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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
A second chance at bass
Wild Side column: A day after losing a big bass on the Wapsi, the author redeems himself
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Redemption is sweet, all the more so — in my case, at least — because it’s so hard to come by.
I had plenty to atone for after I lost a big smallmouth bass Tuesday through my own negligence.
With the river still too high and swift for wading, my fishing (if you can call it that) has been confined to brief visits to several spots accessible from the riverbank.
Such spots are characterized by obstructions that deflect the flow, creating eddies and current seams in which fish can comfortably ambush their prey and in which anglers can effectively present their lures.
Unlike actual fishing, which entails a search to discover both the location of the fish and a lure presentation that will deceive them into striking, the technique I call riverbank dabbling omits the search. You just have to fish where you can.
The exercise consists of spending a few minutes checking a few spots several times a day. The fish are either there or they're not; they either bite or they don't.
Tuesday was an especially good day for dabbling. Spots that would typically be exhausted with a few casts yielded fish after fish. I couldn’t make them stop biting. I was late for supper and late for my American Legion meeting.
It would have been a perfect day but for the big one that got away.
I was standing on a high mud bank at least 5 feet above the river when she slurped a little buzz bait gurgling along the shore. She thrashed and splashed while I tried to figure out how to get down to her level and land her. I got several good looks at her as she lay, seemingly spent, seemingly awaiting her release.
As I picked my way down the bank, however, I carelessly allowed some slack in my line. After I had already internalized the experience as the perfect end to a memorable day, she splashed back into the river, leapt and threw the hook.
Needless to say, my crest fell. Periodically through the rest of the day and the night, the image of her lying next to the bank haunted my mind’s eye, evoking involuntary epithets, which eventually faded into groans.
The following morning, with considerably less than great expectations, I returned to the scene of my embarrassment and threw the same lure into the same spot with the same result. This time I muddied the seat of my pants sliding down the same steep bank, seized her jaw (which now had two hook holes in it), took her picture and left with the weight of the world off my shoulders.
Widely admired for their beauty and fierce resistance to capture, smallmouth bass, going forward (in my estimation, at least) will not be esteemed for the length of their memory.
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