he losing badly. If he was doing a lot of mumbling, grumbling, swearing, and excuse-making, you could easily deduce that he was losing the perceived competition by a good margin.

On this particular trip, we had fished all morning, working many different shoreline areas by casting a small crank bait toward the shoreline and retrieving it back toward the boat which was positioned within good casting distance of the water’s edge. On this occasion, I was having an exceptional day, catching a lot of small to medium sized bass in almost every area we fished. In spite of using an identical crank bait, Dave’s results were minimal, so as a result, he was in the swearing, excuse-making funk I previously mentioned.

One event just before noon illustrates Dave’s mood. We were working along one bank when my cast overshot the target and the lure dropped behind a long springy branch of brush near the water’s edge. I began vigorously popping the rod tip, attempting to dislodge the lure. Shortly, that tactic was successful and the lure came flying out making a high arc whose path would clearly cause it to fall into the open water on the opposite side of the boat. As Dave sat in the back watching the path of the lure he said: You lucky /?&~?*#@, the way your luck has been this morning there will be a fish waiting on that lure! Sure enough - immediately upon hitting the water a small bass inhaled the bait.

After taking a lunch break at the little store, we headed back out and I pulled up on a point where a creek enters the lake, intending to fish the shoreline back up into the creek.

Unlike most of the other spots we had tried that day, this one produced no strikes for either of us even though we worked that bank thoroughly from the point almost to the boathouse and dock that were about half-way back in the creek.

After working that far with no hits, I decided to try a slightly different tactic, so instead of casting toward the bank, I decided to cast ahead of the boat and make a retrieve parallel to the shoreline rather than away from it.

The boathouse I mentioned was now in casting distance, so I made a long cast toward the unrippled area behind the boathouse, adjacent to the walkway. While the cast was on its way, I suddenly noticed a dark object that appeared to be the end of a log in the water just past the corner of the boathouse. Just as suddenly I realized that my lure was headed right for it!

I immediately jerked the rod upward, attempting to keep the lure from hitting the log, but too late! I watched the lure hit the log dead center. At this point, I turned to Dave, muttering a few words of my own about by casting ability.

I then turned back to the front and engaged the trolling motor, intending to go over to the corner of the boathouse and remove the lure from that log. As I reeled up the slack in the line, it suddenly became apparent that the direction of the line was not toward the corner of the boathouse, but heading toward the middle of the creek. Then I felt the strong pull of a fish and proceeded to get it turned and after a brief fight brought it along side the boat.

The fish was a healthy bass, about 3.5 lb., with both of the crank bait’s treble hooks embedded securely in the top of its head!