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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
This fishing outing was ‘worth the wait’
Wild Side column: After a rough start, it was a good day filled with bass and walleye
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For river rats like my friend Mike Jacobs and me, the 10th-wettest June, July and August in 153 years of record keeping made the past three months the summer of our discontent.
Although interior rivers seldom reached even minor flood stage, chronic high, swift and muddy water made fishing at best difficult, at worst dangerous and at all times unproductive.
When in mid-August the rains finally abated and the rivers began to clear and fall, we planned our first joint fishing trip of the summer for Aug. 30, the first day of the Labor Day weekend.
After a three-month fishing hiatus, we joked that we would have to relearn the art of catching smallmouth bass, the love of which brought us together more than 25 years ago.
When we finally launched kick boats on the Maquoketa River, the joke was on me. My chest waders almost instantly filled to the knees with water, their owner having forgotten which of his three identical pairs leaked the least.
My casting, usually a point of pride, was off, with my lures too frequently landing among the willows on the bank rather than in the target water a foot from shore.
My knots, tying lure to line, usually as secure as Alcatraz, twice gave way under the minimal strain of a 10-inch smallmouth bass.
At the outset I told Mike I would be happy with eight to 10 fish. Fortunately I did not have to consider whether I was lying to myself or managing expectations.
On my second cast I hooked a nice bass — maybe 15 inches — and I thought about taking a selfie with it since it could very well have ended up being the day’s biggest bass. But I didn’t want the guy fishing from the bank across the river from me to think it was my first time in the end zone. So I unhooked it and casually flipped it back into the river like it was just another nice fish, the kind I catch on every other cast.
As it turned out, it was just another of the many nice fish we caught on that day and on the same stretch of river two days later.
Between the two of us on the two outings, we caught more than 100 smallmouth bass, five nice walleyes and a smattering of crappie, bluegill, sunfish, rock bass and largemouth bass.
As rusty as I was, the fish, having gone virtually unmolested all summer, were even rustier.
In our absence they’d forgotten about us and any caution they develop through repeated exposure to anglers’ lures.
Many of them struck with forearm-jolting ferocity, and the smallmouth especially resisted capture with their trademark strength, agility and determination.
We did not have to wonder long if a hooked fish was good one. Most of them immediately leapt through the veil of mystery that water puts between us and them
Sparkling water, good company and credulous fish with pristine mouths — a combination well worth waiting for.
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